What is Health & Wellness Coaching
A Health and wellness coach is a professional who helps you to assess your current physical, emotional, mental and social state. At the same time, a health and wellness coach helps to empower you to meet your well-being and health goals. The coach guides you through the process of creating a vision for your health and well-being, developing a healthy mind-set and habits, and encouraging you every step of the way until you achieve your goals.
How Can Coaching Help You?
A health and wellness coach will help you to achieve your goals in any wellness dimension by working with your strengths and values in creating plans for a long-term strategy. Working with a health and wellness coach should be inspiring, empowering and motivating experience.
Depending on the area of focus, expertise and education, a coach may be able to help you with setting goals with for improved:
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Nutrition
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Exercise
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Sleep
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Emotional health
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Mental health
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Stress
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Behavioural change
A health and wellness coach works closely with you on a one-on-one basis to give you tools to achieve your personal wellness goals. Also, a wellness coach should be able to provide small steps to achieve goals and provide guidance and support along the way. Coaching is about empowering you to reach your goals at your manageability with small steps and then celebrating wins with you.
I personally coach individuals in wellness dimensions such as nutrition, exercise, sleep as well as emotional and mental health via the following:
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Stress Management
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Self-care prioritization
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Mindfulness
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Cognitive behavioural Change
As a health and wellness coach, I coach holistically and what it means to thrive mentally, physically, emotionally and spiritually.
What Coaching Is Not
A health coach is not necessarily a nutritionist, dietitian, or personal trainer. While they may be knowledgeable on these topics, they might not be qualified to offer you nutritional or fitness advice.
A health coach is not a therapist or psychologist. While they can help clients to improve their mind-sets, they are typically not qualified to work with clients who have psychological disorders.
A health coach is not an expert and a problem solver. While they can provide you with answers but they do not as they will work with you to discover answers together. Below is a table that outlines the differences between an expert and a coach.
A health coach is not a sports coach.
Most coaches will list their coaching qualifications and offerings on their services page, so be sure to check there first before working with someone.
How Do You Spot A Legitimate Health & Wellness Coach?
This is an area that can be a little controversial, and it ultimately depends on your preference and comfort levels. Ultimately, it’s up to you to decide what’s important for you when it comes to a coach’s credibility.
That being said, many coaches out there are doing what they do based on self-taught principles. There are also coaches who have been through regimented training such as a master’s level program or coach-specific curriculum.
Legitimate certifications are from ICF, ICHWC and Wellcoaches (School of Coaching).
Since coaching is about helping you dig deeper into the answers within yourself, a coach asks rather than advises. If a coach is telling you what to do more than asking you what you want to do, they may be acting as a consultant rather than a coach.
Do I Need a Health & Wellness Coach?
Now that you have a better understanding of what a health and wellness coach does, you might be wondering if a coach could be beneficial for you.
Ask yourself these:
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Do I have trouble sticking to health-related goals?
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Do I struggle with finishing a task that I set with excitement in the first place and then lost motivation and fail to complete?
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Do I always have low energy and motivation?
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Do I struggle with work-stress?
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Do I find it difficult to prioritize my health and self-care?
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Do I want to make healthy changes to my current lifestyle but unsure where and how to begin?
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Do I think about quitting my bad habits such as smoking but can’t seem to do it?
If you answered YES to any of the above questions, a health and wellness coach would be an ideal option for you.
Most certainly, this is a commitment time-wise and financially, but your self-investment to better health results will result in sustainable growth!
Still not sure or curious about working with a coach?
Click here to fill in this questionnaire form and I would love to get to know you first.