With global crises on the rise, more wellness coaching in every corner of the world is highly sought after and immensely needed. More and more of these coaches are going virtual and with that shift, reaching clients needs to be easy as well as thorough.
Read along to know more about wellness coaching and how Quenza makes this important coaching niche easier.
What is Wellness Coaching?
Wellness coaching is the coaching modality that concentrates on assisting others in creating individualized plans to improve their physical and mental health.
Wellness coaches use coaching tools in the domains of psychology, exercise, eating, and motivation to improve states of wellbeing.
Effective wellness coaches are well versed in goal setting to serve their clients in adaptable ways in finding improved health.[1]
8 Things Wellness Coaches Do
Pathways to wellness are flexible maps created by each individual client, and a pathway that works for one, may not work for another.
An effective wellness coach creates a resilient toolkit that can adapt to the needs of each individual client.
Some tools must be present with each client, and there are things that wellness coaches must do well.
- Active listening is a skill that wellness coaches use with every interaction with their clients. By listening to, listening for, and listening with their clients, wellness coaches can assist in increasing self-awareness.
- Serving with empathy is something wellness coaches do with every client. Harnessing the power of empathy improves coach-client relationships, acknowledges reasons behind the individual’s situation, and illuminates automatic reactions that may need to shift.
- Wellness coaches often have to educate their clients in areas of wellness they are seeking to improve. Developing a content-rich tool kit to send to clients makes coaching more efficient.
- Providing a framework for goal setting is vital for successful wellness coaches. Client goals will be more readily attained when the framework for goal setting takes a holistic approach. Action planning can occur at pivotal moments in a client’s life, particularly where health and wellness are concerned. A framework should include the target goal while taking into account the client’s personality, emotions, support network, and opportunities for mental rehearsal. In addition, planning for hiccups on the path to goals is very important.
- Offering support is an important part of what wellness coaches do. Wellness is fluid. Inevitably, there will be mistakes made on the road to wellness. Unconditional positive regard is a skill that wellness coaches must master for effective support to be offered. Support through accountability is a powerful way for many clients to stay on track.
- Motivating & Empowering clients is another thing wellness coaches do. Along with educating clients on the benefits of lifestyle changes, wellness coaches best serve their clients by empowering them to take ownership of their progress. Self-regulation may not be a top character strength for some clients, and good coaches know how to pair higher strengths to pull lower strengths up.
- Tracking progress is a very important thing that wellness coaches do. Showing measurable improvements in wellness can reinvigorate motivation and empowerment. Technology has made tracking progress fun and easy in many ways. Quenza offers tools to help clients self-assess areas of improvement over time.
- Celebrating clients is a powerful thing that wellness coaches do. Responding to clients with Active Constructive Response offers many benefits to clients. Studies have shown that those who shared their positive experiences increased in positive affect, happiness, and life satisfaction over the course of four weeks.[2] Coaches who master ACR can help their clients reach their goals and improve their overall happiness at the same time.
How To Perform Wellness Coaching
Wellness coaching is performed in a variety of settings and can take place virtually, as well as in person. There are many group wellness coaching opportunities as well.
This particular type of coaching bridges the gap between traditional medicine and personal changes to lifestyles, and many physician’s offices have wellness classes and/or coaching attached to their practice.
More and more opportunities to serve people happen when a preventive stance is grasped.
Successful lifestyle changes most often come with support and accountability. Clients often know the broad idea of what needs to change but are overwhelmed by the how. This is where wellness coaches become so important.
Wellness coaching programs should have a definite structure in an effort to set clients up for success. The following is a guide for setting up each session.
- Establish a coaching agreement, build rapport, and get specific on each coaching session topic.
- Have the client establish goals for each, specific coaching session.
- Coach each client with unconditional positive regard and educate (with permission, as needed).
- Identify action steps that the client is willing to take. Establish their level of commitment to those action steps.
- Help the client envision possible outcomes.
- Assist the client in planning for possibilities that could derail progress. Help them establish alternatives and ways to overcome any stumbling blocks that might arise.
- Request an understanding of how the client would like to be held accountable.
- Set a date and time for follow-up.
Best App & Software For Virtual Coaches
New apps and software pop up every day trying to serve coaches, but there is no app like Quenza which gives coaches the best user-friendly platform to increase client engagement. New features are being added frequently to make it the best app for wellness coaches.
The active community at Quenza is excellent at sharing resources and helpful tips. Creating user-friendly pathways for your clients to experience on their mobile devices creates a safe space for motivational change.
Available evidence-based activities help streamline your coaching practice, giving you more time.
11 Online Tools and Resources in Quenza
An ever-expanding stockpile of tools to increase client engagement is available for Quenza’s users.
Wellness coaches helping their clients create salubrious habits can find the activities and expansions quickly, and even create their own personalized tools to include in their library.
Quenza is equipped with abundant tools and resources for practitioners to serve their clients efficiently, including coaching agreements, forms, coaching exercises, and a wide range of easy-to-use, customizable templates for formal documents. Some of the tools are mentioned below.
