But hey, each to their own, so what's my problem with the whole 'six-figures' thing? Well, my problem is that somehow, the field of coaching has become associated with the term 'six-figures'. I am bombarded daily on LinkedIn by people who want to connect and help be build a 'six-figure coaching business'. Are they contacting reiki and hypnotherapy practitioners to offer the same? No - and the reason is that coaching is seen as a business model by the wider world, more than it's seen as a well-being practice.

Abuse in childhood left me with terrible damage and a life of depression and severe anxiety. It was coaching, specifically coaching with Neuro-Linguistic Programming, that eventually cured me of both those serious illnesses, after two decades of trying more traditional therapies. I then discovered that NLP could help me manage my mind better and achieve all sorts of things I thought were beyond me. As someone who's worked all my life, both formally and informally as a teacher, trainer, mentor and coach - training as an NLP coach and helping others recover too was the best decision I've ever made.

It's a struggle though, most people aren't really au fait with coaching and they already think it's full of fly-by-nights, who trained for 2 days via a Groupon voucher. It makes it even harder to be in coaching when it has this tag of being a money-making scheme. There seems to be a confusion between 'coaching', - and 'business coaches', where you learn how to turn your own business (coaching or otherwise) into a six-figure one. Many business coaches are actually mentors, teaching you a system for building a successful business that worked for them and so can work for you. That's a great service, it's just not coaching in the well-being sense. Coaching is an amazing, transformative tool that can help anyone get from where they are now, to where they want to be. It asks powerful questions to help the client uncover and utilise their inner resources, and create their own solutions to achieve what they want in life.

I know many coaches who are passionate about helping others; some of them are making six figures and that's great. I really hope we manage to detach from the 'six-figures' label soon though, so more people will realise that coaching is a field of well-being like any other and be able to benefit from the life-changing positive effects it can bring about for them.