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Should you become a Whole Person Wellness coach?

In contrast to a life coach who focuses up-front on goals related to all aspects of a client’s life, a health and wellness coach centers on the lifestyle changes that are directly related to a client’s health and well-being, taking the whole person into consideration.

What is a wellness coach?

As a holistic wellness coach, you champion your clients to make conscious lifestyle choices and actions that align with their desired well-being goals. This often means you assist them to:

  • Create and maintain an exercise program
  • Incorporate healthier eating habits
  • Promote stress reduction and relaxation
  • Eliminate habits of self-sabotage
  • Develop a spiritual or emotional mindfulness practice for mind/body well-being

Specialized coaching applications within this niche also commonly involve coping tools and strategies for chronic diseases or adapting to specialized diets. These can include arthritis and other forms of pain caused by inflammation, autoimmune conditions, cancer, and unique concentrations that are often grounded in your personal and professional experience as a coach.

In addition to the specializations mentioned above, a health and wellness coach frequently equips individuals with coping tools and strategies for handling chronic diseases or adapting to specialized diets. These can include arthritis and other forms of pain caused by inflammation, autoimmune conditions, cancer, and an extensive range of unique concentrations grounded in your personal and professional experience as a coach.

Is there a difference between a health coach and wellness coach?

Yes. A health coach often partners with western medical professionals. A wellness coach may offer a more holistic eastern approach and partner with naturopaths. The reason we often see this difference is due to the overall focus each has when working with clients.

Wellness coaches offer support and expertise that allow a client to improve all areas of their life simultaneously (physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual). The primary goal is to facilitate the optimal conditions that allow an individual to live their best life.

A health coach focuses primarily on a single issue or specific condition with the aim of improving long-term health. The client-defined goal in this case is often to alter a behavior or habit to improve a condition or quality of life. Interestingly, health coaches are often the ones who increasingly work with others to overcome inactive or sedentary lifestyles.

Who hires a wellness coach?

As a health & wellness coach, clients seek your help when they are unable to achieve their goals alone or are confronted by a chronic or sudden illness. Recognizing that self-care has fallen to last on their priority list, they’re looking for accountability and a non-judgmental partner who motivates them to take better care of themselves.

Although health & wellness coaching clients can be focused on overcoming procrastination and other challenges associated with their health, they may also seek clarity, life-balance, healing strategies and preventative measures. Similar to life coaches, health & wellness coaches want to get to the core of their client’s challenges and work at unconscious levels to create sustainable change in their total well-being.

Why you might love being a wellness coach…

Should you specialize in health and wellness? Yes, if you enjoy working with the whole person while leveraging your specialized knowledge and experience in the health and well-being arena. While you may focus primarily on your client’s physical health, you should also expect to touch on other areas of their life as well. After all, symptoms are never the root of the problem.

Within this branch of coaching, you are typically expected to possess additional knowledge and skills devoted to your client’s unique challenges. These skills typically stem from past experience in related workplace fields, academic studies or your own personal health and wellness journey. As a highly supportive health partner, you help clients make choices that honor who they are and their unique health needs, as well as their desired outcomes. Your mission is to keep people on track for living and feeling their best regardless of their current health and wellness status.

A Whole Person Wellness Coach assists clients to:

  • Set clear fitness and health priorities and goals
  • Find a solution to permanent weight management
  • Develop a support network of supportive people
  • Improve time management, reduce stress and eliminate procrastination
  • Develop consistent motivation to maintain an exercise inclusive lifestyle
  • Understand undesirable habits and be able to replace them with healthier ones
  • Take responsibility for follow-through on declarations made for desired lifestyle plan
  • Enjoy a more satisfying personal and/or professional life
  • Create a balanced, harmonious life

Enhancing the services of medical professionals

In recent years, health & wellness coaching has proliferated inside holistic medical and healthcare practices. This accounts for a noticeable rise in the number of doctors, dentists and other alternative healthcare specialists who have recently supplemented their services through partnerships with coaches.

Having a coach on the team enhances their medical expertise with a powerful means of support, accountability and long-term success. In particular, it empowers the client to implement directives or advice put forth by a doctor or professional healthcare advisor. Working with a coach, patients have more “buy-in.” In turn, this frequently results in a greater success rate for some forms of treatment and improves states of health overall.

Wellness Coaching Certification

Wellness coach training always begins with a strong foundation in holistic coaching, such as our Whole Person Coach Training method. Most wellness coaches round out their coach training by incorporating personal experience or expertise. This means you can specialize as a wellness coach in areas that include nutrition, fitness, stress management, mindfulness, and more!

Whole Person Coaching Book Cover

See how our difference can help you to make yours...

Caitlin Williams, MFA, WPCC

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Caitlin is a Whole Person Certified Coach offering transformational coaching through a holistic & balanced approach in combination with Recovery tools to assist clients in the following areas: Intuitive Eating, Recovery/12-Step, Fine & Performing Arts/Creativity, Life Transitions, Career Exploration, Self-Esteem/Positive Self-Image, and Assertiveness. 

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