E336: Why Health Coaching Works: What Clients Need to Succeed

In a world full of Google searches, quick fixes and diet plans, the true value of health coaching often gets overlooked. This episode talks about what makes health coaches uniquely powerful – and why you're SO needed – even when doctors, experts, and endless advice are everywhere. Want to get certified as a coach or supplement the training you already have? Get Michelle's free guide to choosing a school at https://HealthCoachPower.com/school

Mentioned in this episode:
Free: How To Choose the Right Health Coaching School - https://HealthCoachPower.com/school

Episode Transcript

(00:02):
Hello there. Health coaches,
I know facts like there are manyof you out there who doubt your
ability to help anyone,and you think to yourself,
I'm just a health coach.
You feel inferior to those whohave more certifications or
letters after their name if you're herewith me live and this resonates it all.

(00:24):
Tell me in the chat,
what are some of the things that youtell yourself when you think I'm just a
health coach. I know Ifelt the same way. I mean,
if you've been listening tothis podcast long enough,
you've probably heard me share inthe past. I went to college for art.
I have no background in pre-med or health
sciences where I can stand here andtell you I'm this big old health expert.

(00:48):
I have a health coachingcertification just like most of you.
But here's the thing,
and I only really understoodthis after doing the work
for many, many years,
health coaches provide somethingthat clients often are not getting
anywhere else in their life.Certainly not from their doctors,

(01:11):
often not from their family or friends.And that's why time after time,
we hear amazing stories from our coachesabout their client's progress and
why health coachingworks in a very specific,
almost magical way. Lauren's saying,
I'm just a health coach. That'sexactly what she tells herself.

(01:31):
I'm new and I don't know enough.
This episode is for anyone feelingskeptical about health coaching
as a concept, as a profession,
or curious about its true value.
And if you're curious aboutbecoming a health coach yourself,
or if you're not quite sureyour training has been adequate,

(01:52):
download my free guidethat'll help you out.
It's called How to Choose theRight Health Coaching School,
and you can grab that for free.
It's at healthcoachpower.com/schoolbecause it's not
about memorizing a bunch of nutritionfacts that you're going to be able to
share with your clients orunderstanding complex systems of human

(02:13):
anatomy,
and it really hit me in the facelast week in my own personal life. So
this episode's going to be a little bitof glimpse into real life with Michelle.
It's been crazy lately. We hadspring break trip to Florida.
I was in Iceland before that. Ifeel like it's been a lot of travel.
It's been a lot of the kidsbeing busy with soccer.

(02:35):
Business has been busy overhere, but oh my goodness,
last week it was just a chill day.
My boyfriend and I were loungingon the couch. I mean, you guys,
this is so rare. We weren't runningaround, we weren't going anywhere.
We were just hanging outwith no particular agenda.

(02:55):
And I'm looking at thebooks on my bookshelf.
I see them every day,
but my eyes just landed on themand I turned to him and I was like,
look at all these books I have.
I used to read a lot ofbooks and that's true,
but lately I haven't reallyread much of anything,

(03:16):
and I'm like, why is that?Reading before bed?
That used to be my time.The kids went to sleep,
clean up the kitchen, typical mom stuff,
and then I would geta lot of reading done.
I know maybe a couple years agoI plowed through everything by
Margaret Atwood and a few other authors.

(03:38):
Then last year I bought abeautiful cloth bound set of Jane
Austen Classics. Well, nowit's almost 12 months later,
and guess what?
Pride and Prejudice is stillsitting on my nightstand.
It's like at night I haven't been reading.
I'm curious if you guysresonate with any of this.

(04:00):
I've been picking up my phoneand you know what happens,
the scrolling, the shopping,
a little bit of both that Irealized had taken over habitually.
You do it once, no big deal,happens another time. No big deal.
I think we're all experiencing thisphenomenon right now. It's so very

(04:21):
addictive.
So I was confessing all of this tomy boyfriend and he could relate
because he kind of does the same thing.
So I was showing him thesegorgeous Jane Austen books.
They're just lovelythere on the bookshelf.
They would be even betterif I was actually reading them and it was like we just
talked about it. No shame, no judgment.

(04:43):
It was just a calm afternoon,
chilling on the couch and sharingabout how the phone really has
become addictive. So that night,
sure enough, it was on the topof my mind and when I got to bed,
I very purposefully took myphone, put it in airplane mode,
sat it down away from meand picked up the book.

(05:08):
Yes, right. I know you're all cheeringfor me. Guess how many pages I read?
Probably two.
And then my eyes started crossingand I fell asleep. But that's so much
better,
right than when you'rescrolling on Instagram and it lights up your brain and it
keeps you awake, and then you're juststill scrolling forever and ever,
and now it's too late. The next day.

(05:29):
I was really excited to tell my boyfriendabout this. I texted him right away.
Guess what? I read two pages of my book.
It seemed like a really small win.
But then that night he put his phonedown and read two pages of his book.
So then the next night I had toread three pages and so on and
so forth.
And it's been about a week now and I'mfinally making some progress with Pride

(05:53):
and Prejudice. Thank you. Thank you.
And getting bettersleep. So it's not like,
I don't know this already. I'vebeen a health coach for 16 years,
but I was presented with thisreal life scenario and I could see
how wildly impactfulit was to have had that
nonjudgmental conversationabout an area of my life that

(06:17):
I wanted to change.And then after the change just happened
effortlessly, it didn't feelhard. It didn't require willpower.
It just happened, and no onehad to tell me what to do.
He didn't tell me what to do, right?
He heard what I was sayingabout scrolling on my phone.
We kind of just talked about it.

