Interest in health and wellness education is at an all-time high, and wellness coaching has become a key focus within mainstream healthcare practices.

What is a wellness coach? A wellness coach can be viewed as a supportive mentor who focuses on strategy and clinical interventions to engage clients in healthy behavior changes. The coach utilizes the client’s unique needs to create personalized plans to help guide and motivate lifestyle changes. Here are some insights into why working with a wellness coach is beneficial for optimal wellbeing:

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1. Overall wellbeing focuses on more than just fitness and nutrition.

A wellness coach takes a holistic approach to total body wellbeing by zeroing in on nutrition, stress management, physical and psychological recovery and other factors that impact our everyday life. By partnering with a wellness coach, you’re able to explore and identify these barriers so you can work together to formulate a plan for how to maneuver around them. A wellness coach looks past the physical areas of improvement and puts more emphasis on “why” these issues are happening. This helps the client identify and address the root cause.

2. A wellness coach helps you find greater autonomy.

Helping clients unpack their self-efficacy allows individuals to build confidence and take control of their own behaviors and motivations, which drives individuals to hold themselves accountable. This makes healthy lifestyle changes seem more reachable, and it creates a better sense of confidence in the trainee.

3. Take an individualized approach based on your needs and goals.

No two wellness plans are the same! The client drives the plan, and the coach helps them execute it. If there are missteps, it’s because the plan is wrong and not because the client messed up. This takes pressure off the individual and puts the focus on identifying and creating the “correct plan.”

4. Setting realistic goals is the first step to achieving them.

The wellness coach facilitates the client in identifying the small steps they can achieve, and then builds on those steps to reach the end goal.

5. Wellness coaches teach healthy ways to relieve stress and anxiety.

Our lives are full of distractions and, for many of us, our ‘normal’ is to constantly juggle priorities and tasks. We don’t give ourselves the time to reduce the noise or regroup after tough situations. A wellness coach helps a client relieve stress by identifying its sources. From there, the coach works with the client to find accessible strategies to remove these triggers.

Investing in a wellness coach can impact your life in many positive ways. It’s very common for life events to take precedence over maintaining wellness, but by having a coach dedicated to your wellness goals it allows you to maintain your everyday life, while still feeling empowered to crush your healthy goals!

For anyone interested in receiving a certification in wellness coaching through NASM, visit: https://bit.ly/3K8PwZy

Laurie McCartney is the President of Ascend Learning’s Fitness and Wellness group and oversees the National Academy of Sports Medicine (NASM), the Athletics and Fitness Association of America (AFAA), Premier Global NASM and ClubConnect, which provide industry-leading education solutions in fitness, nutrition and wellness.