How to be a Health Coach So you want to be a Health Coach? Its not exactly an easy profession if you want to be high quality but here I will list the steps you need to go ahead and be a health coach!

1. Get Educated A formal education in a health related field would be an excellent start, even if you aren’t big on college and formal learning. Your clients want to know they can trust you and having some sort of formal credentials is really the first place to start. Now this can be flexible, there are so many fields where you can get a good health education AND you can then focus your health coaching in those areas. There are tons of places to start but some areas to consider are nutrition, nursing, physical therapy, exercise and sports science, and athletic training. Not to mention you can always work in the field you have a degree in as well!

2. Watch other health coaches (preferably good ones!) See what other successful health coaches do! How do they interact with people? How do they reach out to new clients? What advice do they offer? These are all very important things to be well aware of when starting out. Not only will you learn how to interact with your clients better but you may also learn health information you haven’t learned previously. Maybe even get some health coaching yourself to see what it is like on the other end of things. You’ll know what you liked, what you didn’t, and how to be better.

3. Practice educating real people You probably don’t want the first time you try health coaching to be on your first customer. Start out working with friends, family, coworkers, and really whoever you have available to you. It does not have to be anything terribly formal but just try talking to people about their health and giving them some tips on where to improve. You’ll find out how people respond and see what changes people are willing to actually make for their health. Education and knowledge is half the battle really, but learning how to interact with people (sometimes delicately) about their health is the other major hurdle.

4. Have a plan for coaching going in. How to Health Coach. This does not mean having your clients health coaching plan ready before you ever talk, it means have a plan on how to develop your plan! Sounds confusing? Let me explain. When I have my first health coaching session here are some basics to my plan.

• I first say hello and just chit chat for a minute to break the ice and get to know my client

• I ask about the goals of my client. Are they realistic? Have they already tried to reach their goals on their own? How busy are they? Finding out what their expectations are is key to developing a plan to try to meet those expectations!

• I assess their current lifestyle, diet, activities, health problems, and health habits. If a client has uncontrolled diabetes its going to be really hard to lose weight. If a client has untreated sciatica its going to be hard to do a lot of running. You might need to focus on getting some hurdles out of the way. Know what to do when someone has a problem you can’t address, or address the problem as well as you can while giving them resources to further address what you may be unable.

• Figure out their level of motivation and ability to commit time to changes. This is a skill that comes with time. Many people might misjudge their own ability to commit time and energy or their willingness to embrace change. It is important to know how to make both big AND small changes that have a big impact on how your clients feel. If they stick with you a while but don’t see or feel any noticeable changes they will probably leave sooner or later.

• Develop a plan WITH your client. The only plan that will work is a plan they are both willing and able to actually do. Is your client who hasn’t went to the gym in five years going to start running for an hour a day? Maybe, but they probably will give it up unless extremely motivated to make big changes. Start with incremental changes- small changes add up and are less disruptive.

• Use your knowledge to make small changes with a BIG impact. My favorite change when it fits is cutting out empty calories. If you can convince someone who drinks four sodas a day to switch to water for one month you just cut 1000 daily calories out of their diet. You have to let them know it will take about a month for their taste buds to adapt to the change, but eventually water is all they will want if they can stick with it. I know of no other simpler way to cut 30,000 calories a month, and this applies to juices, protein drinks, milk, and basically any calorie you can drink.

• Implement a plan and be prepared to adjust. Is your client super motivated and needs big changes? Or are they not able to stick with certain changes? You have to be able to have insight into what is working and what isn’t, what changes they make well and what changes don’t work, and work with what you can. Your goals are their goals, and you above all want them to feel better than they did before they met you. If exercise isn’t their strong point but they will make all the diet changes you want focus on that at first. If diet changes aren’t going so well but they love to work out have them exercise in a way that most productively burns those calories. If they are simply lacking motivation, focus on building up the motivation needed to make changes.

• Never discipline your clients. They are paying you to help them! Plus you want an honest and open relationship – which will not happen if they feel the need to hide things from you. You, as the health coach, need to be the flexible one. While you can’t always fix everything, you absolutely need to know what isn’t working so you can adapt. If you can’t adapt it could mean failure.

• Grow with your clients. OK, so you’ve made it threw the first few coaching sessions with your new client. Where do you go from here? Have you already met their goals? The good thing is usually people always want to be better and feel better than they already do. You can set new goals. At this point you can start to see what they are really happy with and what they aren’t so far. Learning to grow with your client is a key point to keeping clients around – there is always room for growth.

