As a life coach, you will work intimately with your clients to discover what is holding them back in their lives and help them move forward despite those things. Because of this, you will form deep bonds with your clients, and your clients will trust you with some of their most intimate thoughts.

Despite this, it is important for you to have boundaries. Without boundaries, you can easily find the line between coach and client blurred. Let’s talk about how to set proper boundaries as a life coach.

How to Set Boundaries as a Life Coach

In ideal circumstances, boundaries would always be respected, so you would have no need to enforce them, but in reality, there may be a time when you will have to enforce your boundaries.

However, before you can enforce your life coaching boundaries, you must set them. The boundaries you set are largely up to you and what you would prefer. Some common boundaries include having clearly articulated policies, confidentiality, practicing nonjudgment for your clients, and sustainable business practices.

These boundaries can look like only answering text messages and calls during business hours, limiting the number of text messages and calls your clients can send you outside of appointments, having a payment, refund, and no-show policy, and agreeing to be neutral and nonjudgmental no matter what your client tells you.

Boundaries may feel awkward to set, but they can actually improve your working relationship with your clients and improve your mental health. It is important to take care of yourself as well as your clients. Besides setting boundaries, another way to take care of yourself and your practice is to continue learning as much as you can about the life coaching industry. Coach Training Alliance has dozens of continuing education courses that can help you further hone all of your life coaching skills.