We wish you the best of luck in your endeavor to master “The Essentials of Coaching for Wellness
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To receive continuing education credits, a post course assessment (exam) is required. The exam consists of 45 questions. You may obtain a copy of the exam when all assignments have been completed and sent to Dr. Pentz for review. Upon passing the exam, your continuing education credit hours will be granted.
Thank you for registering for the home study course “The Essentials of Coaching for Wellness Professionals.”
This course includes a handbook, a PowerPoint Presentation (PDF format), a workbook with four assign-
ments, and a final course exam for those wishing to receive CEC’s.
1. Read the handbook.
5. Upon passing the exam, your continuing education credit hours will be granted.
4. For those of you doing so, the 45-question exam is available to you after your assignments have been completed and sent to Dr. Pentz for review.
3. When all assignments are complete, e-mail them to the address below.
The process is as follows:
2. View the PowerPoint presentation. Complete all three assignments as detailed in the accompanying workbook.
The Essentials of Coaching
Essentials of Coaching Workbook Assignment 1 Answer the following questions for the three clients below. Provide a 2- or 3-sentence answer per question per client. 1. How would a personal trainer/athletic trainer work with this client, student, or patient? What might they focus on? 2. How would a nutrition consultant? 3. How would a therapist or counselor? Maryanne is a single 55-year-old woman who is 75-pounds overweight, a smoker, and has a family history of diabetes. She is at high risk for the disease. Her doctor recommended she begin an exercise and nutrition program, and try to quit smoking. She has begun walking regularly but is having trouble sticking to it because she “gets bored.” She says her entire family has been “heavy” as long as she can remember. She has only ever known the traditional meat and potatoes-type of dinner, and she says it’s “impossible” to eat any other way. She drinks Coke at every meal, and she does not seem to understand that excess calories (not fat) are contributing to her weight gain. Tony is an 18-year old freshman in college who has recently lost a lot of weight through dieting. He does not want to gain the Freshman 15 or return to his prior obese self. He has been working out with his buddies, but they are all getting “cut” and he is still flabby. He comes to you to get leaner, but he has a deep fear of eating enough to sustain muscle growth. He is completely clueless about sports nutrition, even though he is a baseball player (pitcher) and he needs to sustain his energy for long games. He lives in the dorm and has to eat dorm food. Between running to classes and making all of his baseball practices and games, his eating habits are atrocious. His energy is generally low and he wants to improve that as well as his physique. Suzanne is 32-year-old married woman with a 3-year-old and a 14-month-old baby. She stays at home to take care of the kids. Her husband commutes to another city 4 days a week, and the two rarely see each other. She feels alone and overwhelmed with work around the house. Her eating habits have suffered since her husband is no longer around much and she only
cooks “kid food,” so she mainly relies on takeout—when she has time to sit down and eat. Her body fat has shot up from 18% before her first child to 32% after her second child, and she wants to reduce it by at least 10% for health and aesthetic reasons. She’s having a hard time exercising because she feels totally alone in raising the kids, and none of her friends have kids yet so they don’t really do much together anymore. Now, explain why the above clients are having wellness difficulties from the perspective of a coach. Then describe how coaching could help these clients. Explore the areas of environment, support, responsibility, and reasons to change. (You also might find it helpful to review slides 8 and 9.) Finally, identify a change in your own life that was challenging for you, and describe how you finally accomplished it. Cover the areas of goal-setting, practice, support, and your reasons for changing. Assignment 2 Describe a client who is ready to change and one who is not. What do they say? How do they act? List 15 How/What questions (not listed on slide 32) that are effective for coaching. List 15 questions that would not be effective coaching questions and explain why they are not effective. Assignment 3 Would you work with the following clients in person or on the phone? Could you work with them in either manner? Why or why not? Gloria is a 55-year-old obese woman who came to you to learn how to control her meal portions and start an exercise program. She is afraid of failing because she has tried every diet book in the bookstore and not one of them has worked for her. You discover that she has no idea how her metabolism has been affected by years of dieting. She needs education and guidance as she explores options for finally getting healthy. Michael is a 35-year-old VP of a marketing company who works more than 80 hours a week. He puts his work and his company before everything else, and his health is paying the price. He has high cholesterol and high blood pressure, and he is on the verge of taking medication for both. His doctor told him he needs to start exercising and watching his diet, but Michael is reluctant to spend any time on himself at all. What would your preference (phone or in person) be for working with your own coaching clients? Why?
Give specific examples of how you’d work with the following clients. Two or three sentences per client is sufficient. Lisa has just met her 3-month goals with you. She has been consistently working out at the gym 3 days a week for 45 minutes. She began doing yoga on Sunday and she loves it. She has started eating breakfast for the first time in her life. And she is slowly weaning herself off of caffeine. She expressed a desire to begin learning how to buy and prepare healthy foods at home so she is not at the mercy of other people’s high-fat, high-sugar foods. How would you work with Lisa on this new goal? Mitch has been coaching with you for 5 months and he is still throwing the blame card around. He blames his wife for not helping him exercise, and he uses her as an excuse for his unhealthy eating habits—even at work. He has cut back significantly on his wine drinking since he started with you, and he now takes the stairs at work instead of the elevator, but he seems to be stuck in this rut in regards to his unhealthy habits around his wife. He feels he has no support at home and therefore he is nearly ready to give up on his healthy goals. How would you coach Mitch out of his rut? Jeremy has been the CEO of a major energy corporation for 15 years. He previously ran 3 marathons a year and did tae kwan do every week. He has not been watching his health for the last 10 years, however, since his difficult divorce. He smokes, drinks every night, and eats out most meals. His major excuse is that he “has no time” to be healthy. But when his doctor told him he’d be dead in 5 years if he didn’t change his unhealthy ways, it sparked Jeremy into action. He called you last week and this is his first coaching session. How would you begin working with Jeremy?
The Essentials of Coaching for Wellness Professionals
Handbook
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Essentials of Coaching
Copyright Dr. Jane Pentz and Lifestyle Management Associates No
part of this course may be altered or reproduced in any manner
without written permission from the copyright holder, Dr. Jane
Pentz.
This Handbook is designed to introduce you, the established
wellness professional, to the exciting and effective field of coaching.
Before continuing, I do want to provide you some definitions for
words I will use quite often in this course. When I refer to a coach,
I am including all wellness professionals/coaches and trainers,
including all dietitians, nutritionists, nutrition counselors, athletic
trainers, and personal trainers. And when I refer to clients, I am
including students, athletes, and patients as well. In order to
ensure consistency in the course, I simply used the universal terms
coach and client throughout.
Section 1 is an introduction to coaching, which answers the
questions “What is coaching,” and “Why does coaching work?” It
will also help you understand the change process in which your
clients are about to embark. Change is a scary thing for us humans,
and good coaches must understand the change process inside and
out if they hope to be successful in their coaching practice. Assignment 1, which follows this
section, will help you do just that.
Section 2 reveals how to choose and work with coaching clients. If Section 1 gave you the
foundation on which coaching is built, this section provides the framework. In it, I’ll describe how
to determine whether clients are ready or resistant to change, and I’ll then detail the role of both
the client and the coach in a coaching relationship. Assignments 2 and 3 will help you absorb the
crucial information in this section.
Just a quick note about how I’ve written this handbook. I do use the pronoun “she” when referring
to coaching clients. My clients have been about 50% male and 50% female, but I preferred to use
a feminine pronoun here.
Now, let’s get started learning about the most effective way to foster wellness in clients’ lives:
Coaching!
Section 1
Here in Section 1, I’m going to reveal just what, exactly, is coaching? Why is it so effective for
clients in the wellness field? And how do you, as a coach, work through the complex change
process with your clients? Assignment 1 follows this section, and will help solidify these ideas in
your mind. After all, you’ve got to thoroughly understand the concepts behind coaching before
selling these services to—and being successful with—your clientele!
You’ve obviously heard about coaching by this point in your career. There are business coaches,
career coaches, relationship coaches—you name the field, there seems to be a coach for it. But
what IS it? The definition is a concisely worded description of this powerful concept: Coaching is a
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co-creative partnership between a qualified coach and a willing client that supports the client
through desired life changes.
The key to this definition is the term “co-creative”. In coaching, you are not the expert in your
client’s life. You work with your client to discover solutions to their wellness challenges as they
emerge through discussion and exploration. Therefore, coaching is VERY different from athletic or
personal training, nutrition consulting, or traditional therapy or counseling.
In personal training, athletic training, or nutrition consulting sessions, YOU are the expert, you
have the information or answers, and you educate your client by passing on that information or
those answers. The client is more like a sponge waiting to soak up your expertise, not a creative
partner who is equally involved in the informing process.
