Choosing the Right Coach Doesn’t Have to be Hard

The quality of the relationship between you and a coach determines 50% of your success toward your goals.

You want this relationship to:

Honor your strengths, core values, and desires.
Care for ALL of you — mind, body, and spirit.
Help you learn more about yourself and increase your confidence and resilience.
Encourage, motivate, and inspire you to go after the life you deserve.
Equip you to take charge of your choices in work + life.
Offer evidenced-based knowledge and skills.
Provide feedback in ways that feel insightful and helpful, ultimately getting you unstuck and moving forward — for good.
Save you from needing to figure out all the necessary steps by yourself.
Share a planning and action-taking process that you can use for years to come.
Move you forward more effectively and efficiently than if you were doing the work on your own so you pursue personal and professional dreams and live a life you love.

Just because it’s important to choose the right person doesn’t mean the process has to be hard. Before choosing a coach, ask yourself the questions below and use the answers to determine what you need and what the coach offers.

As you research look for the coach’s professional beliefs or guiding principles for the best fit. (I discuss my five guiding principles below.)

Lessons from the Counseling Professions

In the therapy and counseling professions, it’s not only acceptable but encouraged that clients shop around for someone they like and feel comfortable with. Often a phone call can answer enough questions about the therapist or counselor’s approach to decide whether to make an appointment. Ultimately, it may take a few sessions to determine if the relationship is a good fit.

What is Health & Wellness Coaching?

Health and wellness coaches partner with clients seeking self-directed, lasting changes, aligned with their values, which promote health and wellness and, thereby, enhance well-being. In the course of their work health and wellness coaches display unconditional positive regard for their clients and a belief in their capacity for change, and honoring that each client is an expert on his or her life, while ensuring that all interactions are respectful and non-judgmental. (Source: National Board for Health and Wellness Coaching)

Before Choosing a Coach

Consider asking yourself these questions:

Do I want my coach to take an active or passive role in our work together?
What qualities do I need to respect and trust a coach?
How do I want to work with a coach — in person or online?
Is it important that my coach has overcome similar issues to mine?
How do I want to be motivated and receive feedback?

Answering these questions will help you better assess what will work best for you.

Coaching Certification

The field of coaching includes many kinds of coaching and related certification programs. Some more rigorous than others. Googling life or health and wellness coaching helps you research and identify top certification programs.

When I researched coaching certification programs, I chose the Mayo Clinic training program for health and wellness coaches because of its rigor and approval to sit for a national certification exam — the first of its kind for coaches.

In the field of health and wellness coaching, the National Board for Health and Wellness Coaches (NBHWC) partners with the Board of Medical Examiners (the same organization that licenses medical doctors) to offer a national certification process.

This certification process ensures that health and wellness coaches meet national standards set by leaders who pioneered science-based training, education, and research of health and wellness coaches over the past 15 years. The certification also ensures that coaches follow a code of ethics consistent with those of other healthcare professionals.

NBHWC requires that applicants complete an approved health and wellness coaching program and 50 coaching sessions to sit for the certification exam. You can use the list of approved training programs to narrow your search. (I am one of the first 1,000 coaches to pass the exam.)

Over time I have evolved my coaching practice from health and wellness to rebalancing work + life because my mission is to help as many professionals as possible redefine how to work, parent, and achieve financial freedom.

As You Research Coaches

After considering a coach’s training and certification, ask yourself these questions. Does the coach:

Seem to understand concerns like mine and have experience working with them?
Have an online presence that aligns with what’s important to me (website and social media)?
Provide information and resources online that help me understand their approach and guiding principles?
Detail how to work with her or him such as programs, courses, or 1:1 coaching?
Offer a free consultation call?

Guiding Principles of Rebalance Wellbeing

My personal approach to coaching includes these guiding principles. I integrate these beliefs in my work so you can expect them to shape your progress if we work together.

People are whole beings, so solutions need to address mind, body, and spirit to be effective. If we work together, we’ll focus on ALL of you. At first, it might seem unusual that we’ll consider issues from the perspective of mind, body, and spirit, but attention to all three helps you leverage momentum to get the best results.
We need mental, physical, and emotional energy to make sustainable change. Making change isn’t for the faint of heart. If we work together, one of the first things we’ll do is look for places to boost your energy and stop any drains. I know you can make the progress you want. And, I want to set you up for success by making sure you have enough energy.
Research tells us how humans typically function and change behavior so we should apply that knowledge instead of trying to swim upstream against our natural tendencies. We don’t need to reinvent the wheel! Plenty of evidence-based practices exist that we can leverage in our work together to make your success easier and sustainable.
Adults have the power and ability to take charge of their choices in work + life even if they don’t believe it at the moment. My superpower is to hold space for your dreams until you wholeheartedly believe they’re possible too.
With guidance, support, and accountability, everyone can rebalance work + life to own their career (so it doesn’t own them). You get to decide what’s important to you and I’ll stand shoulder-to-shoulder with you as you go after it.

Not surprisingly, these principles aren’t the only ones that guide my coaching practice. That said, they are different from most coaches.

I know it takes time and effort to rebalance work + life. You didn’t get here overnight. You choose where to start, how much to take on, and the pace of change. I’ll share research and best practices to help you work and parent without sacrificing wellbeing.

Choose the Right Coach for YOU

After you’ve completed your online research, make a list of 3-5 questions that are important to your decision-making process. You can use the ones above or add some of your own. Then, pick three coaches that you would like to book a consultation with and ask each one your questions. (This helps you compare them as you pick one to work with.)

While it might seem scary to schedule a call with someone you haven’t met, you deserve the best coach for your strengths, values, and desires. The time spent on these calls to find the right person to help you get unstuck and make progress toward your goals is well worth it.

I would love to talk with you if I’m one of the three coaches you pick for a consultation! You can book your clarity call with me right now. It’s such a great first step toward putting your dreams, goals, and priorities first.