You’re at a point in your life where you’re ready to step into a role that feels meaningful and purposeful. You might already have an awesome job or career path, but you want something else. You want to wake up in the morning excited to get to work changing other people’s lives with wellness. You want to make a career transition, but you’re not quite sure what wellness coaching program you should complete to get you ready for your big career move.
If you’ve got wellness coaching on the mind, you’re always passionate about all things holistic. People can probably find you at your local farmers market and food co-op. You love going to yoga and meditation classes. Your favorite thing to do is reading up on holistic nutrition and finding natural remedies to take your health to the next level. All your friends and family come to you for advice on how to be healthier and improve their well being.
When it comes to wellness, you know all aspects of life matters on the path to feeling great and enjoying optimal health.
So how do you find a wellness coaching program that matches your holistic mindset?
Wellness Coaching Program Differences
You might have already started doing some research on the different health and wellness coaching programs out there. You’ve noticed there are all kinds of labels for what you want to do, and it’s getting a little confusing. Should you do a health coaching program or a wellness coaching program? What does it mean if the two are combined? And do you need to get a personal trainer certification? What’s a life coach have to do with any of this?
Coaching is a general approach to helping others achieve their goals. It’s a set of skills, a way of communication, and a toolbox for creating change. You can use coaching for just about anything, but when it comes to wellness, coaching focuses on helping people feel better about their bodies and lives.
Health coaching often is something that a person does as an add-on to another credential such as nursing, personal trainer, physical therapist, and so on. That said, it’s not essential to have those certifications first. It’s just more common. Health coaching focuses on helping people make choices in their diet, exercise, and health-related lifestyle choices to improve a health condition.
Wellness coaching is more concerned with a person’s whole life. Wellness addresses the physical health of a person but goes deeper into their mindset, finances, relationships, and beyond.
Personal training is primarily focused on exercise. While it’s a great thing to be able to offer clients, it’s not necessary to be a good wellness coach. Life coaching is another branch in the coaching family and is more focused on helping others create changes in their lives in general (not specifically about wellness or health).
Finding a Holistic Coaching Program
You probably want to go deeper than just discussing nutrition with your clients. While you know food is a big part of wellness, you also know that there are a lot of aspects of someone’s life that need to be considered and worked on before they can achieve true well being. If this is your perspective, then a holistic-minded wellness coaching program is the right choice for you.
Many trainings out there spend most of the time focusing on one thing, whether that’s nutrition, exercise, health conditions caused by lifestyle choices, or a single system of thought (such as Ayurveda). Many times, you want to use several tools to help your clients and create a custom solution just for them. Then, you need to learn about many different ways to help.
When researching a particular program, make sure to look through their training outlines. This will help you to find out if they teach many different approaches to wellness. Ensure that they offer comprehensive and in-depth coursework in all parts of holistic health and wellness, including nutrition, exercise, relationships, finances, career path, purpose, and spirituality (similar to IAWP’s Wellness 360 approach). You’ll find the best solutions to help your future clients when you approach wellness from this holistic mindset.
Set Yourself Apart
When you approach wellness from a holistic perspective, your clients get the benefit of many approaches to solving their struggles. You can help them take their lives to the next level in ways that other coaches might not be able to. They won’t just get lists of food and long lectures about getting outside to move their bodies. You’ll be able to listen to their needs and address things in their life that are preventing them from moving forward.
This holistic perspective sets you apart from other coaches and makes you specialized in a way that’s effective for clients. Many of your clients will probably already be moving toward a holistic lifestyle. But, they might have encountered roadblocks or things they could use just a little more help to overcome. That’s when you can come in and help them find the little things that will make a huge difference in their lives. Maybe you’ll help them shift their mindset around food, work, or a frustrating relationship. Or you’ll empower them to finally make that career move they’ve been afraid of. You can help them see the connection between their financial health and how it impacts their physical health.
Choose the Right Wellness Coaching Program for You
Not every program is going to be the right fit for you, so make sure to really do your homework about a wellness program before signing up. Make sure it will fit your lifestyle, current responsibilities, and overall goals. Spend time going over how the program’s faculty and team think about wellness and how that might translate into how the course curriculum is set up. You shouldn’t be afraid of a challenge. You want to make sure you’ll get the training you need to become the wellness coach you dream of being.
Choose a program that’s aligned with your life purpose so you can create a career you love. You can do it!
