Changing Your Lifestyle: Doing It Yourself Or Finding a Coach?
Дата публікації допису: Oct 19, 2014 6:29:34 PM
Hiring a health coach can be a cumbersome (and costly) experience and before you do that I really encourage you to try it first by yourself. But if you came to this blog chances are that you have already tried (possibly many times, and failed) on your own. So, how do you know when it is a good time to get a health coach?
First of all, doing it with a coach doesn't mean that you should not carefully plan ahead of time and not be prepared to do most of the work by yourself.
In my life most of my lifestyle adjustments I did on my own. But even being a highly trained medical and health expert I have extensively used help from different health experts at different times in my life. Unfortunately for me, none of the experts I worked with were able to provide me with a well rounded picture of my particular situation. And I have talked to many different ones: fitness trainers, physicians of all kinds, including sleep specialists, nutritionists, psychologists, and many other of so called alternative health provides.
Just to see some of them for a brief consultation (15 minutes) I would fly half a way around the world and pay a lot of money. At the same time I was able to get the expertise of others through the internet and absolutely for free, by just listening to hundreds of hours of their recorded lectures on YouTube. Each one of them gave me something of importance. I still continue constantly learning from as many of them as possible, and even now I still continue making small adjustments to my personal health practices if I discover some new information worth my attention. Although at this time I probably learn most from the people that I help to apply the principles of good health by using the comprehensive health system that I have developed.
If you are contemplating to work with a health coach, here's what I would suggest. First think very long and clear about if need and why you want a coach. What issues are you trying to solve? Is it to get clarity with health information? Or are more after some support, encouragement and motivation? Are you realistic in your expectations? Do you have enough resources and can you afford a coach?
If you ever would want to work with me, I say that first you have to have an open mind and a lot of motivation. If you already 'know' - there is no place within your mind for any new information that I will be sharing with you and it will be a waste of time for both of us. Also, sorry, but I am not going to motivate you as well. If your health problem is not enough of a motivator for you, I will be useless in trying give you a kick in the butt to motivate you to do something for yourself. If you want to work with me, your level of motivation has to be at least 100%, preferably 150% :-).
Before you choose a coach, ask around for recommendations, and the best recommendations would be from the satisfied clients who were able to solve their problems similar to those that you are dealing with right now. Also, do not be shy about asking questions and clarifying all the expectations, including terms and length of the proposed work. I personally, always want to be very open with my clients - to have a meaningful and profound change in your lifestyle we will likely need much more time than you expect. The minimum I would work with someone to get long lasting effect would be one year (on biweekly sessions frequency).
At the same never feel discouraged by previous setbacks that you had in the past. As it is often in life, the more you have failed - the higher your chances of success the next time. It certainly was the case with many changes in my life.
So, let me to congratulate you on your effort to change something in your life because it takes a lot of courage to do so. I admire you for that and I wish you all the success. Let me know if I can ever be of any help along the way. Cheers!