The Foundational Power of Health and Well-Being Coaching
By Wendy Beach, Certified Health and Well-Being Coach
Starting on Shaky Ground
Let’s face it, we usually try to reach a goal and change a habit from a shaky foundation, don’t we? When we’re feeling bad about ourselves, we say “I want to lose weight, quit drinking, get a better job, be a better parent, sleep more, etc. Why? To feel better, right? So we fill our garages with workout gear, our cabinets with supplements, our cupboards with health foods and our shelves with self-help books. All great resources, but if we don’t know who we are and what we want... along with how to get there with our resources and strengths, we will continue to see limited, if any, results from all of this effort and expense.
The Essence of Health Coaching
Why does health and well-being coaching work? Because it’s simple. It’s you. It’s not a product, retreat, class, or supplement. You might choose to use any of those while working on specific goals, but they are not the foundation. A Health and Well-Being Coach is a trained, caring professional helping you build resilience through a solid foundation of self-awareness and purposeful intention. A listener, sounding board, accountability partner, interpreter, and most of all, a mirror.
The Mirror to The Authentic You
As a coach, my first task (a HUGE one!) is to help you see yourself more clearly. Don’t worry, as I “hold up the mirror”, the picture is uniquely, completely amazing...better than you can imagine inside of your own mind. I have the honor of helping you see yourself as those who love you see you. To center and ground that clear vision.
The Enjoyable Adventure of Self-Discovery
As you get to know (and appreciate!) the whole, real you – we work together using evidence-based tools to explore your health and well-being (physical, emotional, mental, spiritual). I ask questions, reflect, summarize – through a structured process that’s fun and flows easily. This is YOU 101! The best, most important subject for your life. This foundational learning makes other lessons easier to navigate and integrate.
Envisioning your Aligned Path
By asking purposeful questions and listening to what they bring up for you, we get to where you see more clearly not only YOU, but what’s most important to you (your values) and what you want for your life (your vision). Shouldn’t you know these things before you pursue goals? You might change the order of your goals so that root causes are addressed first. “The thing is never the thing.” Often a different goal bubbles up that helps the one you’d originally thought was the main issue to change.
Mapping Your Route(s) to Resilience
Then, we look at where you are NOW with what’s important to you vs. where you’d like to be. Not where you “should” be. How many of us even know what “whole-person health” really is? (Spoiler alert: it’s not about eating ‘right’ or exercising ‘enough’!) There are 6 main categories that make up our whole-person health and well-being.
From these categories you’ll be choosing, prioritizing and aligning your goals with your vision and values. We’ll discover and address barriers, leverage internal and external resources, and you’ll build resilience.
Resilience: The Freedom and Joy from Recognizing Your Strengths and Staying Strong
While being “happy” all of the time is not realistic, being resilient frees us to fully enjoy the good in life and be strong through the hard times. As you learn about your unique strengths, you’ll start using good labels to balance out all of those bad labels we accumulate! You may be used to saying “I’m a diabetic.” Or “I have anxiety.” Now you’ll also say “I have Curiosity.” Or “I have Perseverance.” (More on Character Strengths in future blogs!)
Finally, health and well-being coaching helps us build the strength of connecting. First, with ourselves. Then, with others who are aligned, who care, and who are able to be there for us as we will be for them, reminding ourselves and each other of our foundational strengths.
Me using some of my own strengths and grit after a full day of mountain biking and carrying our bikes through a large portion of washed out trail and boulders in St. Moritz, Switzerland.
If you’d like to read more about the evidence and research-driven process of health and well-being coaching, here are some links to explore: Harvard Article, Forbes Article
