What is wellness or well-being coaching?

What is wellness and well-being coaching in a nutshell? Why is there still confusion about the role and limitations of a wellbeing coach, among women who seek professional coach guidance? Does this profession of a holistic wellness coach have clear industry standards, a well-being coach job description and established rules, or it vary from center to center? Is it mandatory for a wellness coach to obtain a coach certification? What kind of wellness coach is more likely to help you as a client? With whom will you be safe? So many questions. Let’s figure it out together.

Eight Pillars of Wellness. Seen this Colorful Wheel of Balance?

First of all, what is wellness? That is when a human is well, isn’t it? You maintain wellness when you take care of your physical and mental health simultaneously.

It is pretty hard to start and keep on track with wellness, especially for someone at the lowest point of their life. Nowadays, in 2024, unfortunately, there are too many stories of how people hit rock bottom. According to the World Happiness Report 2024, we have a lower level of happiness among people born since 1980. Rowing towards success with the guidance of an experienced wellness coach is just so much more promising than trying to thrive on your own.

A wellness or well-being coach helps clients achieve their well-being, which encompasses eight main dimensions. Those eight pillars of wellness include mental (or intellectual), emotional (or recreational), physical, financial, occupational (or career), social, spiritual, and environmental components. The eight dimensions of well-being are often depicted as segments of a colored wheel, with a relevant pictogram for each segment. All of them are mutually connected, and a decline in any of the eight factors would significantly impact the overall personal well-being.

The value that brings a wellness coach is rooted in the fact that the coach can select some segment of that imaginary wheel, divide it into pieces, combine some particular pieces with ones from another segment, etc. That approach allows the well-being coach to tailor their strategy to the exact client needs, creating a unique wellness flavor.

We could speak of parent coaching, stress management coaching, sex or intimacy and relationship coaching, career coaching, menopause coaching, personal finance coaching, aging coaching, leadership coaching, ADHD coaching and many more.

Check out our Well-being Guide to learn more about every aspect of well-being coaching. We've gathered all the essential information about the key areas of well-being coaching in our guide! In addition, you'll find real, science-backed evidence on why wellness coaching works, along with practical self-coaching tips that will help you handle various situations that negatively impact your overall well-being.

Have you ever observed a car wheel alignment performed by garage professionals? That’s a captivating procedure, it is important to get it done regularly, to make sure your car drives correctly and safely. Let’s treat this wellness wheel like our life car wheel, which one should align on a regular basis.

In a contemporary world, it’s in our best interest to level out all eight of our wellness components and keep them in balance steadily. Though, it is challenging to do it by ourselves, and here it’s the moment when a good wellness coach can improve your life drastically.

Moving on to various approaches of different well-being coaches.

Angles of Wellness Coaching

It’s time to look at the terminology for “wellness coach” and those similar to it. Holistic wellness coach, holistic well-being coach, wellness coach — those terms are usually used interchangeably. When something is holistic, it relates to something as a whole, not just a part of a thing. We could remember the aphorism “The whole is greater than the sum of its parts”, typically attributed to Aristotle. Holistic health encloses multidimensional parameters of wellness.

Two types of coaching that are often mixed up with a “wellness coach” by some specialists, which are “health coach” and “life coach” are out of the scope of this very article. Health coaching suggests that its practitioner has a deeper hands-on knowledge and proper education in the medical field, which is not the case for a general wellness coach. Health refers to a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being, and not just the absence of illness.

Life coaching is just a broad and obscure term. Meanwhile, a wellness coach has a narrower focus on any sphere that may affect one's overall well-being, be it career challenges, mental health issues, or parenting questions. 

Project Name: Your Well-Being

To some extent, wellness coaching can be compared to project management, where the project is a particular person's well-being, for example, your well-being. The very process of coach-coachee interaction can be very different, because there are many approaches to coaching. However, the classic steps to gain the result can be described as further. A wellness coach initiates it upon the client’s request, that would be the initiating phase. Then comes the planning phase, where a coach conducts root-cause analysis, gathers data, and agrees on scope, schedule, cost, and quality with the client. Among several approaches, a coach could use a SWOT analysis technique to help their client define strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. After that, the wellness coach categorizes the spheres to develop an action plan based on the findings. In the next phase titled executing, a wellness coach would work side by side with the client to help remove obstacles to well-being while fostering holistic health in selected wellness components. The monitoring and controlling phase is important to execute in parallel, so if things go wrong or resources are wasted without a planned outcome, both the wellness coach and the client would notice that early enough. Finally comes the closing phase, hopefully successful.

Similarly to a good manager, a good Wellness Coach provides informed professional support, acts as a partner both to their client and to other healthcare practitioners, performs as a facilitator, and as a skilled servant leader.

Dos and Don'ts of Wellness Coaches

For you as a potential client of a well-being coach, it is important to know the dos and don’ts of wellness coaches, what to expect from them, and how we could estimate them as good, professional coaches.

There is no doubt that a talented and experienced well-being coach can greatly enhance one’s life, especially if they possess a set of soft skills, the ability to listen to a woman attentively, thoughtfulness, and meticulousness. It is not mandatory to obtain a coach certification, yet specialists strongly recommend doing so. A certified wellness coach has a proven knowledge record and can enrich the industry, and you as a client can be more assured of the quality of such a coach’s work.

Let’s look at what health and wellness coaches do and what they don’t do and should not do.

Well-being Coaches Do:

• find strengths, opportunities, values, and motivation for improvement, then maximize them;
• help to uplevel one’s mindset;
• assist through life transition managing holistic health-related issues, note here limitations as they cannot act as medical practitioners without a proper medical education;
• plan, monitor and control the steps to well-being;
• adjust wellness recommendations as necessary;
• make people better off, not only in financial terms but in terms of holistic wellness
• make the world a healthier place.

Well-being Coaches Don’t:

• make decisions for clients instead of them;
• provide instant fixes;
• act as medical doctors;
• address each and every aspect of a client’s life.

Under no circumstances, a well-being coach is not supposed to harm their client, to impose any risk on the client’s physical or mental condition.

The Future of Wellness Coaching

Society keeps evolving in its understanding of health and well-being, women all over the world shift their focus from their male partners' needs, their managers', or their children's needs to their own immanent needs. Hence, the role of wellness coaches will likely expand even further.

With increasing awareness about mental health issues and lifestyle-related requests such as work-life balance, financial independence, safety and security, menopause, aging, ADHD at workplace and more, - individuals are seeking guidance from professionals who can help them navigate their unique challenges. This trend suggests that properly trained and certified wellness coaches will be irreplaceable in bridging gaps between traditional healthcare providers and women looking for holistic wellness support. 

We witness the reshaping of the wellness coaching role, the communication channels, and the format of deliverables they use. Online wellness coaching sessions via video calls or mobile applications are becoming more and more common as people seek convenient ways to access support while balancing busy lives or even being in emigration. It is not shameful anymore to speak up publicly about things that trouble you.

Conclusion

We hope that now you have a better understanding of which type of wellness coach might help you thrive in your life, and that would make your communication with specialists more concise, more successful.

Wellness coaches can proudly name themselves the Masters of Lifestyle Changes. If you are lucky to meet a good Master, you may want to keep them close, nurture this contact, share it with your loved ones.