Coaching Overview

Starting as soon as the first Designing Your Life book came out, Dave and Bill began to hear an unbroken request from coaches who wanted to receive certification and get input on how to best use the ideas and tools of DYL in their practice. So, they developed the Designing Your Life Coach Certification program and have trained hundreds of coaches worldwide.

As huge believers in collaboration – a core mindset of human-centered design – the DYL team think it’s incredibly difficult to do an effective job of designing your life by yourself. Regular accountability and engagement in generative dialogue have been proven to be highly effective in supporting positive outcomes in personal development.

A coach is a very particular kind of collaborator who can bring valuable skills and intentions that offer real help to the challenge of life design. In our teaching, we talk about getting counsel (where someone helps you figure out what you think) versus advice (where someone tells you what they think). Most well-meaning friends and supporters tend naturally toward advice. We think counsel is far more helpful and appropriate. Good coaching adopts a facilitative posture – helping, rather than prescribing – in order to encourage agency and capacity.

Good coaching, like good design, is a nuanced mix of art and science. The strategic intent of the DYL framework is to “empower people in developing a conscious competency in life and vocational wayfinding.” The greater goal of DYL isn’t just to facilitate the transaction of coming up with your next life design or career move – it’s to become an effective (and joyful) life designer because life is the one design project that is never done!

We believe working with a good coach as a dependable collaborator is a great way to get the most out of the DYL process!

Our Certified Designing Your Life Coaches are experienced life & career coaches, human resources or mental health professionals who have received a certification from a recognized coaching institute, training program, or school. In addition to their primary coach training, they have received an immersive 20+ hours of training directly from Dave & Bill in the DYL tools.

Find and reach out to a certified coach that resonates with your specific needs or explore becoming a coach yourself.