For example: A nutrition consultant might use an intake food diary of a client to work up a list of
possible areas for improvement, such as reducing saturated fat intake. The nutrition consultant
would then decide that the client’s next session would be geared toward educating the client about
saturated fat and its health effects, in hopes that the client would see the benefit in reducing the
amount of saturated fat she eats. Whereas in coaching, the coach would see an elevated intake of
saturated fats, and then ask the client what, if anything, she is willing to change about it. If the
client did not see that an elevated saturated fat intake was harmful, or she did not feel a need to
change that part of her lifestyle, the coach might ask if the client were open to being educated
about the effects of saturated fat, but if the client said “no,” nothing would be done at that time.
The coach could broach the topic again at an appropriate time when the client expressed an
interest in making a healthy change regarding fat intake. As you’ll learn throughout this course,
coaching is client-directed—your clients always know when they are ready to make changes, and
your success depends on letting them steer the majority of their program. People won’t change
unless they have a strong desire to do so!
Because you are already an established expert in your profession—whether it be nutrition, fitness,
or athletic training—you are endowed with the knowledge that a lot of your coaching clients will
seek as they make and set wellness goals. In life or business coaching, the coach does not have a
high level of expertise in the wellness arena. If their clients want help with health related issues,
their clients must set goals to seek out and retain help from wellness experts such as yourself. But
since you’re the coach, when and how do you decide to provide the wellness expertise that your
client needs?
The answer is easy: You only provide information that your client requests in relation to her goals.
If your client expresses a desire to work with a trainer, and you are a trainer, you can offer your
services. If she needs specific information about cholesterol, you can provide that to her. But these
requests for your expertise MUST come from the client, and they must be spelled out in her weekly
coaching goals. You must almost play “split personality” as you coach a client that you are also
providing with wellness direction. But being a wellness coach gives you a special opportunity that
other coaches do not have—the chance to be that much more involved in your client’s progress.
You don’t have to refer to a different professional and hope for the best—you ARE the referred
professional! This alone sets wellness coaching apart from other types of coaching. I’ll talk a little
more about how to work with clients when you’re donning both the coach’s hat and the wellness
expert’s hat a little later on. For now, let’s look at how counseling and coaching differ.
I already described the differences between consulting and coaching. But coaching is also different
from psychological counseling or “therapy” in three very important ways. One, in counseling or
therapy it is assumed that something is “wrong” with the client. Two, a counselor or therapist is
assumed to “know what’s wrong and how to fix it” based on a body of knowledge that the client
can be compared against. And three, counseling and therapy look to the PAST to try to help explain
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WHY a client acts a certain way in the present, or how a client’s past actions have contributed to a
present situation.
None of these is true in coaching. In coaching, a coach does not know what the client needs—only
the client knows what she needs. She comes to the coach to help her get clear on her choices and
be supported in making positive changes. And in coaching, it is always assumed (unless proven
otherwise) that the client is mentally healthy and is capable of making responsible, reasonable
choices in her life. If a potential client presents herself as a diagnosed mental health patient,
psychological counseling may be more appropriate than coaching, and a professional referral
should be made. It’s best to have at least one referral source in your address file before you begin
offering coaching services, just in case.
Finally, coaching is focused on the present and the future. We don’t want to help clients relive the
past—we want to help them see a different, healthier future! Instead of helping clients explain their
past or current behaviors, we help them create and practice new behaviors that lead to new
outcomes. For example, if a client were overweight, a therapist might delve into the client’s past
relationship with an abusive lover, which led the client to eat as a source of comfort. Whereas in
coaching, a coach would not get into these reasons for overeating, but would instead encourage
the client to be aware of her eating patterns and help her start to add small, healthier changes in
eating habits, one step at a time, until they become a normal part of her routine—no matter what
her previous reasons for overeating were. Thus, therapy focuses on understanding habits, while
coaching works to actively change them!
So why is coaching so effective in helping people make healthy life changes? First and foremost,
coaches (or smart coaches) only choose to work with clients who are ready to change. In the initial
client screening process, you will be diligent about weeding out those clients who really are not
ready to take responsibility for their choices and actions. You’ll be introduced to the Stages of
Readiness to Change later in this program, and you’ll learn how to use some key questions to help
you choose appropriate clientele.
Coaching is also a successful means for achieving wellness goals because coaches assume their
clients are mentally healthy and actually able to change themselves. Unlike a therapist, who
assumes a client is flawed and needs fixing, a coach believes wholeheartedly in the power the
client has within herself to make choices that can benefit her for the rest of her life.
And one of the most important ways coaches help clients access this skill is by asking meaningful
questions. Coaching is ALL about asking questions—until the client comes up with her own,
individually appropriate answers. By doing so, the coach is handing over the responsibility for the
client’s actions to the CLIENT. And this leads us to probably the most crucial feature of coaching—
clients are responsible for the actions they perform while involved in a coaching program. The
coach is supportive and informative, but only the client can be held accountable for reaching
weekly, monthly, and long-term goals because the client actually decides on these goals herself.
No one is telling her what to do or how to do it. This is where most wellness professionals find a bit
of resistance and confusion from their clients—and even amongst themselves! After years of
always taking control of a client’s wellbeing and making all the choices, and sometimes taking the
blame, for a client’s success or failure, this time it is up to the client to make her program
successful. The coach is there to ask questions so the client becomes very clear on the path that
will work for her and her alone.
And in order to help the client on this likely totally new path, the coach will listen and truly hear the
client, and totally support the client as she tries new paths to get to her desired outcomes. I’ll talk
more about this in Section 2.
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It should be obvious at this point that the client is part of the reason coaching works, too! In a
successful coaching relationship, the client:
• Truly wants to make life changes
• Accepts responsibility for choices, actions, and consequences
• Is not afraid to try
• Understands that failure is not a personal flaw
• Learns to change thinking patterns and habits
When a potential client comes to you and says “I really want to change—what do I need to do?”
Then you have the makings for a beautiful coaching relationship. The desire to change is the first
key to making changes that stick!
The next major key to success is a willingness on the client’s part to take the responsibility for her
actions, as I mentioned. And in so doing, she can’t be afraid to try new methods. She can’t
continue to believe—as most people do, especially those who try diet plans—that a failed plan is an
indication that she has failed as a person. Nothing could be further from the truth. The successful
coaching client must understand that trying and failing are part of making life changes—and she
must be willing to keep at it!
Finally, in order to make lasting changes in a client’s life, both the coach and client must
understand that a complete change in the way the client thinks must occur. Coaching works
because a coach reinforces healthy and effective ways of thinking and acting. And a client feels the
ramifications of acting and thinking in unhealthy, unproductive ways. For example, if a client
believes she is a failure and that nothing she does will ever work, she’s right! But if she believes
she can try anything, and that she is bound to succeed at some point, she is also right! As coaches,
it’s our job to make it very clear that what the client thinks will truly shape her reality. It’s the
client’s job to then believe in her own capacity to succeed in healthy changes.
I’ll talk more about all of these topics in Section 2 when we cover the role of the coach and the
client in detail.
Understanding the change process
Now I’ll get into the meat of what coaching is all about—CHANGE. What a scary word that is to
most people! It can cause anxiety, stress, and self-doubt. Our job as coaches is to make change a
desired, exciting concept—one that can elicit joy and confidence in a client. How can we do that?
First, we must understand why change is so difficult. Then we can explain its challenges and
benefits to our clients and help instill confidence in their ability to get through it in one piece!
Considering that you have already been working with clients in a wellness setting in some capacity,
you might very well be familiar with some or all of these concepts. But I’ll really help you
understand how to explain and use these concepts with your clients in order to achieve the best
possible outcomes. Remember, as a coach it is not your job to be responsible for your client’s life,
but it IS your responsibility to understand them as humans and support them as they undertake
what can be some very nerve-racking choices.
Here, then, are the major components of the change process:
Point 1: Habits are made, and not born (thus, any habit can be un-made as well)
Point 2: Environment affects success (remember Pavlov’s dog, which salivated at the sound
of a bell after the ringing bell repeatedly preceded a meal? Every human has environmental
“bells” that trigger responses, and it’s these unhealthy responses that coaching works to
change.)
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Point 3: Support is Key
Without support, we humans feel overwhelmed by change. Coaching is, at its foundation, a
source of support for clients.
Point 4: Stress/emotional effects of change
Not knowing the result of something is scary for ALL animals, but we as humans are
bestowed with the unsavory ability to STRESS about it. We’ve got to be able to deal with
these emotional responses to change if we hope to be successful.
Point 5: Must have a strong reason to change
Meaning there is some emotional buy-in. (Change, like purchasing something, is based on
an emotional response to the projected outcome. “If I get this I will feel great about myself!
If I buy that I will be admired!” If you don’t really want the outcome, if your heart’s not in
it, you won’t do the “work” to get the projected results.) Because after all it’s much easier
to do nothing! (and it’s always easier to do nothing if you really don’t want the projected
results that badly anyway!)
