Led by Arecia Hester, a Certified Professional Life Coach, this personal growth work is rooted in compassion, cultural awareness, and the belief that growth happens when people feel safe enough to be themselves.
Arecia’s coaching has strengthened, challenged, and refined my leadership and management skills, preparing me for the next stage of my career. Her professional insight and ability to equip leaders for today’s evolving workforce are unmatched. I’m truly grateful that our paths crossed.
Senior Program Manager
Working with my life coach, Ace has been a truly transformative experience. Before beginning coaching, I felt stuck, with goals but no clear path to achieving them. However, through our sessions, I gained clarity, practical tools, and a renewed sense of confidence. What I value most is the supportive and non-judgmental space she creates. This environment allowed me to dive deeper, challenge old habits, and finally make the changes I had been avoiding for years. As a result, I am now more focused, motivated, and aligned with the life I want to build. In conclusion, getting a life coach was one of the best decisions I have ever made.
Fashion Designer and Owner of Lockame Design Co.
Arecia’s leadership and coaching have played a vital role in advancing my career. She brings a high level of professionalism that blends clarity and genuine care, creating a space where growth feels both challenging and supported. Her guidance has helped me become a more confident, intentional and effective leader.
Program Coordinator
Arecia has a rare gift for challenging leaders to achieve authentic growth. Working with her, I learned how to truly communicate, listen effectively, command a room, and navigate difficult spaces with confidence. She doesn't just teach leadership; she models it, and every moment of her wisdom is worth grasping.
Aquatics Director and Comedian
Arecia’s leadership has been truly transformative for me. Her mentorship taught me how to lead my team with confidence, authenticity, and encouragement. Because of her guidance, I now believe in my ability to succeed in any job and in any leadership role.
Professional Fitness Manager
My Mom who many know as Arecia, is the kind of woman whose presence alone brings stability, clarity, and reassurance. Her consistency is unmatched—her word is her bond, and there has never been a single moment where she hasn’t shown up for me. She has supported me through every season of my life, and she has done it with grace, strength, and a deep sense of purpose. Everything I know about confidence, hard work, poise, and integrity, I learned by watching her. She doesn't just teach those values—she lives them. I’ve seen firsthand how she walks into a room and commands it effortlessly, how she holds herself with quiet power, and how people naturally gravitate toward her because she moves with intention and authenticity. She says what she means, she means what she says, and she follows through every single time. She is the type of woman who makes you believe that transformation is possible because she has modeled transformation, resilience, and self-belief throughout her own life.
To any woman blessed enough to work with her, she is a guide, a mentor, and a source of real, practical wisdom. I am so fortunate to have grown up learning from her, and I know that any woman who chooses her as their coach will experience the same empowerment, clarity, and confidence that she has poured into me.
Manager, Artistic Creative, Dancer
Plenty of people refer to themselves as “bosses” meanwhile, Arecia is the real deal. She is a genuine leader in the truest sense of the word. She meets every individual right where they are, and offers a combination of development, accountability and dependability that is so refreshing and effective in workplace productivity.
I loved learning from Arecia and am without question, better from it.
Fitness Professional
Personal development coaching is a collaborative partnership designed to help you grow in many ways: personally, emotionally, and practically.
This work is a great fit for:
You don’t need a crisis to start coaching.
You just need curiosity and a willingness to show up honestly.
To create real, lasting change, consistency matters. Personal development coaching at Taking First is designed with a minimum six-month commitment to build trust, foster accountability, and enable meaningful progress.
Here’s what the process looks like:
You’ll complete reflective assessments to better understand your strengths, values, habits, and blind spots.
Ongoing sessions provide space to process wins, challenges, and shifts that address mindset work and skill development.
Growth deserves recognition. We celebrate wins and anchor new habits.
Together, we clarify goals that feel realistic, aligned, and meaningful — not performative or pressure-filled.
We co-create a clear, flexible plan with actionable steps that fit your real life.
We regularly assess what’s working and refine your approach.
You leave with clarity, tools, and confidence to continue growing beyond coaching.
To create real, lasting change, consistency matters. Personal development coaching at Taking First is designed with a minimum six-month commitment to build trust, foster accountability, and enable meaningful progress.
Here’s what the process looks like:
We start by getting to know each other. You’ll share what’s bringing you to coaching, what feels challenging, and what you hope might change.
Together, we clarify goals that feel realistic, aligned, and meaningful — not performative or pressure-filled.
