Online Class: Wellness Coaching

Wellness coaching is a relatively new field, intriguing anyone who desires to get all areas of their life into balance. This Wellness Coaching course is a general survey course designed to give you a well-rounded introduction to this exciting discipline. This self-paced class is designed to appeal to both potential clients of wellness coaching, as well as anyone interested in pursuing this career opportunity.

Explore the main concentrations of wellness coaching--physical wellness, mind wellness, spiritual wellness, and financial wellness. While it's not necessary for every person to work on all of these areas, it is a wonderful and comprehensive profession for anyone with a wide variety of interests and the desire to be in charge of their own career.

Wellness coaches can set their own schedule, pay rates, choose their clientele, work from nearly any location, and enjoy unlimited creativity and flexibility in their coaching approach. For potential wellness coaching clients, it's important to know what wellness coaching can and cannot offer.

Courses Frequently Bought Together:

Lifetime Wellness 101

Meditation 101: Learn How to Meditate

Nutrition 101

Course Motivation

Wellness coaching, for both client and practitioner, takes the experiences already had in life and uses them in a way that is beneficial. Whether this means learning from mistakes or recalling times of success, there is nothing that cannot contribute to one's wellness now and in the future. This is reassuring for both of you because it says, "You are the expert in your own life. Together, we will guide you to finding your best approach to wellness."

As a professional who wishes to develop a career in wellness coaching, there are any number of reasons to choose this path. 

Professional Benefits to Wellness Coaching

§     You will be in control of your own schedule.  You work when you want to!

§     You can choose the environment in which to practice. You can meet with your clients in the park, at a gym, or at a coffee shop. Any place where the coaching will be beneficial to both you and your client is a great choice, so be creative.

§     You can choose which clients you take on. You are not relegated to taking only those clients who have insurance or anyone your boss assigns to you. You make the choice and work with whom you want.

§     Your overhead costs will be low. You will probably find it necessary to have some basic home office equipment; at the least, you should have a phone line, computer and Internet connection, and an all-in-one copier/printer/fax/scanner.

§     You will constantly be learning about your own wellness, which benefits both you and your clients

§     You are in control of your own paperwork and organization. Unlike therapists, doctors, psychologists, etc., who have to follow paperwork requirements dictated by Medicare, other insurance companies' needs, or their company's requirements, you decide what you need to record and keep on file.

§     You choose your price point. This can even be flexible, depending on your or the client's needs.

We will explore each of these benefits in more detail throughout the course. Now let us turn our attention to the personal benefits of participating in wellness coaching.

§     You actively participate in setting goals. Unlike going to counseling, therapy, a psychologist, or a psychiatrist, you will have far more input into what you want to work on.

§     Education and experience in body awareness, or body wellness. Even though we have lived in our bodies for our entire lifetimes, there is often a lot we just do not know. Wellness coaching will help you tap into what your body is telling you.

§     Understanding the power, or wellness, of the mind. Many of us have heard that we use only a small percentage of our brains. Wellness coaching will help you make the most of your "gray matter."

§     Relying on a higher power to get you through, or spiritual wellness. Wellness coaching, in most cases, does not focus on any one particular religion or spiritual path. It is not the job of the coach to judge but to help you meet your own goals in regard to spirituality. As with the other areas of wellness coaching, you decide if you want to participate in this area or not.

§     Getting clarification in money matters, or financial wellness. Even the most affluent among us probably has some money concerns. Wellness coaching will help you find peace with what you have and what you do not.

§     Strategies for times of crisis. It is part of being human; we all have crises in our lives that can shake us to our core. Wellness coaching can help you come up with your own personal crisis plan to help you get through those times.

§     Lack of stigma. The mental health industry has come a very long way with beating the stigma of receiving therapy and other mental health treatments. However, most in the mental health industry would agree there is still a stigma. Such a stigma is not attached to wellness coaching. 

Now that we have explored some of the personal and professional benefits to engaging in wellness coaching, let us address the history of this service. 

More recently, wellness coaching is being adopted by businesses and corporations who have an interest in lowering their employees' reliance on health insurance. Wellness coaching is seen as a proactive and cost-effective measure for employees and employers both. By spending a bit of money up front and offering employees wellness coaches, they save money overall by improving their employees' health. This makes employers and insurance providers happy and, best of all, is fully beneficial for its recipients.  

Going back even further in time, mental health specialists such as therapists and counselors were not required to be licensed or have any sort of specified education. Truly, anyone who wished to call himself or herself a counselor or therapist needed just to print up some business cards or hang a sign that said so. With the massive changes in the insurance industry, regulation became necessary to ensure that the insured were receiving quality care from educated professionals. This was a positive change in many respects; just as consumers are entitled to regulations for food and drugs that have to show proof that their claims are valid, mental health clients deserve qualified practitioners. The downside is that many effective practitioners found themselves unable to continue making a living doing what they did best: motivating clients to reach their potential.  

Wellness coaching is a valid enterprise for anyone who wishes to motivate or be motivated; to find wellness for noncritical issues or guide others in the same; and to take one's own life experiences and apply them in a way that is helpful for others who do not need or desire mental health services. Wellness coaching works for the client in the manner that suits him or her best, whether that be a kick in the butt, figuratively speaking, or cheering from the sidelines.