Point 6: Practice over time
Repeat, repeat, repeat! (You’ve heard the phrase “practice makes perfect.” Well, I don’t
believe in perfection (and your clients need to be talked out of it, too!, trust me) but I will
say “practice makes a habit.” And since a change in habit is what we’re after, we LOVE
practice!)
We, like all animals, learn how to act by imitating our parents and those people we are exposed to
in our early years. Unlike animals, who act clearly on the instinct that will keep them alive, we
humans can choose actions at any time that clearly act against our own survival! People eat too
much, drink too much, and let their bodies go to waste—which animals would never do because
they are hard-wired to act only for survival. So as a baby human, we can be exposed to habits and
actions from our parents that are NOT healthy, and not conducive to our wellbeing. Unfortunately,
as babies and small children, we don’t know enough to differentiate between healthy and unhealthy
habits. So we take everything we are shown, and we adopt it as our own. And only later, as
thinking adults, can we choose healthier habits based on what we want our lives, bodies, and
futures to be like.
So we have to remind—and usually convince—our clients that they CAN and should choose habits
and outcomes that work for them. If something isn’t working in a client’s life, she must be able to
see that she has the choice to change the actions that lead to that outcome. For example, if her
family overate and she has learned poor eating habits that lead her to gain excess weight, she
needs to see that she can choose to learn better eating habits that will lead her to lose weight—IF
that’s what she really wants to do. Clients must see that, as an adult, they have every possibility to
change any habit they have ever learned—it just takes work and time. And the coaching
relationship is a safe, effective place to undertake such work.
As humans, we are mammals with survival instincts. Our instinct, genes, physical makeup—
whatever you want to call it—is set to keep us alive. And one of the keys to staying alive in any
environment is knowing what’s coming. If you can predict what will happen when certain actions
take place, you can control the outcome of such actions in your favor. For example, if you know
that when you are really stressed out and you eat ice cream, you feel sedated and full, you will eat
ice cream. If you have never just taken a walk or written in your journal when you feel stressed,
you will have no idea how you will feel afterward and you will be wary and even fearful of trying
these alternatives: What will I feel like after I walk or write in my journal? Will I still be hungry for
ice cream? Will I feel even more stressed out? You don’t know the outcome, so you feel afraid to
try the new action.
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This is the problem with changing. Our bodies are physically wary of new actions because the
outcomes may not help get rid of the threat to our survival—the stress! We just won’t know until
we try!
Therefore when our clients are starting the change process, we have to help them control their
environment as much as possible so they can feel safe in making healthy changes. So if stress
triggers a desire to eat ice cream, and the habit we’d like to form is that stress triggers a desire to
go for a walk, we must either remove the habitual outcome (ie, the ice cream) or reduce/eliminate
the habitual stimulus for eating ice cream: the stress. Now obviously not all stress can be
eliminated from anyone’s life, but some types of stress can be reduced—and those are the ones we
can help the client work to reduce. So our job as coaches is to help the client see what is causing
her unhealthy habits, and what stimuli and/or outcomes she can remove from her daily
environment. Then she can actively choose new outcomes related to those prior, unhealthy stimuli.
One statement that can define coaching is the common phrase, “No person is an island.” Meaning,
no human can live without the physical and emotional contact of another human. We’re just not
made to survive this world in isolation! That being the case, doesn’t it make sense that we wouldn’t
be very good at undertaking something as scary as change all by ourselves? We need help! And
coaching is a shining example of how effective support can be.
Initially when a client comes to you, you may find that you are the sole support the client has. She
may come to you out of desperation because she has tried to make healthy changes on her own,
and has not succeeded. Her friends or family might now know how to support her in her quest for
healthy change. So you, as a coach, represent that all-important hand to hold and shoulder to lean
on as she takes on new life choices.
But be aware—you’ve got to do your homework and set some personal boundaries before taking on
coaching clients, or you run the risk of being every client’s best friend and confidant! This is a sure
way to career burnout! As a coach, you are definitely there for your clients to lean on during their
appointments, but you are not a ready-made friend that they can call at all hours to discuss their
problems. Be very clear about your own boundaries from the beginning, and you’ll be able to
support your clients while still retaining the support you need in your own life. After all, you can’t
be a good supportive coach to your clients if you aren’t a good supportive person to yourself and
your own needs! And the last thing you want to do as a coach is foster a codependent relationship
with your clients. You must support them, yes. But they must not become dependent upon you.
There is a huge difference.
The great thing about coaching is, you understand the change process and can help the client
explain to her loved ones the type of support she needs: unconditional belief in her ability to
change, and undying enthusiasm for her intended success. With a coach who demonstrates this
type of support, clients usually can recruit effective helpers outside of the coaching relationship
after just a few weeks of coaching. Thus, as your clients work with you, their circle of support will
likely grow—making the change process that much easier, their potential for lasting change that
much greater, and the likelihood of them pushing your personal boundaries that much lower.
In addition to your familiarity with the change process, you are also an expert in a wellness-related
field. So you have an even greater ability to support your clients with information and
encouragement. But you have to be careful with your role as expert. Your first priority is to coach,
giving your client 100% of your listening ear as described in detail in Section 2. You will have to
get into the habit of only offering your wellness expertise when and if the client asks for your help.
And even then I highly recommend scheduling separate sessions for coaching and for
expert/informational sessions. I personally worked with my coaching clients on the phone, where
we ONLY worked on the coaching process. Those clients who requested it also had personal
training sessions in the gym with me, where we only worked on training, or nutrition sessions at
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their home or office, where we only talked about nutrition education. This was a very effective
system for ensuring that my role as coach was not being steamrolled by my role as a wellness
expert. I only offered up wellness expertise when my client requested it, and it pertained to her
goals. And our coaching sessions stayed purely about coaching.
Emotional effects of change
As clients start to look at their habits and decide upon which ones they would like to change, they
will usually experience a strong emotional response to such change. Because the results of their
unhealthy habits are predictable and clients feel safe performing them, beginning to change them
will be highly stressful. Remember, pre-historically, as a prey animal, we humans tried like crazy to
keep our environment predictable so that we could survive. Now we have to trust that entering into
an unknown environment will not, theoretically, kill us! Luckily, because we’re human, we can
understand this concept. With a little questioning you can garner the trust and willingness
necessary from your clients to undertake some life changes they never thought they’d tackle.
Also as adults, when we perform any new action, we usually feel some self-doubt. Remember what
it was like when you were a kid? You tried everything, you had no fear of failure and no fear of
success. You tried things because they were new and you were learning what you liked and what
you were good at. But somewhere along the road to adulthood we learned that acting a certain
way, or performing certain actions, elicited certain favorable or unfavorable responses from people
we cared about. Suddenly, our choices were affecting people around us. And we started to be
really analytical and hyper-sensitive to changing ourselves. Your client may well come up with
some serious change-stopping questions as she explores how her new, untried habits will affect
every area of her life:
She might wonder, “If I change, will my friends still hang out with me? Will I like myself? Will my
spouse love me? What will my life be like? Will I stay in my job? Will I be able to have time for the
things I enjoy doing with my family? Will my family change with me? Will my parents believe in
me?” These are all scary questions that we coaches can help our clients respond to in a positive,
healthy way. By asking our clients, “What do you like about your relationship with your friends
now? What do you not like? How would you LIKE your relationship with your friends to change after
you make this healthy change? How could your new habits affect your relationships in a positive
way? How might your family be affected by your new habits in a positive way?” We can usually
help our clients see that the changes SHE makes will likely have positive healthy affects on the
relationships she already has. She must be committed to her change, however, or her current
environment could pull her back into her unhealthy habits—reiterating the importance of controlling
her environment, AND having a very strong reason for changing. The stress or fear involved with
changing can easily be overcome if the desire to change, that emotion-driven vision of how the
client will be after the change occurs, is strong enough.
And that brings us to the all-important reason your clients are going to change their lives. A client’s
reason for going through this difficult process must have some sort of emotionally-charged reward
attached to it. Did you know that people make a majority of their choices based on their feelings,
not based on fact or rational arguments? It’s true in advertising, and it’s true in life! For example,
what do Goodyear tires have to do with cute babies and little puppies? Nothing, as far as I know,
but the advertising geniuses that Goodyear hired knew that people make decisions based on
emotions, and babies and puppies elicit warm and fuzzy emotions in most of us—they represent
things that we feel a need to protect. So when we see their brand at the mechanics garage, we will
remember the pleasing feelings we felt while viewing Goodyear commercials, and we’ll feel good
about buying their tires. “They’ve got babies and puppies riding in their tires,” we think, “They
must be safe!” And we plunk down our money—even though Firestone tires might be exactly as
safe, or even safer! The process of change plays on the same emotional response that advertising
does. Facts, or logic, don’t necessarily matter—it’s emotion that counts!