You’ll complete reflective assessments to better understand your strengths, values, habits, and blind spots.
We co-create a clear, flexible plan with actionable steps that fit your real life.
Ongoing sessions provide space to process wins, challenges, and shifts that address mindset work and skill development.
We regularly assess what’s working and refine your approach.
Growth deserves recognition. We celebrate wins and anchor new habits.
You leave with clarity, tools, and confidence to continue growing beyond coaching.
Personal development does not happen in a vacuum. Our identities, lived experiences, culture, and history shape how we move through the world, especially when it comes to confidence, leadership, boundaries, rest, and self-trust.
For many BIWOC women, personal growth is often layered with additional realities:
For those looking for Personal Development Coaching in Los Angeles offers a different kind of presence. Sitting together in the same space can deepen connection, grounding, and focus.
Arecia coaches women across greater Los Angeles. Your city page shows local details, session options, and directions. Pick your area and start close to home. In-person and online both work.
Virtual personal development coaching offers flexibility, accessibility, and comfort. Sessions are conducted online, making it easier to fit coaching into busy schedules or life transitions.
Sessions are typically weekly or biweekly, lasting one hour, and run over 6–12 months.
Many clients notice shifts in confidence and communication within the first three months. That’s often when nagging self-doubt starts to quiet down. Deeper, transformational change often emerges around the six-month mark and continues beyond.
Packages range from $150 to $2,000. Sliding scale options are available for a limited number of clients. Payment plans are available.
If cost is a concern, please don’t let that stop you from reaching out. Arecia understands that access to support should not be limited by finances, and she is committed to making care as accessible as possible.
A limited number of sliding-scale options and scholarship-style spaces are available, depending on current capacity. While these spots are not always guaranteed, Arecia encourages you to reach out and start the conversation anyway. Every situation is different, and she approaches these conversations with honesty, care, and respect.
Your desire to grow matters. If personal development coaching feels aligned for you, it is always worth asking. Financial constraints should never make you feel discouraged or unworthy of support.
Limited Saturday sessions are offered. Sundays are unavailable.
Ultimately, the value of personal development coaching depends on your specific goals, needs, and your level of commitment to the process. If you're looking for support to facilitate meaningful growth and are willing to invest time and effort in your personal development, coaching can be a powerful tool for achieving lasting positive change. A clear personal development plan makes that effort easier to sustain.
Trauma-informed coaching recognizes that past experiences shape how we show up today. As a personal life coach in Los Angeles, Arecia creates a space where clients feel safe, respected, and in control of the pace. There is no rushing, forcing, or minimizing, just intentional support that honors your whole self.
Personal development coaching is focused on intentional self-growth. It centers on building skills, strengthening confidence, clarifying goals, and creating sustainable change over time.
Life coaching is typically broader. It often supports people through life transitions or periods of uncertainty, focusing on overall well-being rather than specific growth goals.
Both can be valuable, but the difference comes down to how targeted you want the work to be.
Therapy focuses on healing, mental health, and emotional processing and is provided by licensed medical or mental health professionals.
Personal development coaching does not diagnose or treat mental health conditions. Instead, it focuses on the present and future, helping you build awareness, develop tools, and take action toward personal and professional goals.
Some people work with both a therapist and a coach at the same time, as they serve different but complementary purposes.
Mentoring usually involves someone sharing advice or guidance based on their lived experience, often in a specific field or role.
Personal development coaching is a structured, collaborative process. Rather than telling you what to do, a coach helps you uncover your own answers, build skills, and stay accountable to the goals you set. Whether it’s recovering from imposter syndrome, or dealing with workplace issues as a BIWOC woman, Taking First takes on important issues at the root.
Yes. Research shows that coaching has a meaningful, positive impact on both personal and professional growth.
A large meta-analysis reviewing nearly 40 randomized controlled studies and more than 2,500 participants found that coaching produced moderate, statistically significant improvements across leadership, workplace, and personal development outcomes. In simple terms, people who worked with a coach experienced real, measurable benefits.
The study also found that coaching tends to be especially effective when:
Interestingly, the results showed that coaching effectiveness was not dependent on extremely long commitments. What mattered most was the quality of the coach-client relationship and the ability to co-regulate, meaning working together to build insight, confidence, and forward momentum.
While the benefits of coaching are not instantaneous, this research supports what many clients experience firsthand: when done well, personal development coaching can be a powerful tool for clarity, confidence, and lasting change.
