I have a leadership role at a company and am under contract to stay in the job until January 2024. Coaching and advising executives is part of my job right now. I love SCS and once I am out of my current contract, I would like to work full-time on my own as a life coach.

My question is around when to become certified as a life coach: Do I begin now or wait until I am closer to the January 2024 date? Because I work full time (and my contract has strict requirements about my activities), starting a side hustle and coaching on my own is not an option for me in this job.

My long term goal is to use life coaching in my next entrepreneurial venture. But I do have the reality of being in my job for the next couple of years. Here is a conversation happening in my brain right now:

“Get certified now. Why wait? You can use and apply what you learn to your current business and you’ll be in that much better a position to start your own venture in January 2024.”

On the other hand:

“Wait to get certified until you are closer to the January 2024 date. Then, you’ll be able to really hit the ground running and have the benefit of having the information be current, so that you can apply it to becoming an entrepreneur. If you get certified now, you’ll wind up spending money on a program and not really doing much with it.”

A couple of unintentional models:

C – under contract in my job until 2024
T – if I get certified now, it will just be a waste of money, since I can’t do much with the info until I leave my job
F – disappointed
A – don’t get certified, but continue to participate in scholars and learn
R – not certified

another model
C – under contract, but would like to get certified
T – if I get certified now, I’m just consuming content and doing nothing with it
F – frustrated
A – stay in scholars, don’t become certified
R – delay doing something I would like to do

I have heard Brooke (and others) talk about overly consuming content, taking lots of classes, and not really doing much with the content. This is a concern for me….so I worry that if I do get certified now, and my goal is to start my own venture in 2024, will I just wind up not doing much with what I’ve learned between now and 2024? I don’t see a path for applying the information on becoming an entrepreneur, for instance, and my assumption (perhaps incorrect) is that if I want to come back to this information once certified – I may or may be allowed to, per the certification rules, etc? In other words – I get certified now, but two years down the road, I want to ‘relearn’ the entrepreneurial info. Can I do this?

Obviously, I want to get certified. I am afraid of going through the process now and looking back and telling myself, “that was great, but you should have waited until you got closer to the time your contract was ending.”

And one more thing: I want to make the next two years the best ever. My role is quite demanding and we have very aggressive targets we have to hit by 2024. So, to me, the certification process would be fun and something to look forward to while I’m in my current job.

If any of this made sense 🙂 would love insights and coaching. Thank you!