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Think about it: How many times have people been told, quite factually, by their doctors “You really
should lose some weight or you could have a heart attack or develop diabetes,” but they don’t
change their unhealthy habits? But if someone calls them a fat pig in a public place, and they FEEL
embarrassed, or they see photos of themselves 20 years earlier wearing a skimpy swimsuit on the
beach, smiling and having a great time, and they FEEL sad and upset about their current weight—
only then do they commit themselves to change. The difference is that these latter scenarios elicit
an emotional response. The client wants to avoid that uncomfortable feeling and achieve the happy
feelings on the beach again! A client must have that emotionally-charged reason to change or they
will not make it through the change process. It’s that strong feeling that will carry them through
the tough times when relapse is a real danger. Because, as we know, it is always easier NOT to
change! We know the outcomes of the habits we’ve been practicing for years and years—even if
they are totally unhealthy and have gotten us into a mess, they are safe and predictable and easy
for us to do.
Related to that is the client’s perception of the costs and benefits of making the change (Cost
Benefit Analysis). The perceived or projected benefits of making the change must be greater than
the perceived or projected costs of making the change. For example, the desire to feel happy in a
skimpy swimsuit on the beach, and the projected positive outcomes attached to that image, must
far outweigh the perceived difficulties or costs in actually making the changes necessary to achieve
that desired goal. If eating smaller portions, limiting alcohol consumption, and greatly increasing
exercise are deemed to be more costly for the client than the perceived joy of achieving the
swimsuit dream, the client will not put the effort forth to achieve her goal. In the process of
change, the benefits of change must always outweigh the perceived cost of making the change.
So now I’m sure you are convinced that changing is the hardest thing on the planet to do! How on
earth can we convince our clients that they can change? Never fear: There’s an answer to that
dilemma. It’s called PRACTICE! Yes, practice. It can really make anyone better at anything. It’s
true! The more you do something, the better or more efficient you get at doing it. So if you want to
eat better, or exercise more, or drink more water, all you have to do is start doing it—once—and
then repeat it—again and again and again until it becomes as natural as brushing your teeth or
answering the phone when it rings.
The problem with healthy habits is that usually no one has taught our clients how to do them, or
helped them repeat those healthy actions on a regular basis. And that is where the coaching
relationship excels! You as a coach will help your clients decide what actions to try and repeat—
again and again and again—so that they become new healthy habits that will be the cornerstone of
your client’s new and healthier life. In fact, every session you have with your clients will revolve
around setting goals, and reviewing your clients’ successes and experiences while practicing the
goals they set in previous sessions. Practice helps make the outcomes of our clients’ newly
attempted, healthy actions as predictable and unthreatening as their previously established, but
unhealthy habits have been.
For example, if your client is accustomed to drinking 3 sodas every day, but her weight is
unhealthy and her risk for diabetes is high, changing to drinking water 3 times a day instead will be
scary. How will she feel? How will she work? Will she be able to function properly and do her job?
This is where we as coaches give our client the room and support to practice, and the permission to
take it slowly: If a client expresses a desire to stop drinking soda, we might encourage our client to
try replacing one soda a day with one water, and start out doing this only 2 times a week. Once
the client sees that she functions as well, or better, than before, she may decide to replace 2 more
sodas a week with water, and then 2 more, until all of them have been eliminated from her diet.
This action might take weeks or months to accomplish, but every step, every practice, makes her
better at forming a healthy habit, and builds her self-efficacy for attempting other changes in the
future.
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See how coaching focuses on present and future actions? See how it’s just basically a way for
clients to feel safe and supported as they try new habits on for size, and then modify their new
habits according to what works for them? Have you noticed how coaching has nothing to do with
prescribing a set routine, like a diet plan, telling a client what she needs, or trying to figure out
what, in the past, caused her to turn to these unhealthy habits? Instead, it is all about getting a
client to look at what is not working in her life, figure out what she WANTS her life to be like, and
then come up with her own personal path for achieving that dream. Is it any wonder why coaching
is so effective?
Assignment 1
Answer the following questions for the three clients below. Provide a 2- or 3-sentence answer per
question per client.
1. How would a personal trainer/athletic trainer work with this client, student, or patient? What
might they focus on?
2. How would a nutrition consultant?
3. How would a therapist or counselor?
Maryanne is a single 55-year-old woman who is 75-pounds overweight, a smoker, and has a family
history of diabetes. She is at high risk for the disease. Her doctor recommended she begin an
exercise and nutrition program, and try to quit smoking. She has begun walking regularly but is
having trouble sticking to it because she “gets bored.” She says her entire family has been “heavy”
as long as she can remember. She has only ever known the traditional meat and potatoes-type of
dinner, and she says it’s “impossible” to eat any other way. She drinks Coke at every meal, and
she does not seem to understand that excess calories (not fat) are contributing to her weight gain.
Tony is an 18-year old freshman in college who has recently lost a lot of weight through dieting. He
does not want to gain the Freshman 15 or return to his prior obese self. He has been working out
with his buddies, but they are all getting “cut” and he is still flabby. He comes to you to get leaner,
but he has a deep fear of eating enough to sustain muscle growth. He is completely clueless about
sports nutrition, even though he is a baseball player (pitcher) and he needs to sustain his energy
for long games. He lives in the dorm and has to eat dorm food. Between running to classes and
making all of his baseball practices and games, his eating habits are atrocious. His energy is
generally low and he wants to improve that as well as his physique.
Suzanne is 32-year-old married woman with a 3-year-old and a 14-month-old baby. She stays at
home to take care of the kids. Her husband commutes to another city 4 days a week, and the two
rarely see each other. She feels alone and overwhelmed with work around the house. Her eating
habits have suffered since her husband is no longer around much and she only cooks “kid food,” so
she mainly relies on takeout—when she has time to sit down and eat. Her body fat has shot up
from 18% before her first child to 32% after her second child, and she wants to reduce it by at
least 10% for health and aesthetic reasons. She’s having a hard time exercising because she feels
totally alone in raising the kids, and none of her friends have kids yet so they don’t really do much
together anymore.
Now, explain why the above clients are having wellness difficulties from the perspective of a coach.
Then describe how coaching could help these clients. Explore the areas of environment, support,
responsibility, and reasons to change.
Finally, identify a change in your own life that was challenging for you, and describe how you finally
accomplished it. Cover the areas of goal-setting, practice, support, and your reasons for changing.
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Section 2—Choosing & working with clients
Now that you’ve got some solid background information about the
coaching process, let’s dig into the nitty gritty of actually garnering
coaching clients and helping them achieve success. We’ll talk about
how to recognize who is ready to be coached, what your role is as a
coach, and what the role of the client is in a coaching relationship.
Assignment 2 follows this section.
If you want to run a successful coaching business, built around
successful and enthusiastic clients, you need to make one major
judgment when first meeting a potential client: Is this person ready
to change or not? It’s very likely that 90% of the people that come to
you will be ready to change something—that’s why they made the
choice to call you in the first place! But some people might not
understand that coaching actually requires them to act—not just sit
idly by while you spew information at them and allow them to blame
other people for their unhealthy condition.
It’s actually pretty easy to identify clients who are not ready to
change. When you begin communicating with the potential client, you
will hear excuses, usually lots of excuses, when you ask “What seems
to be the matter that you’d like to change?” Keep your ears open for
the blame in their responses: Who is responsible for their condition?
Is it time, or lack of time, that’s to blame? Their job? Their boss? Husband? Kids? Who or what is
the reason they use to take the responsibility for their condition off of their own shoulders? If you
hear the blame game from the beginning, the potential client is probably not a potential client at
all. You can feel comfortable saying to this person, “I hear you are frustrated with your situation,
but unless you can take the responsibility for your current habits and situation, I can’t help you.
Can you tell me what you can do to change your current situation to make it better for your
health?” And then let them think about it. If they come up with some solid answers that reveal that
they, themselves, need to change some things, then there is a glimmer of hope. It’s time for you
to review the Stages of Readiness to Change, made famous by Dr. James Prochaska, to see if this
person has what it takes to be your client.
Stages of readiness to change
See the Nutrition for Professionals for a description of the Stages of Readiness to Change. One easy
way to tell if a client is ready to change a behavior is to listen to her speaking about the behavior.
Our goal as coaches is to work with clients in the preparation and action phases, support clients in
maintenance, and help clients through any times of relapse. If we can convince a contemplator to
start the change process, then we’ve really got our coaching and wellness education skills down
pat!