Before a client gets started, offering a Pre-Coaching Questionnaire during intake can set the stage for future coaching sessions. A client can fill this out to hone in on the areas where they’d like to create change. Self-assessment tools like the Wheel of Life self-assessment and Life Domain Satisfaction are also helpful in raising client self-awareness.
A common stumbling block for wellness coaching clients is body image. Quenza has a tool for Creating a Positive Body Image, and having clients write a Letter of Compassion can be a great start. We need to take it easy on ourselves when seeking big changes to our lifestyle.
The Consulting Your Future Self tool can help interrupt urges for clients on a wellness journey. Distinguishing the Difference Between Physical and Emotional Hunger is another tool available to interrupt automatic behaviors.
Importantly, a growth mindset is a prerequisite for true change. Quenza has provided a tool called 20 Guidelines for Developing a Growth Mindset (shown above) to help.
Effective wellness coaches deliver open-ended questions to allow clients to self-determine the direction they’d like to move toward wellness.
With Quenza’s Activity Builder, you can create your list of powerful questions in the following areas to hold space for your clients.
Use the following for inspiration:[3]
- Introduction Questions: e.g. What does health look like to you?
- Lifestyle Questions: e.g. What is your stress level like?
- Goal Setting Questions: e.g. What are 3 specific health goals you’d like to achieve?
- Deeper Dive Questions: e.g. What does your inner critic say to you on a daily basis?
- Commitment Questions: e.g. On a scale of 1-10, how committed are you to your goal and why?
- Support and Accountability Questions: e.g. Who is in your support system? How do you want to be held accountable?
- Limit Questions: e.g. What are the obstacles to you attaining your goals?
- Future/ Visualization Questions: How will you know when you have attained your goals?
Quenza also includes a client session notes tool for clients to enable them to reflect and write down insights from their sessions.
10 Unique Benefits of Using Quenza
Quenza has been thoughtfully designed with practitioners in mind. One of the platform’s main benefits is increasing client engagement. The chat feature helps increase action steps with more frequent contacts in between coaching sessions. This is particularly helpful for Wellness Coaches to touch base with clients who want to stay on track toward their goals.
The tools and exercises utilized in Quenza are all evidence-based, as mentioned in a Ph.D.’s assessment of 5 of Quenza’s unique benefits.
Group wellness coaching with Quenza can maximize time and energy for the coach and the group.
The platform’s Activity Builder streamlines activities from exercises to assessments with user-friendly drag-and-drop capabilities.
From there, coaches can create personalized and brand customizable lessons, assessments, and interventions with the Expansion Library.
Wellness coaching programs can then be organized with a customized Pathway Builder.
This platform provides the “how” of coaching in such a user-friendly way that even the tech-challenged won’t get the “tech sweats” while streamlining their program with Quenza.
Training in Wellness Coaching: Certifications
There is abundant opportunity for training in wellness coaching. To find the right fit for training, you first must examine your qualifications. There are university offerings that require a Bachelor’s Degree to opt-in. There are other fitness-based coach training solutions that require no pre-requisites. The best first step for training and certification is to determine how this training will be used out in the world.
The main types of certifications available for wellness coaches are wellness program certifications, health coach certifications, and personal training/ fitness certifications. Each is helpful, but finding what you desire is important before embarking on a learning journey.
A succinct collection of 7 popular certifications for corporate wellness coaches can be found in our Corporate Wellness Coaching guide.
The National Board for Health and Wellness Coaching (NBHWC) has a thorough list of 80+ approved programs. Graduates from each of these approved programs are eligible to sit for the National Board examination for certification. The list includes universities and businesses across the globe.
5 Best Courses, Degrees, and Programs
Many accredited coaching programs require a bachelor’s degree for certification.
- Georgetown University’s continuing studies program offers a top-rated health and wellness coaching program. This top-tier program is NBHWC and ICF approved.
- Creighton University offers a Master of Science in Integrative Health and Wellness.
- There are also Associates Degrees available for Health and Wellness Coaching. Anoka-Ramsey Community College has a top-rated course. This one is in Minnesota, but many community colleges offer this type of training as well.
- One of the best online wellness coaching certifications can be found at Cornell University.
- The gold standard of personal training/ fitness certifications for wellness is through NASM.
Final Thoughts
Wellness coaching is a vastly needed niche in the current global climate, and more movement in preventive wellness is vital.
Making wellness and group wellness coaching accessible and as easy to learn as possible is bound to help more and more people across the world.
We hope you enjoyed this guide. To apply the best practices you’ve learned, and don’t forget to try out Quenza’s wellness coaching tools for $1.
References
- ^ Biron, M. & Bamberger, P. (2011) More than lip service: linking the intensity of empowerment initiatives to individual well-being and performance. The International Journal of Human Resource Management 22(2), 258-278.
- ^ Lambert, N. M., Gwinn, A. M., Baumeister, R. F., Strachman, A., Washburn, I. J., Gable, S. L., & Fincham, F. D. (2013). A boost of positive affect: The perks of sharing positive experiences. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 30(1), 24-43.
- ^ Day, T., & Tosey, P. (2011). Beyond SMART? A new framework for goal setting. Curriculum Journal, 22(4), 515–534.
