Can I help you?

Life is so stressful that we all need a helping hand. Where would Cherie Blair be, for example, without Carole Caplin? Julia Stuart senses an opportunity

Julia Stuart has no life. Her relationships are hopeless, her finances a mess and as for her career, well... But a few weeks ago she saw an ad in the paper for people to train as life coaches. Now, after a weekend of furious study, she is ready to charge £120 per session and help you achieve everything she hasn't. Please form an orderly queue.

It's 9am at a conference centre in Cambridgeshire, and Queen's "It's A Kind of Magic" is playing over the loudspeakers. About 50 men and 30 women are sitting in lines waiting to be trained to become life coaches. It takes more than a little magic, however. To be precise, it takes £2,291.25, beginning with this weekend's residential course in St Neots.

Vicki Espin, the precision-suited course director with an equally snappy hairdo, informs us that we're in the top 3 to 4 per cent of people, because we set goals and follow them through. We like Vicki and we're starting to like ourselves. Demand for life coaches outstrips supply she says, adding that we have made a wise choice entrusting our training with the Coaching Academy, because it's Europe's largest coaching school. We like ourselves and Vicki's goal-achieving hairdo even more.

She asks us to get up and introduce ourselves to as many people as possible, giving them one reason why we're special. I tell Barry I'm a good listener and just about keep my ears open long enough to hear him say: "I need to help people". Matthew "gets a kick out of making others happy", John has "a strong desire to help others" and Shaun "makes people feel at ease".

Once back in our seats, Jonathan Jay, a former personal development magazine publisher who founded the academy in 1999, jogs to the front of the room. The perma-smiling, perma-nodding mentor gives the answers to three questions he says everyone always asks him: "I'm older than I look, I'm not married and no, I'm not." Given his charming manner, I can only presume that the third most frequently asked question is "Are you gay?" The Coaching Academy is the second largest in the world, he tells us and goes off to smile elsewhere.

One of the trainers, Sarah Urquhart, talks us through our model for coaching – GROW. G stands for goal, R for reality, O for options and W for will. In short, you start by asking your client what their goal is. Then you ask what they've done about it so far (the reality). Next, and best of all in my book, you ask your client how they think they might achieve their goal. (Happily, you must never, ever, suggest any ideas or give advice, in case it all goes horribly wrong and the client blames you.)

Once they have come up with possible solutions, you ask them for three more for good measure. After discussing the options, the client determines the best one. You ask what they will commit to doing and how certain they are, on a scale of one to 10, that they will carry it out. If the client doesn't say 10, you have to explore what would make it a 10. Crucially, you must never ask "Why?", as it may throw your client back into the past, a scary place reserved for the equally buoyant counselling industry.

After an "energy break" (tea or coffee and a biscuit), it's time to practise on each other. I turn my coaching attentions to Wendy, a middle manager who has just been made redundant, whose goal is to improve her fitness. By the time I've finished with her, she's agreed to sign up to aqua fit classes at her local leisure centre and book a series of horse riding lessons.

Kate, who has also just been made redundant, tries out her coaching skills on me. My goal is to finally do my pesky expenses, a collection of receipts and telephone bills that I have been shoving, eyes closed, into a disordered cupboard, which also needs tackling. Within 15 minutes this woman has me promising, without fail, to do them (a horrible task which requires order and adding up) when I get home from the course. Not only that, but I have assured her that I will sort out the cupboard at 8am on Sunday, which, inexplicably, was my idea. Kate offers to ring me to make sure I'm up, an offer I kindly refuse.

Nic Rixon, our afternoon trainer, says he's pleased to see "so many ladies" in the audience. The flannel over, he tells us that people never rise above their own opinion of themselves. He advises us to give strength-centred feedback and to set meaningful goals.

After another practical session, I am now on my way to achieving my other goal of reading a novel every month. I have committed the time it takes to get to work (rather than staring gormlessly out of the bus window) and 10 minutes in bed before lights out. I then coach Elaine who wants to find Mr Right, and she commits to taking up a painting course in the hope of finding him. (Mindful that you should never offer advice, I resist the urge to tell her it never worked for me and she is doomed to loneliness forever.)

After dinner, it seems clear that everyone now shares the same goal – to get served at the bar. Mike Blissett, 41, a bank adviser from London and avid reader of self-help books, admits to having had coaching when a long-term relationship failed. "I didn't feel happy with myself and wanted to talk about it," he explains. He hopes to make £20,000 a year in his new career. "I think I will be wonderful because I'm a people person."

One former West End actress, who doesn't want to be named, says since having a child she wants to "give something back". She says: "Coaching involves caring, being real, being committed and it seems to be a very sincere, positive profession which genuinely helps people."

The following morning, another trainer, Neil Espin, walks backwards to the front of the room, shaking people's hands with the vigour of an evangelistic preacher. "Mac the Knife" is playing in the background. Neil, who has a habit of quoting from Winnie the Pooh books, spends what seems a very long time getting us to guess who came up with the dictionary definition of "values". (I've stopped listening by the time he gives the answer, but it's not a think-tank in cahoots with the Oxford English Dictionary and the Church, as one trainee suggests.)

During the practical section, I seem to have lost my knack and fail to inspire Kevin, whose goal is to want to play the saxophone again, to take up his instrument. After lunch, we at last get to the bit we've all been waiting for – how much cash we can make.

Coaches, says Jonathan during the "Marketing your Coaching Practice" session, charge between £40 and £120 per 40-minute session, which may well explain his permanent state of euphoria. We have several months of further studying ahead of us before accreditation, but the news will no doubt keep many of us focused on our goal.

I arrive home, tired but still determined to achieve today's goal of getting my expenses done before bedtime. I head to the much-feared disordered cupboard and fish out a pile of mobile phone bills. It is with much relief that I notice they stretch back to this time last year, way past the accounts department's statute of limitations. There's no point doing them and I slope off to bed content. There are considerable benefits to serial procrastination after all.

Some of the names in this article have been changed. Contact the Coaching Academy on 0800 783 4823