Once you’ve successfully screened your client, you get to meet for your first appointment! Now,
since most of your clients will probably be existing students, athletes, or fitness or nutrition clients,
you probably already have some sort of basic intake information on file for the client. This
information would include their body composition information, health history, and demographic
information. If this is a brand new client, you’ll need to gather all of the intake information from
scratch. You’ll want information on any diagnosed diseases, medications, and recent health events
or doctors visits. Any health history questionnaire is usually sufficient. All major fitness
certifications have some sort of intake form available for your use with clients.
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Then turn your best listening ear toward your client. Why, oh why, is she coming to you for help at
this point in her life? What is so important for her RIGHT NOW that she has made the scary
decision to come to you for help? You’ve already heard a little of this in the answers to the
screening questions we just covered, but here’s your chance to make sure you clearly understand
the motivation for your client’s decision to try coaching. You’ll need that information when the
client hits bumpy patches of road ahead!
Those bumpy patches, of course, will come as the client moves from what she doesn’t like to what
she does want for herself! And that’s where your conversation about goals and objectives comes in.
What does the client want to achieve in your care? What does she intend to change for the better
in 1 month, 3 months, and 6 months? And what is her absolute ultimate dream for her wellness?
This ultimate vision is something your client will likely need a little time to process and reveal.
Think about it: How often do people ask us what we really want? And how many of us really know?
Give your client a homework assignment to bring you a clear, detailed description of her ultimate
vision for her health, what she hopes coaching can help her achieve, and have her give it to you at
your next visit. She’s got to invest some time in thinking about and describing this ultimate
outcome, because really, how can your clients know if their coaching experience is successful if
they don’t know what they are trying to achieve with their coach?
Some examples of well-stated mid-range outcomes are:
• In 3 months, I want to be able to run up the stairs at my office building without getting out
of breath or feeling knee pain.
• In 6 months I want to be able to cook a healthy, well-balanced meal 5 nights a week for me
and my family.
• In 4 months I want to be able to work out for 40 minutes 4 days a week, and fit into my
size 6 blue dress that I have not worn in 4 years.
Long-range outcomes, or Ultimate Visions, should be more dreamy:
• I want to be the kind of mom that runs up and down the field as my little boys play soccer,
jumping and cheering them on without losing my breath or feeling the need to sit and rest
my aching back. I want to be the kind of cool, active mom that all the neighborhood kids
admire and like being around.
• I want to be able to get up and go jogging or biking with my wife when she gets home from
work. She works out to relax, and I want to be like that for the first time in my life!
• I want to be able to lie on the beach in a string bikini and feel proud of my strong, sexy
body!
• I want to be able to go out to eat and not be overwhelmed by all the high-fat, high-sugar,
confusing food choices. I want to be confident that my food choices are doing my body a
favor, and not sabotaging my new healthy workout habits.
Also at the first appointment, and likely throughout your first few appointments, you’ll need to
introduce your client to the concept of setting goals as actions, and not outcomes. The ultimate
vision just described is an outcome, not a goal. It becomes reality only when clients achieve their
weekly action-oriented goals. Our coaching relationships will center around working with clients as
they set and achieve weekly action goals that will lead them closer to their ultimate vision or
outcome.
Once clients understand that they will be focusing their energy on actions, then we get to give
them a real zinger. And it’s something that all coaches must believe if they are to be a successful
coach. It’s a little mantra that simply says, Change your thoughts, change your life! And it’s true! If
we can help clients see that everything they think, everything they imagine for their wellness, can
become a reality, we can then help them focus on thinking about and imagining only the things
they desire, and then helping them set actionable SMART goals to make those desires happen in
reality. What a great job we have!
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But because it is highly sensitive due to the life-changing nature of coaching, we must always
ALWAYS assure our clients that everything they tell us, everything they do and say in our presence
will be kept strictly confidential. We as coaches will not reveal anything about our clients to anyone
else, unless it is an absolute life-or-death emergency, or the client has given us written consent.
This trust is crucial to a successful coaching partnership.
So how do we explain the difference between goals and outcomes to clients? Well, goals are
SMART: s-m-a-r-t. You’ve all seen that acronym, right? Now, SMART goals are going to be the
cornerstone of all your future coaching appointments. Choosing, setting, and working through
action goals will be the meat of each appointment. To begin with, you’ll always begin your sessions
by inquiring into the client’s general day and feelings: How are you? What’s new since we last
spoke? Remember, you are genuinely interested in your client’s success—show her that you care
right from the beginning of your time together.
Then you’ll move into “How did your last week’s goals go?” If the client was successful in meeting
her goals, praise and celebration ensue! If not, then it’s time to break out your best coaching
questions. Once all of her previous weekly goals have been rehashed and her progress discussed,
it’s time to choose new goals for the following week. Make sure the client chooses her goals, and
make sure they are realistic given the amount of time until your next appointment. Follow the
SMART rule for every goal that’s set. And revisit the client’s ultimate vision and mid-range goals to
make sure that every goal’s achievement will bring her one step closer to reaching her desired
outcomes.
Once new goals are set, reiterate the client’s success during the previous week and reinforce your
belief in her ability to succeed. By the end of the coaching session, no matter how challenging her
previous week had been, the client should leave your appointment re-invigorated to try her new
actions and meet her new goals. You’ll review her success the next time you meet, and the process
will continue until her ultimate vision is met.
Recall that you might be called upon to don your athletic, fitness, or nutrition expert’s hat if your
client requests it during a coaching appointment as well. It’s your decision when and how to
incorporate your expertise into the coaching relationship, or when and how to develop a teacher-
student relationship outside of your coaching sessions.
Now that you know how to choose the right clients, and you understand the goal-oriented nature of
the coaching relationship, let’s talk about the client’s role in that relationship. What, exactly, do
clients do in a coaching relationship?
First, the client must absolutely be honest—with you and with herself. This is often a foreign
concept for clients. We all have difficulty admitting things about ourselves, even to complete
strangers. But remember our confidentiality agreement with the client? They can rest assured that
their most private thoughts and dreams will be safe with us, and therefore they can feel
comfortable exploring areas of their health and wellness without our judgment or anyone else’s!
The client must also be committed to the coaching process. Without her total buy-in, coaching will
not be effective. She has to want to make changes and do so within the framework of your
coaching relationship. And that’s where the responsibility agreement comes in.
A sample responsibility agreement (see Nutrition for Professionals Textbook), or something like it,
should be given to your clients at their first appointment with you. It provides a written
commitment to the coaching relationship that both you and the client can refer to when challenging
coaching moments arise. Often when a client feels down and unsure of her ability to change, a
second look at her responsibility agreement can remind her of her commitment to sticking to the
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coaching process. Oh, and you can come up with a much sexier name for this form than
“responsibility agreement.”
And now we come to the essence of coaching—your role as a coach! What exactly are you
supposed to do? You know that you won’t be telling your clients what to do, like you would as a
trainer or consultant, and you won’t be asking your clients to rehash the past, like you would as a
therapist. So what do you do as a coach?
Well, the answer is simple, and the explanation is a bit more complex. Simply put, a coach listens,
questions, and supports. That’s it! Let’s discuss each of these.
Listening
First up, coaches must listen. Now, the kind of listening coaches must do can be a tough concept
for most people! Because it does not just involve opening your ears and letting words pour in.
There are truly 3 separate components to listening: The first, which must be in place before you
even meet your client, is making key assumptions about your client; the next is listening and
HEARING your client, and finally you must learn how to enjoy the silence. Let’s start from the very
beginning.
• Listening involves some work before you even come into contact with a client! You’ve got to
prepare your mind to be open to and accepting of everything your client says in your
presence. So how do you do that? How do you erase your old habit of having all the
answers? Well, it takes a little practice—just like every new habit does! You’ve got to read,
repeat, and truly believe in the following statements:
• Client knows herself better than anyone else
• Client has total control over her actions
• Client can accomplish anything she wants
• Client never fails—only plans can fail
• Client is capable of finding her own answers—she just needs a coach to help her open
the door to change
These assumptions illustrate at their core what coaching is all about: putting the client at the
controls of her life, giving the client room to try new habits until the right ones stick, and turning
the role of “expert” over from your domain to the client’s. Once you arrive at an understanding and
acceptance of these concepts, you’re ready to start hearing some clients!
Now that your mind is in the right place, and you have a client just waiting to change her life,
you’re ready to put on your coach’s ears and listen. So if you’re not trying to find out what the
client’s problems are and then offer solutions, like you would as a trainer or consultant, what are
you listening for? And if you can’t offer answers to a client, how do you respond to a client’s
questions?
