In today’s fast-paced and complex world, life coaches guide and support clients through personal and professional challenges.

Every client’s journey is unique, which is one of the reasons I enjoy my work so much.

The foundation of effective coaching lies in clarity, organization, and consistency. This is where life coaching templates come in.

Whether you are a seasoned coach or just starting out, using tools like a coaching session plan, life coaching agreement templates, or SMART goal worksheets can improve your work with clients.

Besides streamlining sessions, tracking clients’ progress, and ensuring clients receive the focus and attention they deserve, templates can also help you follow coaching guidelines and ethics.

This article explores some essential coaching templates, their benefits, how they can enhance your coaching practice, and how to adjust them to your specific niche.

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What Are Life Coaching Templates & Why Use Them?

Coaching templates are part of the system behind your coaching business. Accredited coaching programs teach the coach that the client has all the answers (Norman, 2022).

Coaching templates also provide you with the tools and ability to empower clients by offering a structured approach, relevant exercises, and guidance.

During an introductory call, I often explain to my clients that I am not an expert in their professional field, nor am I going to tell them what they need to do. Instead, I will guide the process and provide them with tools that they can ultimately choose from.

This process and these tools enable them to highlight possible blind spots, helping raise awareness, foster clarity, shift their mindset, improve mental health, develop new skills, or enhance existing ones (Nicolau et al., 2023).

Templates provide a plan and structure to get your client from A to B. Furthermore, coaching templates enhance the professionalism of a coaching business by creating a system and ensuring that nothing has been left out.

18 Essential Life Coaching Templates for Your Practice

Life coaches generally tackle a wide variety of coaching topics with their clients. Connecting with your ideal client starts by understanding their pain points.

Especially when you are just starting out as a coach, it is important to have a process for clarifying who your potential clients will be.

The Life Coaching Business Model Plan enables you to systematically design and articulate every key aspect of your coaching business, from defining the target clients and your unique value proposition to outlining services, marketing activities, revenue streams, operational expenses, and growth milestones.

This overview enables new coaches to build a professional business from scratch.

Pre-agreement introductory template

Every coaching relationship starts with an introductory conversation that allows the client and the coach to determine if they are a good fit for each other.

While this initial meeting serves a similar purpose as a sales call, it is much more about building rapport, understanding needs, and ensuring mutual alignment than making a pitch.

Imagine meeting a potential client at a networking event and then scheduling a complimentary 45-minute coaching session. This session allows you and the client to decide if moving forward makes sense for both.

A template for this introductory session might include:

• Sections for a warm welcome
• An overview of life coaching
• Sharing of goals and current challenges
• Questions to assess fit and readiness for coaching
• A section to outline next steps or follow-up actions

This structure ensures that the conversation is purposeful, respectful, and focused on creating a positive foundation for a potential coaching partnership.

If this is the first time you are creating a contract agreement with your client, consider the following (Norman, 2022).

• You are setting expectations.
• Clarify what coaching is and is not.
• Are there any recommendations for preparation or a pre-session assessment that are needed?
• How much time should the client plan to spend on reflection before and afterward?
• What is the cost of the coaching?
• When is payment due?
• How will you work together? For example, how much support and challenge would be useful, how much experimentation are they willing to try, and can you interrupt them in service of new thinking?

How to support your client in making a decision

Coaching usually comes with a significant investment. Many clients who have never experienced coaching before struggle to make the decision.

Is Coaching Right for Me? is a template designed to support clients in their decision-making process.

Some clients don’t need to have an initial conversation. A coaching intake form allows you to gain insight and learn more about the client without any prior conversations. It can be sent out before an initial meeting or before the first coaching session.

No matter how you structure your onboarding process, it is essential to create a contract with the client.

Planning

An intake form is a great place to start with the planning process. It helps the coach to gain insight into the client’s needs and wishes. Thoughtful planning and clear structure turn this insight into effective coaching.

Templates such as a Coaching Session Plan or the SMART+ Goals Worksheet are practical resources that can help you structure conversations, clarify objectives, and ensure that each session is client-centered and purposeful.

In my experience, such resources help you stay objective and provide a space in which the client’s resourcefulness is the center of the coaching. It also allows the coach to stay in their role instead of shifting into the role of an advisor or mentor.