• Continue to educate. Not everyone has 10+ years of experience of just working with health. Rather than always just telling your client what to do, make sure they understand how things work. I myself am a Family Nurse Practitioner and at this point I have been immersed in health related topics for 13 years. I am still learning HUGE facts relating to health, not to mention new information is always being produced at an insane rate. Your clients understanding of how their actions directly relate to their health will make them WANT TO make certain changes. Not everyone knows exercise might stop their arteries from getting clogged and improve circulation, or strengthening certain muscles might get rid of certain types of nerve pain, or that sleeping for the correct amount of time in tune with your sleep cycles gives you your best rest, or that too much salt gives them high blood pressure that hardens their arteries… the list goes on.

1. Market yourself. So this might be the hardest part in this highly competitive world. Starting local is usually easiest as you can use any network you already have. Put out information anywhere that allows it – bulletin boards, local gym, health groups, churches – anywhere is a good start. It is a good idea to have some kind of free content as people are more likely to take a second look at you. If you are really having trouble offering some free mini sessions can jump start things.

Going places where people are already trying to improve their health allows you to focus your efforts. If you already have clients or patients it does not hurt to make them aware you also provide health coaching but DO NOT try to hard sell these people or you will just lose clients from your other business.

Branch out and try a little bit of everything- Blogging, social media, local groups, Youtube, email newsletters, join discussion forums, mutual agreements with other small businesses, and word of mouth. Focus your efforts on what works best and drop what isn’t producing results. While I designed this website myself and do my own blog many people find hiring a freelancer on a freelancing website is the way to go.

Getting your services in front of potential clients eyes is a huge hurdle, but if you keep trying different strategies eventually you will stumble upon what works. I also would give any new strategy a few months before you can really evaluate results.

So I hope that I provided any aspiring health coaches some valuable information to jump into the field. While #1 – get an education – might seem like a hurdle it really is necessary. All of your clients needs will vary greatly and you need to have knowledge prepared for almost every scenario. Plus you want to be able to give some credentials if they ask! I hope this provides some insight into how to jump into Health Coaching and how to be successful in this area!

How to be a Health Coach So you want to be a Health Coach? Its not exactly an easy profession if you want to be high quality but here I will list the steps you need to go ahead and be a health coach!

1. Get Educated A formal education in a health related field would be an excellent start, even if you aren’t big on college and formal learning. Your clients want to know they can trust you and having some sort of formal credentials is really the first place to start. Now this can be flexible, there are so many fields where you can get a good health education AND you can then focus your health coaching in those areas. There are tons of places to start but some areas to consider are nutrition, nursing, physical therapy, exercise and sports science, and athletic training. Not to mention you can always work in the field you have a degree in as well!

2. Watch other health coaches (preferably good ones!) See what other successful health coaches do! How do they interact with people? How do they reach out to new clients? What advice do they offer? These are all very important things to be well aware of when starting out. Not only will you learn how to interact with your clients better but you may also learn health information you haven’t learned previously. Maybe even get some health coaching yourself to see what it is like on the other end of things. You’ll know what you liked, what you didn’t, and how to be better.

3. Practice educating real people You probably don’t want the first time you try health coaching to be on your first customer. Start out working with friends, family, coworkers, and really whoever you have available to you. It does not have to be anything terribly formal but just try talking to people about their health and giving them some tips on where to improve. You’ll find out how people respond and see what changes people are willing to actually make for their health. Education and knowledge is half the battle really, but learning how to interact with people (sometimes delicately) about their health is the other major hurdle.

4. Have a plan for coaching going in. How to Health Coach. This does not mean having your clients health coaching plan ready before you ever talk, it means have a plan on how to develop your plan! Sounds confusing? Let me explain. When I have my first health coaching session here are some basics to my plan.

• I first say hello and just chit chat for a minute to break the ice and get to know my client

• I ask about the goals of my client. Are they realistic? Have they already tried to reach their goals on their own? How busy are they? Finding out what their expectations are is key to developing a plan to try to meet those expectations!

• I assess their current lifestyle, diet, activities, health problems, and health habits. If a client has uncontrolled diabetes its going to be really hard to lose weight. If a client has untreated sciatica its going to be hard to do a lot of running. You might need to focus on getting some hurdles out of the way. Know what to do when someone has a problem you can’t address, or address the problem as well as you can while giving them resources to further address what you may be unable.

