What is Wellness Coaching?

What is it exactly?  Do I carry a whistle, wear cleats and get all in your face about achieving those wellness goals?  Sound familiar?

First off, wellness is so much more than exercise, nutrition and physical health.   Wellness includes things like spiritual and emotional health, financial fitness, social wellness… so many things.  It could mean you would like to figure out how to better handle your stress by organizing your life in ways where you can reserve time for yourself to think and center and plan ahead.   Financial wellness may not mean you are wealthy or saving as much as you want.  For a recent client, by talking with me, her coach, she discovered on her own that financial wellness for her involved planning. 

Socializing with friends or networking with strangers to move something forward in your life is often best accomplished over a cup of coffee or tea.   If we add up the cost of that “fancy” coffee x5-7 days a week, we can easily get to $300/month which translates to $3600 a year.   Whoa!   Setting a goal can be easy but is it achievable?   If you miss the mark once, do you give up?  Consider yourself a failure?   Many of us, including me, feel that way often. 

Wellness coaching offers you an accountability partner who helps guide you to achieve those goals by first identifying your strengths and previous successes.  Then she works with you to set a reasonable goal.  When I recently talked to Rosa about a goal in this area, we agreed that 3x a week of packing a bag with good coffee, her French press, her favorite coffee cup and a frother would be a reasonable place to start in avoiding the Starbucks habit.   Part of our conversation included a recognition of the social aspect of purchasing a coffee when meeting a friend.  So we also agreed that reserving one day a week to treat herself and make it a social event was reasonable too. 

One of my favorite authors on Wellness Coaching, Michael Orlosky, uses the analogy of summiting a peak to coaching.  He say, ‘I’m not going to plant a flag at the top of the mountain for you while you sit at the lodge and sip a cocktail, but I will help you set goals to get to the summit yourself.  I will cheer you on, hold you accountable and guide you to succeed because you have the power within to achieve the goal you set of climbing that mountain”.   One of my favorite phrases I hear from toddlers sums it up, “I do it myself!”. 

We all want to feel that sense of success but its easier to get there when we have support.  I recently climbed the Manitou Springs Incline, 2,777 steps, 1900 ft elevation gain in less than a mile.   I did it!   I did it with a group of friends.. We cheered each other on, we took shade breaks along the way, we befriended strangers along the way and one of my friends and I got in a few steep climbs prior to the incline to prepare.   Success is sweeter when there is someone to share it with!  

Wellness coaching is having someone with you on the journey… if not in person, then in spirit and in preparation for achieving that goal.  That coach will be there to check in with you when you struggle, to help you figure out how to adjust your goals or your strategies so you can succeed. 

Another coaching conversation I had recently involved someone wanting to work out more.  She was bummed she missed getting to the gym 4x a week.  I asked her what she had been doing.  She told me had gone hiking, did some running in the morning and probably was on her feet walking about two miles a day doing her job.  I helped her to realize that all of those things are considered “working out”.  Getting physically fit, working out or movement— whatever you call it— doesn’t have to happen in a gym to count or be considered “working out”.  

Reach your goals.. The ones you’ve struggled to succeed at.  Reach out to Best Life Balance for that accountability partner.. Your wellness coach.   See you soon! Book a session on this website.