Agreement & contracting

In my coaching practice, every conversation and engagement begins with a clear contract or agreement between myself and the client. Occasionally this includes other stakeholders such as colleagues or direct reports.

This agreement can take many forms, from formal written contracts to informal verbal understandings, and may be either explicit or implicit. Especially when coaching within organizations, there are often multiple, interconnected contracting relationships to consider.

A contract is a foundational and essential aspect of the coaching relationship that requires careful thought and deliberate action. Research highlights the importance of these agreements and identifies 15 essential elements of a coaching contract (Bennett, 2008).

This coaching agreement template is provided by the International Coaching Federation as an example of a life coaching agreement template.

Establishing coaching agreements is essential for effective coaching (Bennett, 2008). It provides a framework for the coach that can help to:

1. Clarify boundaries
2. Protect the coach and the client (especially when a third party is involved)
3. Help the coach to stay on track
4. Minimize frustration and confusion about the process
5. End coaching relationships based on pre-established goals (Bennett, 2008)

Here are some questions to help you create an agreement at the beginning of each session:

• How would you like me to support you during today’s session?
• How would that help you?
• How would you like to be challenged?
• What would be a good outcome for you from today’s session?

Recontracting through the coaching process

In addition to establishing an initial agreement, recontracting throughout the coaching process is vital for sustaining an effective and ethical coaching relationship. As John L. Bennett (2008, p. 8) emphasizes, contracting is “an ongoing process of discovery and adjustment that occurs as needed” as the coaching engagement unfolds.

This means that as clients’ goals, circumstances, or private and professional contexts evolve, both coach and client benefit from revisiting and updating their agreements to ensure continued clarity, alignment, and mutual understanding.

Recontracting serves several important functions (Passmore & Turner, 2018).

• It adapts the coaching relationship to changing needs, which helps both parties address new goals, challenges, or shifts in priorities as they arise.
• It reinforces trust and transparency, making explicit any new assumptions, boundaries, or expectations that may have emerged.
• It supports ethical practice, especially in complex or organizational settings where multiple stakeholders may be involved, by clarifying confidentiality, roles, and communication channels at each stage of the engagement.
• It models flexibility and responsiveness, demonstrating that coaching is a dynamic, cocreated process rather than a static service.

The literature on transformational and integrative coaching (often part of life coaching) also highlights the importance of recontracting. The APPEAR model for ethical decision-making (Passmore, 2023) encourages coaches to “extend the field” by consulting contracts, organizational policies, and professional codes throughout the engagement, not just at the beginning.

Such ongoing attention to agreements helps coaches manage ethical dilemmas, maintain process-oriented awareness, and ensure that everyone stays aligned throughout the coaching process (Passmore & Turner, 2018).

In practice, recontracting might involve regular check-ins or dedicated sessions to review the coaching agreement and feedback forms, discuss progress, revisit goals, and make any necessary adjustments to the structure or focus of the coaching work. This approach to contracting and recontracting ultimately strengthens the partnership and increases the likelihood of meaningful, sustainable outcomes for the client (Passmore & Turner, 2018). In my experience, it also allows the coach to keep track of progress.

The Coaching Exit-Ticket template can be used to keep track of clients’ progress and experiences.

Session and strategy

Tracking progress toward the accomplishment of big goals helps clients stay motivated and on track. For a useful tool to help track progress toward goal achievement, take a look at the free Goal Planning and Achievement Tracker worksheet.

The BASIC ID Template for Multi-Modal Coaching provides coaches with a structured framework to explore seven key dimensions of a client’s experience:

• Behavior
• Affect
• Sensation
• Imagery
• Cognition
• Interpersonal relationships
• Drugs/biology

By systematically addressing each area, the template ensures that coaching sessions are comprehensive and tailored to the client’s unique needs. This approach helps Here are several other worksheets that can be helpful during and after coaching sessions:

coaches identify patterns, set targeted goals, and design interventions that consider the full spectrum of the client’s life.

Review and progress

Review and progress, along with session feedback forms, are essential in life coaching because they provide structured opportunities to assess client growth, celebrate achievements, and identify areas for improvement, ensuring the coaching process remains aligned with the client’s evolving goals (Grant, 2020).

