Life coaching has grown into a large and visible industry, and with that growth comes a reasonable question from clients and aspiring coaches alike: does it actually work? It’s a fair thing to ask. Life coaching isn’t licensed the way therapy is, training standards vary widely from one program to the next, and marketing claims often run well ahead of the evidence.

The research on coaching has grown considerably over the past two decades. It doesn’t suggest coaching is a cure-all. It shows that well-delivered coaching produces measurable change and offers useful insight into what separates effective coaching from the rest.

Big Coaching Study Finds

One of the most well-known studies is a 2014 meta-analysis from the University of Amsterdam. Tim Theeboom and his colleagues pooled the coaching research available at the time and examined five types of outcomes: performance and skills, well-being, coping, work attitudes, and what researchers call goal-directed self-regulation. That last one is one’s ability to set a goal and keep yourself moving toward it. Coaching had a positive effect on all five, and the biggest effect was on goal-directed self-regulation, which makes sense when you think about what actually happens in a coaching session.

A tougher test of coaching was conducted in 2023, when de Haan and Nilsson looked only at randomized controlled trials, the same kind of study design used to test new medications. They found 37 of them, covering more than 2,500 people, and coaching still showed a moderate, statistically significant effect.

Life coaching on its own has less research behind it than workplace coaching, but it isn’t zero. One of the earliest randomized trials, published in 2006 by Green, Oades and Grant, assigned 56 adults either to a 10-week group life coaching program or to a waitlist. The people who got coached showed real increases in goal striving, well-being, and hope, and on some of those measures the gains were still there 30 weeks later.

Why Coaching Relationships Work

In 2020, Carolin Graßmann and colleagues analyzed 27 samples representing roughly 3,500 coaching engagements across workplace, life and career coaching. Their focus was the working alliance, meaning the trust and shared agreement on goals between a coach and a client. Across studies, a stronger alliance was consistently associated with better client outcomes. It was also linked to fewer unintended negative effects of coaching.

Notably, the coaching-client relationship is based on the coach’s ability to listen well, build trust, and reach clear agreement with the client on goals, all of which play a central role. Certification programs vary, but the International Coaching Federation (ICF) is known worldwide for the quality of its curriculum, mentorship, and hands-on training.

Other outcomes from these studies show that coaching clients can get the same benefit from face-to-face coaching as online or blended formats. Online coaching is a viable and accepted form of coaching that opens life coaching careers to many people who work virtually, at least some of the time.

Where Evidence is Still Thin

These findings come with some important limitations. Most of the strongest studies focus on workplace and executive coaching rather than personal life coaching, so in some ways life coaching is borrowing confidence from a neighboring field. A lot of studies also rely on clients reporting their own results, and the Theeboom team spent a good part of their paper pointing out weaknesses in the research that existed at the time. de Haan and Nilsson also flagged signs of publication bias, meaning studies with disappointing results may be less likely to be published.

Even though the evidence is thin, the findings are not to be ignored. They do mean the more accurate summary is “coaching tends to help, especially when it’s done well,” not “coaching fixes everything.” It’s also a good reminder that coaching and therapy are different things. Someone dealing with depression, trauma, or another mental health concern should be working with a licensed professional, and a good coach knows when to refer.

Choosing Coaching as a Career

If the research points anywhere, it points to skill. The studies with good results tend to use structured, evidence-based methods, and they depend heavily on the coach’s ability to build trust and keep a client focused on goals that actually matter to them. These are skills that are fundamental in quality certification programs.

That’s worth keeping in mind when you compare certification programs. Training where you practice real coaching conversations and get feedback on them, not just watch videos about coaching, is what ICF offers, and Life Purpose Institute is a well-established organization partnering with ICF to equip and support the most effective life coaches in the field.

Evidence supports coaching as an effective intervention. For anyone entering the field, the more useful question is whether their training will prepare them to coach well. Contact Life Purpose Institute today for a free consultation and find out about available certification programs.