Often in health coaching, ‘health’ is an end destination for people. It’s to get somewhere. To counterbalance that, I encourage my clients to be healthy Bex’ or ‘healthy Lisa’ today. And what does that look like today? Let go of the expectation of a future need or a future objective that must be met.
One of the most powerful things I’ve done in health coaching is to get people to just focus on ‘healthy you’ today.
I find it’s a powerful technique when you can ask people to focus on the present. A lot of the time as humans, because of the way that we are emotionally built, we’re either lamenting the past or dreaming about a future that may or may not be good.
Some people are catastrophisers, some people are dreamers. And we often don’t live in the present.
One of the most powerful things I’ve done in health coaching is to get people to just focus on ‘healthy you’ today.
That sense of fear generally results in lower performance, because you start playing not to lose, as opposed to playing to win.
This also relates to, as the coach, this is where we want to land after the initial anxiety. That sense of fear about getting to the end of a coaching session, or a series of sessions, and not making a difference. Not moving the client forward. Anxiety is normal. You experience it because you want to deliver value. You want to help the client reach their health goals. But don’t let that anxiety cripple you.
In my experience, that sense of fear generally results in lower performance, because you start playing not to lose, as opposed to playing to win. You either start doing one of two things. One is playing it safe. You go back to the really safe type of approach. Or the other is overcompensating in an overbearing way.
If you can release that expectation and instead focus on – what is the best thing that you can do for this client in front of you, right now?
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