Ah, the art of hearing! It’s not as hard as it seems. The tips on your screen tell you everything you
need to know: First, you must not think, plan, or wonder while the client is speaking—your job is
just to listen. Turn off the expert in your brain, and focus on what’s being said by the client. My
coach training introduced me to the phrase, “Listen until you don’t exist,” and I think that’s a
beautiful way of putting it. Get all that pre-existing muck out of your brain and just absorb what’s
being said to you. When you do that, it’s much easier to avoid the second no-no of coaching—
leading the client to a specific answer. Remember, you have only known your client for a few hours
or less. The client has been with herself her entire life. You don’t have her answers! We are
accustomed to assuming things about people and their past based on how it relates to our own
experiences, but we must not do that in coaching. As our third tip says, we must not assume any
cause, effect, or desire of the client. We instead need to hear what she says, and then ASK her if x,
y, or z is true. She’ll eventually tell us her truth, even if she was never aware of it. All we have to
do is ask and keep asking.
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So now that you know what NOT to do when listening, here’s what you must do: First, connect fully
with the client. This is easy if you have done your foundational work and have the proper mindset.
Your client is a human being with dreams and goals, and you believe 100% in her ability to change
her life. Of course you’ll connect to her, right? Second, you’ve got to be present. This is, once
again, a matter of turning off all the chatter and noise in your own brain and just hearing your
client speak. It’s amazing what you can hear people say when you—your history, your knowledge,
your assumptions—don’t exist. And because you’ll be hearing so much, you’ll likely need to
rephrase some of what your client says and ask her if you understand properly. This is an
extremely helpful way for you to demonstrate your listening skills, and for your client to feel that
her meaning is clearly understood.
For example, if a client says “I feel like my boss doesn’t take me seriously because of my weight,
and I wish he would give me the respect I deserve.” You could clarify by asking, “Am I hearing you
say that you feel your weight loss would help you garner more respect or responsibility at your
job?” Then the client can respond affirmatively or negatively, and her response can lead both of
you to a deeper understanding of what it is she wants to achieve.
This may seem silly, but silence is your best friend in many coaching moments. How can that be?
What kind of answers come from silence? Simple—the client’s answers! There will be times when
you are listening to your client and she is frustrated with her lack of progress or her stressful day.
She may ask you what to do. Instead of telling her, you can only ask something like, “What do you
think would help you at this time?” And then wait for her. You’ve got to give your client the space
and time to develop her own solutions. And her biggest breakthroughs will come when she has to
think about her own problems and what her solutions can be. If you become uncomfortable with
silence and you blurt out a possible solution for the client instead of waiting for her to find one, it
will not be HER solution. And it won’t work for her in the long run.
Think about it: When someone tells you what to do, or offers a solution for something that is really
hard for you to change, what’s your first reaction? Don’t we all say “No, I can’t do that,” or “Yeah,
but . . . .” Sometimes we even resent the person’s suggestion and deny that we need to do
anything at all! As humans, we have a really hard time admitting that someone else could see
answers to our problems before we could—even though that’s what usually happens. In fact, we
really resent when other people tell us how to live our lives! And as coaches, we MUST ignore the
possibility that we might know what would be good for our client, and we MUST let the client figure
it out for herself. After all, if she is responsible for her own answers, and her subsequent actions,
she will stick with them for the long haul. Especially if you show genuine interest and belief in your
client’s abilities, as we discussed.
Questioning
The secret to successful coaching is effective questioning. There. That’s all you need to know. No,
WAIT! There’s more to it than that. What exactly is effective questioning? We’ll cover the types of
questions and responses that work for coaching, and then talk about how they help you shift
responsibility to your client.
If there is one tip for asking questions that I would give every person in the world, not just
coaches, it’s this: Never Ask Why! Always ask What and How questions, instead of Why questions.
What and How questions are the bulk of any coach’s repertoire of questions because they
absolutely work. What makes them so effective?
Well, let’s first look at Why questions. What do these questions ask the client to do? We’re asking
clients to defend themselves and their choices, and the last thing we want is for our clients to be
on the defensive when they speak to us! A Why question is a challenge, it’s got judgments
attached to it, and there’s just no room for that in a supportive coaching relationship.
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What and How questions, on the other hand, force the client to come up with real answers. You
can’t answer Yes or No to a What or How question. And there is no judgment or challenge inherent
in a What or How question: You are legitimately looking to be informed by the client with her
answer.
For example, if a client is upset about eating ice cream every night after she gets home from work,
I can ask “Why do you eat ice cream every night?” and I can get some lame responses like, “I like
ice cream. It makes me feel better. I’ve always eaten ice cream after work, etc.” But if I ask “What
about ice cream is appealing to you when you get home from work? Or How does eating ice cream
after work help you?” These are truly helpful questions because they require the client to really
think about them: What DOES ice cream do for me? Geez, the client probably never thought about
that. And breakthroughs always come when the client thinks about something in a new way.
Remember, we’re changing thought processes here, and What and How questions are thinking
questions. They require the client to think about and formulate their own truthful answers.
The following questions can help lead your clients to thinking about solutions on their own.
• What are your most important values in life? How does your wellness (or this goal) fit with
those values?
• What excites you? What goals can you set for your wellness that are related to that?
• What will it take for you to make healthy changes (or achieve this goal)?
• What would you like less or more of in your life?
• What are you willing to do to achieve this goal?
• What is at risk for you if you change (this about your wellness)?
• What will motivate you to get through challenging times on the way to your wellness goals?
• What do you think is the best possible outcome of your coaching program?
• What can you do this week to help you move toward your wellness goals?
• How might I help you reach your goals this week?
• What can you learn from this week’s experiences?
These are examples that can be used when helping clients choose goals, or an ultimate vision, or
when coaching them through a relapse or a tough spot in their change process. There are many
more like this that you can use. The main point by showing you these is to help you see the proper
form of questions that can lead clients to greater understanding of what they want and what they
are afraid of. Also, notice how none of them is an accusatory “Why” question or a yes/no question!
Now, since we won’t be assuming anything (as reviewed in Section 1) or telling the client how to
stop eating ice cream, or how to replace it with a healthier habit, what can our responses be as she
answers our What and How questions? One option is simply—ask more What and How questions!
For example, let’s say the client responded to our first question by stating, “Ice cream is sweet and
cold and it seems to calm my nerves when I get home from work.” I could then ask “How does ice
cream calm your nerves?” and the client might say, “I don’t know, I guess it allows me to turn off
my brain.” I would then want to know, “How does ice cream do that?” and so on. Do you see where
we’re going with this? Asking How and What questions is truly getting us to the point where the
client will be able to see that clearly it is NOT ice cream that is helpful to her after work. She will be
able to see, after just a few more pointed questions, that her habit holds no basis in fact or reality,
and she may very well be willing to change this unhealthy habit and start practicing a new one
once she sees how little power the ice cream actually has in this situation!
Another thing to keep in mind is that when clients are deciding their goals for how to start
changing their unhealthy habits, we all will likely want to wear our Expert Hats and start making
suggestions. We might find ourselves blurting out, “Have you tried doing so-and-so, have you tried
doing this-or-that.” Can you see how this will be ineffective? First, these are yes/no questions that
don’t require the client to think. They also have a judgment attached: We are basically saying “I
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know this thing will work, so you should try it or you will fail.” That’s the last thing we want!
Instead of asking such questions, we can ask questions such as, “What have you tried before to
help you change this habit? What would you like to try to change this habit now? What can you do
this week to start to change that habit? What do you need more information about before you feel
you can start to change this habit?” These are all really effective responses to a client’s desire to
change an unhealthy habit.
Another thing we can and must do as coaches is clarify and restate what we hear our clients telling
us. For example, after a few more ice cream questions, we might want to clarify by asking, “So am
I hearing correctly that you use ice cream to relax after work, but you have never tried other
methods for relaxing after work?” If the client responds affirmatively, we can ask “What other
relaxation methods do you use at other times in your day or on the weekend?” Her answers might
then lead us to clarify again, “OK, so these other relaxation methods work for you at other times, is
that what you’re saying?” And her answers might lead us to start testing alternatives. Such as, “If
reading a novel helps you relax on the weekend, how might reading a novel help you relax after
work?” or “What about reading a novel is relaxing and appealing to you on the weekend, but not
after work?”
After a whole process of What and How questions, we should have a very clear picture of what our
clients’ core beliefs and fears are, and what is holding them back from making the healthy changes
they desire. And once they understand their own obstacles, clients can start breaking them down
and creating their own paths to success.
Now you’ve got some great tools for effectively questioning your clients. But all the questioning in
the world won’t work unless your client has figured out that she alone is responsible for her own
choices and actions. There are actually some great questions you can ask your clients when you
hear them start to play the blame game again.
Let’s use our ice cream habit example again. Let’s say our client tells us that ice cream is appealing
after work because her boss stresses her out so much that she needs the cold numbness of ice
cream in order to forget her boss’s awful treatment. We can hear that she is blaming her boss for
her stress. So now it’s time to ask some simple questions that will help clients take back
responsibility:
First, who controls your life? Anyone who answers anything but “Me” has to be challenged! Ask a
How or What question to help snap the client back to the reality that only she controls her own life.
