I’m sick of online courses.

And by online courses, I am not referring to legitimate areas of study like the Open University, colleges or even the additional work you can do as part of your career or job role.

I’m talking about the influencer courses – the bloody life coaches and spiritual gurus who have no qualifications, experience or certification to back them up but are out here selling you so-called courses so you can improve your life, get a better diet, or learn how to talk to God.

These influencers have no certifications, qualifications or, quite frankly, business selling these courses. What they do have is some good marketing, a captivated audience and perhaps a nice aesthetic.

Maybe they do have some life experience and wisdom they’ve garnered from the ‘school of life’ that makes them a good storyteller or source of advice. But this does not mean they are qualified to sell courses or take your hard earned money to ‘teach you’.

Here’s the thing – it’s very easy to fake a life online.

It’s stupidly easy to present yourself as an expert or a trusted source on absolutely anything online, as long as you know what to say or have the right look. And this can help you make a pretty penny when you have enough people watching.

As someone who enjoys both spiritual and self-help content, I am inundated with these scam online courses. It seems like 90% of the creators I find online, whether it’s through YouTube, a podcast or the occasional blog, has something to sell me. And I’m sick of it.

I’ve fallen for these courses before – of course I have. When someone who seems to know a lot more than me promises me the secrets to the universe, you bet I’ll push the ‘buy now’ button.

Over the years, I’ve paid for worksheets, eBooks, videos, and even fucking PDF files. I kid you not. Please monitor your kids online activity, friends!

While those days are long behind me, the shilling continues. In fact, just tonight I watched a several minute video waiting for these amazing insights that I’d come to expect from a particular creator, just to find they’re shilling a course. Here’s the kicker: not just a little 99p worksheet or even the hundred pound course fee I’ve been seeing – they were asking for THOUSANDS.

Even without taking the current state of the economy into consideration, asking your audience to pay THOUSANDS (or hundreds, or tens. Or even, let’s be honest, a couple of quid these days) for some course you have probably made on Canva is absolutely ridiculous. In fact, it’s downright disgusting.

Let me be clear, this is not a qualified person nor is it for a specialised service. It’s some hippy-dippy bollocks. Which, don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love some hippy-dippy bollocks – as long as it’s free. I’ll talk with you about the moon and stars and aliens and manifestation all day long if you’d like, but don’t you DARE charge people for that privilege.

I understand that some things need to be paid for, but if you want support or advice for goodness sake please go to a professional. You do not need to pay someone to tell you how to be spiritual or how to be creative or how to glow up or whatever it is they’re trying to sell this week. That stuff is just free advice shared between friends or anecdotal information you can learn from someone further down the road than you.

The internet is an amazing resource that delivers so much information FOR FREE right at our fingertips, so if you are interested in certain topics or looking for self-help style advice, search away! You can find so many accounts, recommendations, suggestions and general motivation to help you out without paying a penny.

For serious or important or real-life topics, you can and should work with professionals. While this may not be free (because certified skills, information and experience should not be free) it is certainly going to be cheaper and more worthwhile than anything these online creators can offer you.

I’m begging you, stop paying these online coaches. They do not deserve your money, and you will not get what you need from them.

Please do not pay an ‘online health coach’ to give you diet advice – speak to your doctor or a licensed dietician. In fact, your doctor can probably put you in contact with these licensed professionals if you need it.

And while we’re at it:

• Do not pay an online life coach – go to therapy.

• Do not pay a ‘glow up’ coach – go to the doctors, or a spa if you need some R&R

• Do not pay an online spiritual guru – read a book, watch free content or sit outside in the wind and listen to yourself. For FREE

Protect Yourself And Your Wallet

There are so many scams out there and so many creators taking advantage of vulnerable and desperate people. From one rando on the internet to another; you cannot trust everything you see.

Let’s take my website and the very limited work I do online as an example. This blog is a website I started for free, just like anyone who has internet connection can do, and while I like to give out advice and talk about my own lessons, I have no idea what I’m talking about.

My background is in journalism and writing, and I couldn’t even give you proper lessons in that because I’m not qualified to. In fact, the things I learnt during my degree only a few years ago are probably wildly outdated now so trying to teach others would be pointless and unethical.

I have never been interested in teaching, and writing these little blog posts is the closest I’ll ever get to that. This is probably because I have seen how much hard work teachers (aka real, qualified professionals) put into getting their degrees, becoming certified and getting enough experience to begin their careers and it’s not for me.

Being a teacher, becoming a professional who can charge people for their information, is serious business and I know for a fine fact these influencers are not doing that.

They’re selling videos and online forms as a way to keep themselves afloat. They’re putting their audience out of pocket to line their own and it’s vile.

I could write a whole separate blog post on spiritual coaches and how insidious it is that these so-called ‘Enlighted beings’ are profiting from information that they believe is our God-given right. But it’s late, so I’ll save that for another day.

I just want to urge you to stop paying these online coaches. I don’t care what kind of courses they have done or what kind of ‘certifications’ they claim to have – if it’s not an official license or certification, it’s worthless if you’re paying.

It doesn’t matter how much you like them, how long you’ve watched them or how much they pressure you into buying, please do not spend money on their courses. If they are so dedicated to their audiences and believe they have something to say, then they should be providing value in the content they publish online anyway. That’s their job. If they’re not, unsubscribe, mute and move on.

Online courses are an absolute scam and I’m sick of seeing it. I don’t want you to fall for it either.

Speak soon,

Rachael.

Photo by Julio Lopez on Unsplash