How to Become a Certified Health and Wellness Coach
When it comes to health and wellness coaches, people get confused and relate the term with a personal trainer, a dietitian or a counselor. Wellness coaches are the experts to solve your problems and help you to change your life by going together with you on your journey from ill to well. Most of the health and wellness coachings in Washington incorporate support strategies into the behavior change of the individuals who have been lacking in exercise, nutrition, nursing, and other health areas in order to achieve positive outcomes.
Need for A Health and Wellness Coach
Nowadays health coaching is being more popular among the people due to the tremendously increasing needs for trained health coaches to bridge the gap between their medical recommendations and their behaviors required for the implementation of them. Your health coach is motivational that helps you to find and change your perspective for life. Their recommended best life coaching online courses assists you to explore the new ways to deal with a problem and develop life-changing habits.
Procedure to Become A Wellness Coach
Step 1. Earn A Degree
As wellness coaching is a new field, and there are no specific undergraduate programs in this particular area. However, some schools provide minor courses in wellness coaching. These courses include subjects like psychology, nutrition, and fitness as well. Some institutes also offer some relevant internship programs in that specific area. Also, you will learn applicable techniques of earning, and an undergraduate degree in social work, health science, and behavioral science. A degree in counseling helps you to develop necessary communication skills to identify values, goals, obstacles, and challenges.
Step 2. Gain Experience
You can gain experience with working one on one or in small groups to build a relationship and client base. Some entry-level positions do not require a bachelor’s degree and help you to gain essential skills to engage and inspire clients. You can also join a training program for wellness coaching in an organization.
Step 3. Become Certified
After gaining a degree in a particular discipline, obtaining wellness coach certification is really important. The most popular health coach certification accrediting agencies, the National Commission for Certifying Agencies and the Accrediting Bureau of Health Education Schools offer various wellness certification programs. There are several certification programs for different durations. It can take three months to one year. The students must pass the certification exam at the end of the training to get the certification. Additional criteria for certification include oral assessment, submission of goals, and proof of clients. A wellness coach certification test comprises of about 150 questions.
Step 4. Maintain Certification
Indulge yourself in regular learning of new tricks and techniques to interact with people and improve your communication skills. Attend some live classes, webinars, and workshops to continue education opportunities. Make sure to renew your certification after a certain time. Stay current with trends in related industries, as well as, keep your certification current.
Being a health coach is not as simple as it sounds. You must carry a lot of potentials to hear people and their problems. You should gain the ability to win the trust of the people, so they can frankly discuss their problematic issues with you. In that case, only you will succeed to provide the relevant solutions to your clients.
Health coaching is not only about getting a certification. It is a responsibility to help your clients to come out of their problems, find out their objectives, and to stick on their resolutions. You should pursue several specialties like corrective exercise, weight management, sports, and fitness nutrition in your health coach career.