For example, “How does [this person] control you? What do they do?”
Another effective question to ask is “Who acts for you during the day?” Pretty much everyone will
say “Me!” Then you can ask, “So whose choice is it to eat ice cream after work?” Again, that’s an
easy one. The client will say “Me.” What you’re getting at is getting the client to see that she is
choosing her behavior, so she can also choose something else.
Now, related to that is the question, “Can anyone force you to eat ice cream without your
permission? If you really didn’t want to, could someone open your mouth and shove ice cream
down your throat?” I mean, think about it, if we can help a client see that no one can make
choices for her but her, then she can start to choose actions that help her reach her goals, instead
of making choices that sabotage her goals.
And we want our clients to take responsibility for their choices and consequences not only so they
hold themselves accountable instead of blaming others for their situation, but also so they begin to
learn to take responsibility for their own praise and rewards. It’s true that most people blame other
people for the negative stuff in their lives, and they also relinquish ownership of the positive things
they accomplish! When in a coaching relationship, it’s important to teach clients that when they
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start to set and achieve their own goals, they get to start praising and rewarding themselves for a
job well done.
It often helps to assist clients with choosing rewards for themselves when they achieve certain
goals. They’ve usually been so accustomed to beating themselves up for past failures that it can be
quite challenging for them to think of anything nice to do for themselves when they succeed!
You can use How and What questions to help clients arrive at appropriate rewards. For example,
many wellness clients will choose high-fat foods as a reward for meeting an exercise goal. But the
simple question, “How will eating a pint of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream help you reach your healthy
goal?” will usually set clients on the right path. Following that with “What makes you feel special or
loved?” will usually help them to think of a non-sabotaging reward for a job well done. If clients are
to succeed on their own once your coaching relationship is over, they have to know how to properly
reward themselves.
Supporting
Alas, we’ve come to the final major component of coaching: supporting. Since you are already
involved in the wellness field, you already have had practice supporting clients. But these next
points detail how you need to support your client to make sure their coaching experience is
successful.
First, you must have unconditional positive regard for the client. This means that, while you don’t
necessarily like what the client is doing to herself with her unhealthy actions, you unfailingly
believe that she is a good person at heart, and that she has the power to live the life she always
wanted. Your enthusiasm for her ability to change must be contagious! Clients, when they come to
you, will probably be convinced of their imminent failure. Believe in them from the start, and they
will learn to believe in themselves, too.
Next, you’ve got to be genuinely interested in your client achieving her goals! As her coach, you
are as highly invested in your client’s success as she is. Show her that you are by staying present
when she speaks to you. By that I mean, focus solely on what she is saying and how she is feeling
at any given moment; never lose your self in your own thoughts or feelings. This becomes easier
the more you practice with clients, and you begin to feel what it is truly like to hear and care about
what your clients are going through as they wade through the murky waters of change.
Your client should know at every turn that you care. And part of showing you care is holding your
client accountable for her choices and actions. If she lets her weekly goals go unaccomplished or
starts blaming and making excuses for missed opportunities to try new actions, don’t let those
moments slip by unnoticed! Coaching requires that you call your client on her dropped goals. Ask
her how dropping her goals will help her achieve her dreams. Ask her what she thought would
happen by NOT doing her goal actions, and ask her what good came out of her neglecting her
goals. Explain again that she, and only she, can successfully reach her dreams, and you are not
going to let her get away without trying. This really shows that you care because it shows that you
want her to have every opportunity to succeed. And you know she can’t succeed if she doesn’t try
the new actions that she set out to try!
Along with trying and succeeding are two very important points that clients seem to forget about:
praise and celebration! As a coach, you get the fun job of praising your clients when they try
something new, and celebrating with them when they find an action that works for them.
Remember, most wellness clients have tried diets in the past. Diets never work because they are
someone else’s plan being imposed on a whole diverse group of people. So your clients will likely
be used to trying plans that fail. Coaching gives your clients the chance to choose actions and
formulate “plans” that work for them, so we really do want to celebrate every single success—no
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matter how small. Every action that helps lead our clients to a healthier long-term habit should be
praised and celebrated. Positive reinforcement does wonders in the game of lifestyle change.
But what happens when clients seem to be heading in a positive direction, and suddenly something
triggers a relapse? How do we respond as coaches? We’ll look at that phenomenon next.
Relapse
It happens to the best of us: We are cruising along in our healthy lives, not a care in the world, and
suddenly something happens that triggers us. Emotionally, we find ourselves in turmoil. And what
do we do? We reach for the first thing that gives us comfort and helps to take the dis-ease away.
For most of us, this turns out to be something unhealthy: cigarettes, alcohol, high-fat foods—
whatever unhealthy addiction we used in the past, we grab without thinking. And for our clients,
these are usually the unhealthy habits they have been working so successfully toward erasing from
their lives. This reversion to old unhealthy habits is called relapse, and if we can help our clients
understand its cause, we can then help them avoid the destructive thoughts and actions that
usually come after it.
When clients experience relapse, it helps to remind them that we are humans. We are not perfect,
and in no way were we ever meant to be. I like to use the 80-20 rule with clients: 80% of the time
you do your best to stick to your healthy habits, 20% of the time you throw caution to the wind
and do whatever you feel in the moment. This rule breaks down that perfectionistic, ill-gotten
anxiety most clients have about “messing up.”
I also explain to clients that change is not a linear process—it takes many ups and downs to finally
add up to a positive, forward-moving trend in behavior. Making healthy changes is like losing
weight—changes happen every week, some good, some not so good, but it’s that general trend
toward a healthier lifestyle that matters in the long run. You might take 2 steps forward and one
step back every single day for months on end, but the general trend will be positive when you get
to the end of a year.
If, even after all that clarifying and motivating talk, clients aren’t persuaded that relapse is normal
and OK, then we can move on to what I call “extreme questioning.” This is fun, and it usually
works for clients. I put on my skeptic’s hat and I ask clients some ridiculous questions related to
their relapse, such as:
• What is the absolute worst thing that could happen if you don’t reach your goal?
• Will the world cease to turn?
• Will you be unable to ever do another good thing in your life?
• If your best friend were trying to change, and she relapsed, would you refuse to be her
friend anymore? Would you think she were a bad person and a failure?
• By choosing an unhealthy habit this week, is it the end of your life as you know it? Is this a
major catastrophe, or just a bump in the road on the way to your success?
Questions like these help to shift the client’s perspective and make her see that relapse is NOT the
end of the world. And you can put as much humor into your questions as possible to help shift her
perspective even more. This is LIFE we’re talking about, and it can be pretty funny when we step
back and look at the reality of our choices.
As a coach, you provide a very important outlet for the client’s thoughts and feelings surrounding a
relapse. Remember your role: Stay present, be supportive, and always believe 100% in your
client’s ability to make positive changes.
If relapses continue consistently it is also your job as a coach to ask the client if now is really the
right time to attempt the change she desires. What does she perceive is the greatest obstacle to
her success right now? And what needs to happen in order for her to succeed? Listen for blame in
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her answers, and remind her of her emotionally charged vision. Is she really ready to give up her
dream just because it’s difficult? What can she do to make the road less bumpy? And what can
you, as her coach, assist her with during this difficult time? Stick to this line of questioning until
your client realizes that she did, indeed, come to you to make changes, and darn it, she is going to
make them no matter what!
Listen, question, support! Your coaching duties are called into overtime play during relapse. And
the results can be just the breakthrough your client needed to advance by leaps and bounds.
The Essentials of CoachingThe Essentials of Coachingfor Wellness Professionalsfor Wellness Professionals
The following information is not to be altered or reproduced in any manner without the written permission of
Section 1 Outline What is coaching? Why does coaching work? Understanding the change process Assignment 1 discussion
What is coaching?
Coaching – A co-creative partnership between a qualified coach and a willing client that supports the client through desired life changes
NOT personal or athletic training
NOT nutrition consulting
NOT counseling/therapy
Training & Consulting vs. Coaching*Training & Consulting Coaching
• Trainer/consultant uses learned knowledge to recommend or steer client toward healthy habits
• Main goal is to teach the client something she does not know in hopes she uses the information
• Trainer/consultant directs the client’s program/progress
• Client is the expert of own life and accesses own self-knowledge to choose desired habits
• Main goal is to support client in making effective, responsible choices in own life
• Client chooses program direction and is ultimately responsible for own progress
* Special note about wellness/health/fitness coaches’ expertise• How and when to provide expert input• How coaches in other fields differ
Counseling/Therapy vs. Coaching
Counseling/Therapy Coaching
• Assumes the client has a problem the counselor/therapist needs to “fix”
• Counselor/therapist compares client to set of “norms” to diagnose and treat a prescribed disorder
• Blames the prescribed disorder for client’s life choices
• Focuses on past events
• Assumes the client is a healthy, functional person
• Coach treats client as individual and does not assume to know more about client than client knows
• Reveals client’s responsibility for life choices• Focuses on present and future actions
Why does coaching work? (part 1)
Only works with clients who are ready Assumes the client is mentally healthy and able to
change Asks meaningful questions Listens to and hears the client Is not responsible for the client’s actions Supports the client throughout
Because the coach:
Why does coaching work? (part 2)
Truly wants to make life changes Accepts responsibility for choices, actions, and
consequences Is not afraid to try Understands that failure is not a personal flaw Learns to change thinking patterns and habits
Because the client:
Habits are made, not born Environment affects success Support is key Stress/emotional effects of change Must have strong reason to change
Emotional buy-in Easier to do nothing
Practice over time – repeat, repeat, repeat!