By regularly using a feedback form at the end of each session, coaches can gather valuable insights into the client’s experience, adjust their approach as needed, and foster a culture of open communication and continuous improvement (Passmore & Sinclair, 2020). Ultimately, coaching is a partnership that provides a learning opportunity for both parties.

How to Use Templates Effectively in Coaching

It is essential to align templates with the client’s specific needs. What objective are you achieving with each template, and what purpose does the template serve? Is the aim to track progress or goals, foster awareness and self-reflection, or document the process?

Personalizing the templates by adding the client’s name, details, and goals can also be useful. This can increase the client’s motivation and engagement in the process.

This approach can also include adjusting the template to the client’s preferred learning style and current challenges. This could even include changing the examples given on the worksheets so they reflect the client’s current life circumstances.

Templates are guides, not rules, and allowing flexibility and adaptation promotes authentic communication during coaching sessions.

3 Tips for Personalizing Templates for Your Niche

Personalizing your coaching templates is key to creating a client experience that feels genuine and tailored to the individual’s needs.

By adapting your forms, resources, and branding, you not only showcase your niche to your clients but also demonstrate your expertise and understanding of their needs. The following steps can help you create stronger engagement and more meaningful results.

1. Ask niche-specific questions Intake forms and session templates should address the most pressing issues of your client group. This ensures that each template feels relevant and valuable.
2. Incorporate niche-specific tools and resources Include tools that address your clients’ needs and the area they want to work on. This should also include templates that reflect your area of expertise, connected to their needs.
3. Adjust your branding, language, and structure Including your branding on every template showcases professionalism. Additionally, using language that resonates with your target audience will help you establish a connection. Do your clients prefer a formal or conversational style? Make sure that you communicate naturally, helping your clients feel at ease and engaged.

Putting It All Together in a Coaching Plan

To create a comprehensive coaching plan, you need to integrate the personalized templates, client background and information, and evidence-based frameworks into a cohesive, goal-oriented strategy tailored to the individual’s needs (Grant, 2020; Passmore & Sinclair, 2020).

Creating a coaching plan helps you as the coach to build trust, create ongoing formative evaluation, and clear accountability to drive lasting change, measure outcomes, and facilitate professional development (Grant, 2020).

This integrative approach ensures each session builds upon previous progress and aligns with best practices. It also ensures that you support the immediate and long-term development of your client (Drake, 2018).

HOW TO CREATE AN ONLINE COACHING PROGRAM IN 7 EASY STEPS

A Take-Home Message

A life coaching template offers a structured and ethical approach for a successful coaching practice. By integrating templates such as coaching agreements, coaching plan templates, coaching reflection forms, and coaching progress trackers, coaches can create a consistent and professional environment that supports both the coach and the client in achieving impactful results.

Such resources help to clarify expectations, build trust, and ensure that every session is purposeful and aligned with coaching guidelines and ethical standards.

The effective use of life coaching templates enables you, the coach, to focus on what matters most: coaching your clients to create lasting change, build self-awareness, and move confidently toward their goals.

REFERENCES

• Bennett, J. L. (2008). Contracting for success. International Journal of Coaching in Organizations, 6(4), 7–14.
• Drake, D. B. (2018). Narrative coaching: The definitive guide to bringing new stories to life (2nd ed.). CNC Press.
• Grant, A. M. (2020). An integrated model of goal-focused coaching. In J. Passmore & D. Tee (Eds.), Coaching researched: A coaching psychology reader (pp. 115–139). Wiley.
• International Coaching Federation. (2020). The Professional Certified Coach (PCC) markers (Rev. Sep 2020). https://coachingfederation.org
• Norman, C. (2022). The transformational coach: Free your thinking and break through to coaching mastery. SRA Books.
• Nicolau, A., Candel, O. S., Constantin, T., & Kleingeld, A. (2023). The effects of executive coaching on behaviors, attitudes, and personal characteristics: A meta-analysis of randomized control trial studies. Frontiers in Psychology, 14, Article 1089797. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1089797
• Passmore, J. (Ed.). (2016). Excellence in coaching: The industry guide (3rd ed.). Kogan Page.