• Figure out their level of motivation and ability to commit time to changes. This is a skill that comes with time. Many people might misjudge their own ability to commit time and energy or their willingness to embrace change. It is important to know how to make both big AND small changes that have a big impact on how your clients feel. If they stick with you a while but don’t see or feel any noticeable changes they will probably leave sooner or later.

• Develop a plan WITH your client. The only plan that will work is a plan they are both willing and able to actually do. Is your client who hasn’t went to the gym in five years going to start running for an hour a day? Maybe, but they probably will give it up unless extremely motivated to make big changes. Start with incremental changes- small changes add up and are less disruptive.

• Use your knowledge to make small changes with a BIG impact. My favorite change when it fits is cutting out empty calories. If you can convince someone who drinks four sodas a day to switch to water for one month you just cut 1000 daily calories out of their diet. You have to let them know it will take about a month for their taste buds to adapt to the change, but eventually water is all they will want if they can stick with it. I know of no other simpler way to cut 30,000 calories a month, and this applies to juices, protein drinks, milk, and basically any calorie you can drink.

• Implement a plan and be prepared to adjust. Is your client super motivated and needs big changes? Or are they not able to stick with certain changes? You have to be able to have insight into what is working and what isn’t, what changes they make well and what changes don’t work, and work with what you can. Your goals are their goals, and you above all want them to feel better than they did before they met you. If exercise isn’t their strong point but they will make all the diet changes you want focus on that at first. If diet changes aren’t going so well but they love to work out have them exercise in a way that most productively burns those calories. If they are simply lacking motivation, focus on building up the motivation needed to make changes.

• Never discipline your clients. They are paying you to help them! Plus you want an honest and open relationship – which will not happen if they feel the need to hide things from you. You, as the health coach, need to be the flexible one. While you can’t always fix everything, you absolutely need to know what isn’t working so you can adapt. If you can’t adapt it could mean failure.

• Grow with your clients. OK, so you’ve made it threw the first few coaching sessions with your new client. Where do you go from here? Have you already met their goals? The good thing is usually people always want to be better and feel better than they already do. You can set new goals. At this point you can start to see what they are really happy with and what they aren’t so far. Learning to grow with your client is a key point to keeping clients around – there is always room for growth.

• Continue to educate. Not everyone has 10+ years of experience of just working with health. Rather than always just telling your client what to do, make sure they understand how things work. I myself am a Family Nurse Practitioner and at this point I have been immersed in health related topics for 13 years. I am still learning HUGE facts relating to health, not to mention new information is always being produced at an insane rate. Your clients understanding of how their actions directly relate to their health will make them WANT TO make certain changes. Not everyone knows exercise might stop their arteries from getting clogged and improve circulation, or strengthening certain muscles might get rid of certain types of nerve pain, or that sleeping for the correct amount of time in tune with your sleep cycles gives you your best rest, or that too much salt gives them high blood pressure that hardens their arteries… the list goes on.

1. Market yourself. So this might be the hardest part in this highly competitive world. Starting local is usually easiest as you can use any network you already have. Put out information anywhere that allows it – bulletin boards, local gym, health groups, churches – anywhere is a good start. It is a good idea to have some kind of free content as people are more likely to take a second look at you. If you are really having trouble offering some free mini sessions can jump start things.

Going places where people are already trying to improve their health allows you to focus your efforts. If you already have clients or patients it does not hurt to make them aware you also provide health coaching but DO NOT try to hard sell these people or you will just lose clients from your other business.

Branch out and try a little bit of everything- Blogging, social media, local groups, Youtube, email newsletters, join discussion forums, mutual agreements with other small businesses, and word of mouth. Focus your efforts on what works best and drop what isn’t producing results. While I designed this website myself and do my own blog many people find hiring a freelancer on a freelancing website is the way to go.

Getting your services in front of potential clients eyes is a huge hurdle, but if you keep trying different strategies eventually you will stumble upon what works. I also would give any new strategy a few months before you can really evaluate results.

So I hope that I provided any aspiring health coaches some valuable information to jump into the field. While #1 – get an education – might seem like a hurdle it really is necessary. All of your clients needs will vary greatly and you need to have knowledge prepared for almost every scenario. Plus you want to be able to give some credentials if they ask! I hope this provides some insight into how to jump into Health Coaching and how to be successful in this area!