(06:38):
It was something that Iwanted to do differently,
and because I spoke it out loud andexplored the idea with someone, poof.
It's like magic. Has thisever happened to you?
Have you ever worked with a health coachor with another kind of coach and had
something like that happen?
When I look back on mycareer as a health coach,

(06:59):
it's exactly how some of themost amazing results happened
with my health coaching clients.So what we do as health coaches,
and the reason it works so verywell is that we provide on purpose.
Not just waiting for a random day whenthere's nothing else to do and you're
sitting on the couch, but on purpose,

(07:20):
we can provide a non-judgmentalsupportive space and our clients get to
explore areas where they'reinterested in creating change.
That's the magic. I mean,yeah, we do other stuff too,
but that's the good stuff. Sometimesin life, we're just going to get lucky.
Like I said, you're going to havethat chilled out day on the couch.

(07:42):
You might have a family member orfriend who's going to listen to you.
If we're really lucky, thatperson might be supportive.
They're not always, theymight be nonjudgmental.
They're not always, my manwas so bless his sweetheart.
But you got to think, how oftendoes that happen in a person's life?

(08:03):
Everyone's so busy, and if we dohave a conversation with a friend,
they might say, oh,
well you should do this or you shoulddo this other thing. You should try this
app. You should do this thing that workedfor me. Or another friend might say,
eh, don't worry about it. Social mediaisn't so bad. Don't worry about it.
I do the same thing, nothelpful in the same way.

(08:26):
How often do we have space tothink and process and speak out
loud and have someone actually listen,
maybe ask some questions?
The point is not very oftenjust doesn't happen unless
we're working with a health coach.
So if you think that yourclients need more stuff,

(08:49):
I got to give them plans. Igot to give them programs.
I got to give them recipes thatI got to educate them on every
topic about the human body.Some of that stuff can be good,
don't get me wrong, and itcan be really overwhelming.
People have so much information. Wehave it in our pocket at all times,

(09:11):
access to all the informationin the world. What people need,
I think especially these days morethan ever desperately is to be heard.
It's your undivided attention.
When do you get somebody's undividedattention where they're not looking at
their phone over here, right?
People need space to unpack what's beensimmering in the back of their minds.

(09:33):
Maybe something that they read on socialmedia that they've been thinking about.
All right, maybe there is somethinggood that comes out of social media,
but they need space to process it andthey need to be able to do it without
being pressured or judged or dismissed.
So in this online world,
we live in this world ofartificial intelligence.

(09:56):
You try to talk to someone or chat withsomeone and it's just a bot chatting
back with you. Often we justwant to talk to a person.
Has there been an occasion in yourlife lately where you were like,
can I just talk to a person?I had this issue with
Uber a couple of weeks ago whenI was going to the airport,

(10:16):
the Uber didn't come. I had to booka new one. They charged me for both.
It was a whole thing, and theywouldn't give me my money back,
even though they just didn'tshow up. Oh my goodness. What?
Terrible customer service. Theyhad no way of contacting anyone.
And I'm like, I justwant to talk to someone.
This AI response I'm gettingfrom the bot is not cutting it.

(10:41):
So before you decide that it's notenough to be just a health coach,
just know that real lasting change, itdoes not happen because it's prescribed.
If it did, every time adoctor told someone to change the way they were eating,
then they would change the way they wereeating, and that'd be the end of that.
It doesn't happen.I've had many clients actually ask me,

(11:05):
are you a nutritionist? Are you anrd? And when I said, no, I'm not,
I'm a health coach. Theywere like, oh, I'm so glad.
We think that it's to our detrimentthat we don't have those extra
qualifications. But a lotof my clients were like,
that's great because they had workedwith that type of practitioner before who
maybe just handed them a dietplan and it didn't work, right?

(11:26):
No surprise,
they craved the individual attentionand the individual support and a
human ear listening tothem. So I'm wondering,
did your health coach school setyou up for success in this area?
Do you feel comfortable holdingspace for clients in this way?
And are you seeing resultsthat like magic the clients

(11:51):
create for themselves by themselves,not because you told them to,
but because they want to.That's the good stuff.
Or are you still worried that youdon't know enough to help anyone?
Are you still trying to add to yourknowledge about hormones and the
gut and the nervous system and the thisand the that so that you can create a

(12:11):
program that tells clients what to do?
Think about the idea of sittingdown next to a human being anyone
and holding space and coachingthem and watching change unfold.
Imagine doing that withno preparation at all.
That's the kind of skill that I thinkhealth coaches need more than any of that

(12:35):
other stuff, and that's what you wantto lean into for those really big,
magical results with your clients.It's your intuition and theirs,
and not every healthcoaching school teaches this.
So if this is something that youhave to practice and talk about,
we can talk about it in our Facebookgroup. I'd really like to know what you
think about this.
I do think it should be taughtand emphasized more than learning

(12:59):
the science,
more than learning the mechanismsof this disease and that disease.
That's just my opinion.After 16 years in this field,
and I have a free guide to help anyoneinterested in how to choose the right
health coaching school. Again,you can grab that guide for free.
It's at healthcoachpower.com/school.
The point of today's episodeis to encourage you. I want you to get out there.

(13:23):
I want you to do the work.
I want you to get into it with peopleand do it scared and do it unsure of
yourself,
and just do it because your presenceand your willingness to sit with
someone, that's what's so needed,
and it's why I am proud to be justa health coach, and you can be too.
Thanks for joining me today.I'll see you next week.