The foundation of a successful health and wellness coaching session with clients is rooted in the preparations a coach has done behind the scenes, to facilitate meaningful and directional communications in a comforting environment with some basic structure to it. Even before the beginning of your workday as a health and wellness coach, there is much to be done to ensure the coaching session’s effectiveness. A mentor who is guided and intentional in their actions, preparations and arrangements is crucial for the success and high efficacy of a health and wellness coaching session. Thus, it is important to bring some sort of organisation to a coach’s discussions with their clients to ensure that in the longer run the disorganized conversations do not mar the desired client’s outcome. This blog will dive deep into the prerequisites of an efficient coaching session and the points to consider to formulate effective coaching sessions.
Preparing the Venue
The first point of consideration before the beginning of any session is the venue. Irrespective of the location that a coach might prefer for holding their coaching sessions, certain characteristics that the chosen venue must abide by are- an undisturbed environment, comfortable space, and complete absence of distractions. If the venue adheres to these points, it’s irrelevant whether you have a home office or meet your clients in cafes or conduct online sessions.
In case you’re meeting physically, attempt to locate an agreeable private place where you can hold discussions for a longer stretch of time. In the event of an online session, guarantee your family and pets can’t hinder or cause interruptions during the discussion. Affirming the meeting date, time, and spot is a significant component of preparing for the session. Clients may fail to remember the meeting they have with you, thus necessitating timely updates before the meeting’s commencement.
Preparations as a coach
Preparing yourself for the incoming session is as paramount as having the logistics sorted. The preparation you would undertake for a productive session would entail working on your mindset, setting the discussion’s purpose that will act as the driving and directing force, and making arrangements of the necessary tools.
Before starting the session, relinquish or smoothen whatever worries occupy your thoughts that don’t serve anything purposeful to your scheduled session. Meditation, yoga, physical activities can assist you in letting go of your personal baggage and accessing your zone as a coach. Setting the session’s purpose encompasses reviewing client notes, intake forms and remaining aware of language usage that creates a non-judgemental and corroborative environment. Creating an agenda with your client adds more certainty and flow to the discussion while presenting the client with a road map. As for the preparations regarding the tools, ensuring connectivity, fully charging your devices, preparing client handouts, writing materials are a few of the points that need to be catered to before the client session.
Preparing the client
Remember, the effectiveness of a coaching session is not just about your arrangements as a coach or how efficient your workspace is but also having your client on the same wavelength of preparation to empower them to extract the most value from the discussion. This would include setting up some ground rules, assisting your client with the right mindset and eventually beginning the session. Inculcate a habit of punctuality for the sessions in your client with gentle reminders and accentuate the importance of the correct way of participation to them by having them get rid of interruptions, including turning off their phones.
Enable your client to be fully present in the session by clearing their mental and emotional space through small talk and breathing exercises. Rather than asking them generic questions like ‘How’s your day going’, give a positive start to the conversation by steering it in a direction that elicits a much more involved response from them. Once you begin the coaching session, discuss the positive changes in your client’s life, any observable tangible changes and their progress. Engage them in a conversation centred around their concerns, new goals, habits, sleeping and mood pattern while penning down the discussion’s progression that might be of relevance in the upcoming sessions.
Concluding Thoughts
Even if you have held only one session with a client as a health and wellness coach, you would know the importance of the approach mentioned above. Irrespective of whether you are an existing coach or just setting out on the path of health and wellness coaching, bringing some organization in your sessions and utilizing the right methods can uplift the coach-client interactions while enabling desirable health and lifestyle outcomes for your clients.
