Why coaching works
Before my first session of therapy, I had a giant pit in my stomach and an ache in my heart. I was nervous and anxious and worried that I was spending money on something that was too abstract to be valuable.
As any of you know who have taken advantage of counseling, therapy, coaching, teaching or guidance in any way, the first step feels like the biggest burden. We feel out of control and vulnerable. As adults, this is NOT comfortable. But very, very often, it’s THE most important part of our journey to improve.
After my first few therapy sessions, I couldn’t wait to go back. That hour with my counselor became the highpoint of my week. It was safe and nurturing. I felt lighter when I left. I was still vulnerable and sometimes confused, but I was uncovering solutions that I would have missed otherwise. And I got better.
Working with a coach is most commonly associated with athletes, professionals and executives. A lot of us may presume, wrongly, that we should be able to figure everything out on our own. And, frankly, taking good care of ourselves isn’t too hard, but there’s a lot of conflicting advice and we all have other important responsibilities that vie for our attention in front of our health.
Very much like counsel for any other complex part of our lives, having a health coach so you have a healthy body is ancillary to most other things going well. Some would argue strongly that if our body isn’t well, nothing else in our life is either. Of course, we aren’t competing for the MOST important ranking order of need (because it’s all connected), but we can quickly attest that if we don’t feel good, it’ll be hard to be good elsewhere.
So, this is one of the best reasons to hire a coach like me: I can help you feel better.
A 2014 meta-analysis in the Journal of Positive Psychology found significant positive outcomes ranging from “coping to goal directed self-regulation” in coaching clients. Although it can seem vague, the return on investment from coaching is a powerful improvement of inter and intra-personal skills. We can all agree that’s moving in the right direction.
Coaching is a relationship. We are professional in our interactions, even when the topics we discuss can be very intimate. For example, we would talk about digestion (or lack of) very frequently. Not to be gross but because so many important things relate to our we process food. We would talk about habits around fitness and family and friends and food and how you feel about yourself. Very often, it’s in these discussions that something dawns on you that you haven’t connected to a cause or effect.
And guess what? You’re still in control. You get to decide how vulnerable you want to be. You get to be as honest as you want. You get to share what you’re comfortable with and nothing more. But the real change happens when you decide that in order to improve from where you are now, you need some help. And how very brave you are to admit that.
For whatever reason, it feels very hard to ask for help. But as soon as you do, you’ll find yourself actually excited about our coaching calls every week. You’ll get to walk through how the good and the not good have happened. Then, instead of dwelling on what didn’t work, we make plans to have more good happen. It’s a strategy session with guidance, but you’re the driver. I can’t get in your seat but I will help you map the course and stay on track.
I hope that if you’re looking for simply strategies to feel better in your body, you’ll reach out to me. I have a long history of helping women, probably a lot like yourself or someone you know, improve their lives. Of course, I make accidental mistakes, too, but my goal is to help. And, when that is one of the biggest purposes in every interaction you and I have, it becomes much easier for me to be curious, experiment and help you make solid decisions. But best of all, every solution is customized to your life; there’s no cookie-cutting to fit you into a box. Coaching is individualized and deeply personal even when we can draw from many other’s experiences that have worked.
I’m easy to reach. In fact, you can schedule a free consultation right here: https://KLivFitCalendar.as.me/consultation
I’ll be looking out for you!
