Health coaching supports people to bridge the gap between where they are and where they want to be as it relates to matters of their health. Coaches help people explore solutions that will fit their needs, and allows people to explore their needs without judgement. While in a coaching session, you should expect to learn different strategies or be offered the tools you need to reach a goal. If you need encouragement, support and motivation to continue reaching for a particular health goal, then you definitely need a Health Coach on your personal team!
What’s a Health Coach?
When it comes to your health, we often consider nurses, doctors, physiotherapists and massage therapists as the key supporters to helping us reach our goals. But in reality, people also see these practitioners when something is wrong so they can steer us in the right direction. You might see those health practitioners because you need a diagnosis, or some support with your physical body that’s out of alignment. In life, we tend to have things come-up unexpectedly such as an accident or diagnosis. Knowing where to turn to seek medical attention is crucial for restoring our health.
A Health Coach, is a mentor or guide. They help to guide us through a variety of techniques that motivate us to come to better solutions. You might see a health coach when you have some warning signs with your health. You may also need to make changes immediately, to prevent your health condition from getting worst. It’s often difficult to see a new perspective when you see life through the same people all the time. Ultimately, a Health Coach has training to bring-out a different perspective. They know how to help you shift your attitudes, habits, and beliefs to see what you’re truly capable of achieving.
To find a good Health Coach, you’ll want to evaluate their qualifications and experience in health care. Registered Nurses, like myself, or members of some other regulated health profession, make great coaches. Alternatively, they could be trained in an area of psychology. Ultimately, if they’re in health coaching, they’ve got a health background and should have pursued some coaching certification. If you’re questioning your ability to get healthier, getting an outside perspective is a good option. Here are 5 signs that you really need a health coach.
5 Signs That You Really Need A Health Coach
You Have Trouble Following-Through On Your Intentions.
For many people, achieving a health goal is difficult. To cultivate a mindset for health, it’s always a good idea to question whether you’re forcing something. With so much pressure in life, we often have a tough time following through to change our habits. As a result, you keep moving along in life, day after day, week after week, and month after month, without making changes. Failure just keeps happening all over again, and you retreat into the same daily routine.
If you find yourself in this situation, then you need to look at hiring a health coach. When you have trouble following-through on your intentions, regardless of how many times you’ve tried, a coach will help you explore a different approach to managing the change you desire.
Your Stress Levels Are Stopping You From Reaching Your Goals
Life can be stressful, especially if you have many responsibilities to manage such as family and job, and then social demands add more stress to the mix. I know there are times when I’ve been stressed, and just haven’t been able to stick to the plan. When you’re in flow, you roll with your life and you don’t make excuses, or bail on yourself. When you force something, you often come at it with stress and fear. One of the ways to question if you’re “going with the flow”, is to notice how you can manage that stress more easily. Stress interferes with brain function and self-regulation. Learning to meditate can help to balance things as well.
Getting some support from a health coach can help you navigate the stressors of your daily life, to add more balance where you need it most. This outside perspective and motivator can help you shift your mindset and not feel so alone. When we feel we’re going through life alone, your goals take a back seat. So look at your stress levels and evaluate carefully if you’re being consistent in your efforts. Consistency can become an issue when stress levels are too high, and your mindset around staying healthy and balanced gets turned upside-down. When you face stress, it’s a challenge to identify with the reasons that kept you on track in the first place.
You Want To Explore Your Limiting Beliefs
Remember that saying “You don’t know what you don’t know”? This is true. If you think you’re not reaching your goals, or managing stress properly, but you’re really not sure what’s missing, you might have a limiting belief. A limiting belief is easier to catch as an outsider. We often say the same things to ourselves, and we don’t even realize we’re saying them. This is where a Health Coach can help you. They can help identify what you’re saying to yourself, which can give you some clues into the issues you’re facing. Without that exploration into your past, present and future, it’ll be tough to get you on track with reaching your goals with ease.
Exploring limiting beliefs is difficult to do with people you know because it’s the narrative that your friends and family know all too well. Perhaps you heard your mom say that your dad has high blood pressure and it runs in the family. This might be a story you’ve been telling yourself for years, and now it’s affecting your own ability to regulate your blood pressure. You may be making decisions, on a subconscious level, based on a limiting belief that you will inevitably have high blood pressure. The same story goes with people who carry more weight than they like. You may be holding on to an old story that is dictating the way your physiology responds. It’s all in the subconscious mind. Seeing a health coach is a great place to begin when you want to explore your limiting beliefs, or change your story altogether.
Having No Clue Where To Start
The most important thing in life is to be able to wake-up to a life you love, everyday. If you don’t feel that way, you have to learn how to create that. Sometimes we don’t know where to begin, or what actions to take. We become invested in our old and outdated story, and start to feel helpless to our circ*mstances. This can stop you from achieving success, because overwhelm and stress are common reactions to day-to-day problems. When you just don’t know where to begin, or you feel completely overwhelmed with your current story, a great place to start is to reach out to a Health Coach. Being overwhelmed is bad for your health because it releases stress hormones which impede your thinking processes. This pulls you further and further away from taking action.
You Have Poor Habits That Need To Change
If you know you have bad habits that you want to stop, but you can’t, then it’s a clear sign you need some guidance from a Health Coach. A health coach whose trained in behaviour change will help you get through those early stages where you are contemplating a change in habits. They can then help you focus on preparing to take action. We often think that we can go from zero to 100 overnight. This is one of the biggest challenges with making changes, because you don’t spend time preparing and exploring the limiting beliefs around those habits. Health coach can help you get through the toughest stages of change so that life becomes more effortless, and the change is easier to adapt to.
Often times, our habits fulfill a personal need. Once you explore those needs, you might be less distracted by the behaviour and focus on fulfilling your needs in other ways. Habits are deeply engrained patterns that come with a great deal of frustration. A health coach can help you explore the meaning of these habits, so you can learn to approach your health goals in a new way. Good habits require a certain level of commitment and discipline. Having someone cheering you on is always great for your health!
When To Refer To A Health Coach
If you know that someone is asking you for help and you feel like you don’t have a solution for them, consider referring them to a health coach. This could happen when you feel you just don’t have the expertise to support the client to bridge the gap between where they are, and where they want to be. The road to getting what we want out of life often starts with exploring your health, and your beliefs around the definition of health.