Understanding the change process
Habits are made, not born
Habits are learned by imitating our parents/loved ones Not necessarily good or right for us Must decide which habits will lead to desired outcomes
(i.e., must know what we want) Any habit can be broken, no matter how “old” it is
Environment
Survival instinct – We know a + b = c Client must control environment First step = avoidance of stimulus (i.e.,
eliminate stress) Final step = change the response to prior
stimulus (i.e., stress now causes desire to go for walk, instead of eat ice cream)
Support is key “No person is an island” Coach is client’s entire support, initially Coach must set personal boundaries Support system grows as client progresses Added benefit of being wellness professional
Expertise Immediate information for client
Stress/emotional effects of change
Comfort/predictability gives sense of safety
Fear of failure or success “If I change . . .” questions/doubts
Reason for change New actions/habits require emotional “reward” Change never attempted without strong potential
for desired outcome Always easier to do nothing – result is predictable! Cost-benefit analysis
Practice, practice, practice Repeatedly achieve desired result over time Make NEW outcome predictable Coach allows space and support for practicing
Assignment 1Use the accompanying workbook to: Describe in detail how different professionals respond
to the given clients’ situations. Explain why the clients described are experiencing
difficulty trying to change and how coaching can help them.
Identify a change in your own life that was challenging for you, and describe how you finally accomplished it.
Section 2 – Choosing and Working with Clients
Ready or resistant to change? The client’s role The coach’s role Assignments 2 discussion
Section 2 Outline
Ready or resistant to change?
Most clients are ready to change somethingWho is responsible for client’s condition?
Self Others
Stages of change (Prochaska’s model)
Stages of readiness to changePrecontemplation: Client is not ready to change;
Client may blame someone else or deny their own problems
Contemplation: Client is thinking about change;
Ambivalence is prominent
Preparation: Client is preparing for change;
Client is actively seeking solutions to problems
Action: Client is ready to make changes;
Client is putting new solutions into action
Maintenance: Client is maintaining behavior changes;
Client needs support for continuing new behaviors
Relapse: Client is slipping into old habits;
Coach must provide motivation, support, and “reality checks”
Questions to determine readiness
Are you able to make changes?Why is now the time to change? Is it possible to try new habits? Is it impossible or just difficult to change?What will changing do for you?What will happen if you don’t change?
First coaching appointment Intake form to determine apparent healthWhy change now?What does client want to change? Ultimate dream/vision How to set “action” goals, not “outcome” goals Change your thoughts, change your life Confidentiality promise
SMART goalsS = specific. “I want to feel better” is a vague outcome. “I will walk 40 minutes
at 3.5 mph on Monday, Tuesday, and Friday” is a specific goal.M = measurable. “I will walk more” is too vague. Does walking to the car,
instead of using valet, count as “more”? “I will walk 40 minutes at 3.5 mph on Monday, Tuesday, and Friday” is a measurable goal.
A = actionable. “I will lose 20 pounds” is not an action. Can I look at you and see that you are losing 20 pounds, right at this moment? No. But if you say, “I will walk 40 minutes at 3.5 mph on Monday, Tuesday, and Friday” I could go to the gym on Monday and find you on the treadmill accomplishing this goal. This action might lead you to lose 20 pounds, but that’s an outcome, not an action!
R = realistic. “I will work out for an hour every day this month” is not realistic. If you set an unrealistic goal and don’t achieve it, you will feel bad about yourself. Set reasonable goals to make sure you succeed. After all, achieving smaller goals will set you up for achieving bigger and better goals down the road. Always start small.
T = timed. “I will work out” has no timeframe. Each goal must have a set timeframe in which it will be accomplished.
Future appointments
General welcome and inquiry Review last week’s goals Coach through any difficulties
Question Revisit goals and vision
Choose new weekly goals Reiterate and motivate
The client’s role Be honest
With self With coach
Be committed Sign responsibility agreement
Sample responsibility agreementI, ____________________, am willingly participating in this coaching service offered by ____________________, my coach. I am fully committed to the change process and will take responsibility for all of my chosen actions. I understand that change is not linear and that I am a work in progress. I will be honest with myself and my coach during our entire program together. I understand that everything I share with my coach will be kept in the strictest of confidence. I look forward to finding out the incredible things I can accomplish!
The coach’s role
Listen Question Support
Listening
Key assumptions about client
Listening and hearing Enjoy the silence
Key assumptions about client
Client knows herself better than anyone else Client has total control over her actions Client can accomplish anything she wants Client never fails—only plans can fail Client is capable of finding her own answers—she just
needs coach to help her open the door to change
Coach must not Think, plan, or wonder while listening—just listen Lead the client to a specific answer—coaches do not
have the answers! Assume cause, effect, or desire—ask, ask, ask!
Coach must Connect fully with client Be present Rephrase and clarify to ensure understanding
Listening and hearing
Give client space and time to develop own solutions Clients’ biggest breakthroughs come when they
Think about their own problems Come up with answers themselves
Typical reactions to someone telling you what to do: Say “no” Resent the suggestions/deny the need for action Don’t want to admit other’s suggestions are right
Enjoy the silence
Questioning
The secret to successful coaching is effective questioning.
Types of questions Examples of effective questions Types of responses Shift responsibility to client
Types of questions
N.A.W. = NNever AAsk WWhy! Questions must be open-ended
“How . . .” “What . . .” Avoid “yes/no” questions
Client must develop own solutions
??
Effective questionsThe following are examples of questions that lead clients to think and
formulate their own solutions.
What are your most important values in life? How does your wellness (or this goal) fit with those values?
What excites you? What goals can you set for your wellness that are related to that?
What will it take for you to make healthy changes (or achieve this goal)?What would you like less or more of in your life?What are you willing to do to achieve this goal?What is at risk for you if you change (this about your wellness)?What will motivate you to get through challenging times on the way to your
wellness goals?What do you think is the best possible outcome of your coaching program?What can you do this week to help you move toward your wellness goals? How might I help you reach your goals this week?What can you learn from this week’s experiences?
Types of responses
Coach responds to client’s answers in order to Clarify Restate Test alternatives Question “omissions”
Questions to jump-start client’s responsibility Who controls your life? Who acts for you during the day? Can anyone force you to . . . ?
Client owns decisions/choices and consequences Accountability Praise Rewards
Shift responsibility to client
Unconditional positive regard Genuine interest Stay present Hold client accountable Praise and celebrate! Coach through relapse
Supporting
Explain human imperfection80-20 ruleChange is not linearGeneral trend over time is positive
“Extreme” questioningUse humor to change perspectiveHighlights “all or nothing” thinkingTeaches tolerance and patienceHuman beings are works in progress, not end
results Outlet for feelings and thoughts surrounding relapse Positive actions moving forward—don’t get stuck in
past
Coaching through relapse
Assignment 2
Assignment 2: Describe a client who is ready to change and one
who is not. What do they say? How do they act?
List 15 How/What questions that are effective for coaching (not listed on slide 34). List 15 questions that would not be effective coaching questions and explain why.
Time/scheduling flexibility National/international clients Low overhead Privacy Potentially more breakthroughs
Anonymous = safe No distracting visual stimulus
Logistics of phone coaching
Equipment Phone with headset, muting Disable call waiting Possible web cam
Calm, quiet environment in which to focus
Personal contact Location
Safe Supportive Private
Coaching flexibility Location change/ “field trips” Use handouts, books, other
tools
In-person coaching
Scheduling clients
Your personal “best times” Convenient for client
Phone Location
Frequent contact for new clients Standard weekly contact
Less frequent contact as client progresses or goals change
Retaining clientsRe-assess needs after 3 months After goals met, explore new goalsNew goals require more frequent supportClient must see benefit in working with coach as goals
change Question client to elicit need for more coaching
Assignment 3
Use the accompanying workbook: Would you work with the listed clients in person
or on the phone? Could you work with them in either manner? Why or why not?
What would your preference be for working with your own coaching clients? Why?
Give specific examples of how you’d work with the clients described.
