David Skibbins and William Bergquist

Agendas in personal and life coaching focus on hope, meaning, aspirations and the future. This form of coaching concentrates on what could be, even more than what currently is. When we ask people to “follow their bliss” or to search for what in their soul or heart is most compelling, coaches are looking beyond their current-day assessments. Similarly, as we were preparing this article and considering the trends in personal and life coaching, we decided to anticipate rather than merely observe. The authors of this article decided to take a risk and suggest where we project these endeavors will be moving during the coming decade. Rather than reflecting on where the state of personal and life coaching are right now, we are looking at trending that has been done over the past five years and projecting these trends forward. Through focusing on the future of coaching we are taking some leaps into new territory. Much as Taleb (2010) has noted with regard to other trends in our society that look like unpredictable “black swans,” (unexpected events) we are inviting you to consider some new ideas that we base, at least in part, on our own accumulated experiences over the past thirty years as coaches, consultants, therapist and educators –experiences that are admitted biased, opinionated and hopefully provocative.

We have identified ten trends in personal and life coaching. We offer examples of how each of these trends has manifest itself in recent years, and we take a glimpse into what each of these trends might look like if it were to fully unfold.