20 NLP Coaching Questions Answered by Nina Madden

Questions answered in this video

BLOG- What Is NLP Coaching? Nine Questions Answered

(Video: Nina Madden answers your most common questions about NLP coaching, life coaching, and the ICF Accredited Diploma)

1. What is NLP coaching?
2. What is Life Changes?
3. How can this programme help me?
4. What makes this programme different from others?
5. Can I start working as a coach straight away?
6. Why become an NLP life coach?
7. What could be challenging?
8. What makes a good life coach?
9. Why did Nina choose this path?

What is NLP coaching?

NLP coaching is a way of accessing the unconscious mind. It is a psychological methodology that allows coaches to go deeper with their clients, working with issues like anxiety, imposter syndrome, and self-esteem in ways that traditional coaching alone often cannot reach.

Where coaching is primarily a forward-focused, conversational practice, NLP gives us the tools to work at a deeper psychological level. That combination is what makes it so powerful.

What is Life Changes?

Life Changes is the company I founded in 2011, born from a moment in Hyde Park where I made a decision to live an inspired, intentional life. I have always loved the double meaning in the name. Life changes because life does change, and we have to navigate those changes. And life changes because, with the right tools and the right intention, we can actively redesign it.

That philosophy is at the heart of everything I teach.

How can your programme help me?

The ICF Accredited Diploma in Life Coaching and Advanced NLP works on three levels simultaneously.

First, it qualifies you as an accredited life coach, recognised by the International Coaching Federation, so you can build a professional coaching practice. Second, every tool and technique you learn, you apply to your own life first. The personal transformation that comes with this training is significant. Third, the skills are transferable across any role or context where you work with people, whether professionally or personally.

What makes your programme different from others?

I bring twenty years of private practice to this training. I have worked with thousands of clients using life coaching, NLP, archetypes, and the Hero's Journey, and the programme is built around those same methods.

What makes it genuinely distinctive is the combination: ICF accreditation alongside ABNLP accreditation for NLP, woven together with frameworks like archetypes and the Hero's Journey that no other coach training programme currently offers. Graduates leave with credentials and with depth.

Can I start working as a coach straight away after qualifying?

Yes. Once you have completed the programme, you are qualified and accredited. You can begin working with clients immediately.

Why would you recommend becoming an NLP life coach?

If you want work that offers flexibility, independence, and genuine meaning, life coaching and NLP is worth serious consideration.

It suits people who want to work for themselves, who want the freedom to work from anywhere, and who have a philosophical interest in the human experience. It particularly appeals to people who want to help others move forward rather than spend long periods revisiting the past. Life coaching is forward-focused and empowering by design.

What could be challenging about becoming a life coach?

Coaching can be solitary work. One of the things I value most about cohort-based training is the community it creates. The people you train alongside become your network, your peer group, and often your ongoing support system as you grow your practice.

The other thing to think about is the transition if you are currently in full-time employment. Building a coaching portfolio takes time. Many people begin part-time, perhaps coaching on Saturdays or moving to a four-day working week, so the transition feels manageable rather than pressured.

What makes a good life coach?

Someone who likes to reflect on life and ask the big questions. Someone who understands that there is more to life than the things we can see and touch. Someone who wants to design their life as a creative project and an expression of who they are.

And someone with real compassion who wants to help other people in a way that lifts them up, sees their potential, and allows them to create the life they want.

Why did you choose this path?

I came from an arts background. I was not fulfilled, and I knew it. I had looked at psychotherapy and counselling, but those disciplines did not feel empowering or relevant to what I was actually looking for.

In 2007, I went to a small seminar near Oxford Street and discovered life coaching. The philosophies, the underlying belief system, the tools, the techniques: all of it felt right in a way nothing else had. That was the moment I knew what I was going to do.

I have been doing it ever since.

Nina Madden is an ICF PCC Coach, NLP Master Trainer, and EMDR Therapist with twenty years in private practice. She is the founder of Life Changes and the Nina Madden Academy, and runs the ICF and ABNLP dual-accredited Diploma in Life Coaching and Advanced NLP.  Find out more and download the course guide at ninamadden.com/learn.