Most advice about starting a coaching practice assumes you’ve already decided to start one.
But that’s not where most people are. Most people are somewhere earlier — and that earlier place deserves more honest attention than it usually gets.
You might be employed, doing well enough, and harbouring the idea of having your own coaching practice one day. You might be between roles and wondering whether this is the time to try something different. You might be exploring — reading, talking to coaches — but nowhere near ready to start anything.
These positions can feel like limbo — too early to act, too late to ignore. And when you look at people who’ve already built a practice, the distance between where they are and where you stand can seem impossibly wide.
But that distance is misleading. Between thinking about coaching and actually building a practice, there’s a long stretch of middle ground — and it turns out that’s where most of the important work happens.
There’s help available at both ends — encouragement to start your own practice, and tactical guidance once you’re already running one. But between those two points, most people are left to figure things out on their own. That’s the stretch worth paying attention to.
People shift among 5 different positions depending on their finances, confidence, life circumstances, and the development of their offer. But recognising where you stand today changes what kind of thinking is actually useful.
You’re employed. Having your own coaching practice is a thought you return to — during dull meetings, on long drives. You admire people who’ve done it. But it lives in the “one day” drawer. The risk isn’t inaction. The risk is that the idea stays untested — shaped by inspiration rather than information. What’s useful here isn’t a business plan. Talk to people who run their own practices and have an idea of what it really takes to start one.
Your circumstances have changed — a role ending, a life transition, a growing restlessness. You’re not planning to start a practice, but you’re no longer dismissing the idea either. The pull is either to shelve it (“it’s not the right time”) or to jump straight into action (“I should start my business now”). What is most important is to gather ground information and not make any decision yet.
You’re doing some real things — maybe working with a mentor and doing pro bono work. But you’re not ready to commit. The risk is pushing toward a decision before you have enough experience to make one. What’s useful here is not “Am I ready?” but “What am I learning about the kind of practice I actually want to build?”
You’re no longer employed — by choice or by circumstance — and building a coaching practice is one of the paths in front of you. But you haven’t started yet. The pull is toward grand strategy — the perfect plan before any real work. What’s useful here is the opposite. Just get started.
You’ve done enough work to see that something is forming – Your Voice. You’ve started saying no to things that don’t fit — not because you can afford to, but because saying yes to everything was costing you clarity. It’s no longer “Can I do this?” It’s: “What do I want this practice to become — and what do I need to say yes to, and no to, for that to happen?”
You stop asking only, “How do I get clients?” You start asking, “What do I want this practice to become?”
This does not happen automatically. It requires intentional sitting to discover what that voice is. That’s the motivation behind ” Turn Your One Day Into Day 1 “.
We kept meeting coach practitioners who were stuck — not because they lacked coaching ability, but because nobody had helped them think clearly about their positioning.
If any of this describes where you are, you might find it worth exploring.
It’s usually a smaller step than you think.
One way to start is to take the Entrepreneurial Readiness & Motive Assessment.
Most people thinking about starting a practice focus on the business idea. Very few take time to assess their own readiness — their mindset, practical foundation, and the quality of their reasons for wanting to start. The assessment will give you an idea of your psychological, practical, motivational, and directional readiness — so you can see clearly where you’re strong and where you need to develop.
Free. Three minutes. Results instantly.
