Everyone Wants to Be a Coach. But No One Wants to Walk the Path.
By Sqn Ldr Cheshta Shankar | Fitness & Mindset Coach |
🌍 Introduction: The Rise of Overnight Coaches
Open Instagram, scroll through LinkedIn, or glance at trending hashtags — and you’ll see it:
Everyone is becoming a coach.
- Fitness coach.
- Life coach.
- Beauty coach.
- Wellness coach.
- Business mentor.
You’ll see bold promises everywhere:
“Lose 10 kg in 30 days!”
“Glow-up with my skincare routine!”
“Manifest success in 3 easy steps!”
On the surface, coaching appears glamorous — a mix of confidence, aesthetics, and bite-sized advice.
But look deeper, and you’ll notice something crucial is missing:
Experience. Substance. Integrity.
Today, anyone can buy a certificate, build a brand, and launch a program. But can they actually hold space for another human being’s transformation?
Can they guide others through darkness if they’ve never sat in their own?
🧭 Coaching Is Not a Job Title. It’s a Sacred Responsibility.
Real coaching is not about having solutions.
It’s about:
- Holding space in silence.
- Offering guidance without ego.
- Helping someone uncover their truth — not projecting yours onto them.
That depth only comes when a coach has truly walked the road themselves.
But here’s what we often see:
- Someone loses weight → becomes a fitness coach.
- Someone clears up their acne → becomes a skincare expert.
- Someone does a 10-day meditation → becomes a mindfulness guru.
- Someone reads two self-help books → starts life coaching sessions.
Let’s be clear:
Transformation is beautiful. But transformation alone does not make you a coach.
Because when your only reference point is your own experience — unexamined, untested, and untrained — you may unintentionally cause more harm than healing.
💸 Coaching Is a Market Now — And That’s a Problem
The modern coaching industry isn’t built on integrity.
It’s built on algorithms, aesthetics, and urgency.
Marketing now says:
- “Become a coach in 7 days!”
- “No experience needed — just a story!”
- “If you look the part, you can sell the role.”
The result?
👉 Coaching becomes a performance, not a practice.
👉 Influence replaces introspection.
👉 Branding replaces depth.
👉 Followers outweigh foundations.
🎯 Everyone wants to sell certainty.
But few are willing to cultivate capacity.
We see constant messaging like:
- “You’re not enough — but this program will fix you.”
- “Just copy my strategy and scale your life/business/body.”
But what about:
- Empathy?
- Trauma awareness?
- Personalized coaching that respects bio-individuality and emotional readiness?
Those are rarely part of the sales pitch.
🧨 The Cost of Shallow Coaching
When coaching lacks foundation, the consequences are real — and sometimes irreversible.
🏋️♂️ In Fitness & Health
- Coaches may push calorie deficits without understanding hormones or menstrual health.
- They promote rapid transformations while ignoring metabolic damage, binge cycles, or stress responses.
- Injuries, disordered eating, and burnout follow.
💆 In Skin & Wellness
- They sell what worked for them — without knowing different skin types, allergies, or underlying health conditions.
- Clients waste money, damage their skin, or feel like failures when the routine doesn’t work for them.
🧠 In Mental & Emotional Health
- “Coaches” bypass deep trauma with toxic positivity.
- They confuse pop-psych quotes with therapy tools.
- Clients feel invalidated, or worse, retraumatized.
💼 In Business Coaching
- Generic, overpriced blueprints are sold without personalization.
- Coaches teach sales without understanding psychology, ethics, or sustainable growth.
The result?
❌ Clients feel inspired, but not supported.
❌ They receive direction, but not depth.
❌ They get quick fixes — but no lasting change.
🪞 Coaching Must Come From Lived Alignment — Not Just Learning
You can’t copy-paste wisdom.
You must earn it through living, through failing, reflecting, adapting, and showing up again and again — even when no one’s watching.
No online certification can give you what lived experience can.
Before calling yourself a coach, ask:
- ✅ Have I practiced what I preach — quietly, over time, without applause?
- ✅ Am I coaching to serve others — or to fill my own need to be seen?
- ✅ Do I embody emotional resilience — or do I rush to control outcomes?
- ✅ Can I sit with discomfort — or do I offer quick, surface-level solutions?
Real coaching is uncomfortable.
It’s not about perfection, but about presence.
Not about having the answer, but about honoring the process.
🧘♂️ The World Doesn’t Need More Coaches.
It needs more humans who’ve done the inner work.
We don’t need more:
- Loud voices
- Curated reels
- “Proven” hacks
- Surface-level cheerleading
We need:
- Listeners.
- Witnesses.
- People who can say:
“I don’t have the answer, but I’ll hold space for you while you find it.”
True coaching isn’t about leading the way.
It’s about walking alongside someone without the need to be the hero.
And that can’t be built in a weekend.
✍️ Final Reflections
If you’re drawn to coaching — that’s beautiful. The world does need you.
But it doesn’t need your highlight reel.
It needs your humility.
Don’t chase the label.
Chase the lived integrity behind it.
Because coaching is not about becoming someone’s savior.
It’s about becoming someone whose presence helps others save themselves.
And that, my friends, only comes from walking the path yourself.
👩✈️ About the Author
Sqn Ldr Cheshta Shankar is a former Indian Air Force officer and now a certified Fitness & Mindset Coach . Through her grounded approach, she helps people rebuild strength from within — physically, emotionally, and mentally. She believes real coaching starts where performance ends — in silence, truth, and lived experience.
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