Life Coaching is a fairly new and rapidly growing industry. According to a recent article in USA Today, there are now over 10,000 certified life coaches nationally with programs designed for personal, business, diet, health and fitness.

How does Life Coaching Work? Life Coaching differs from traditional psychological counseling because it is based on the premise that change can happen rapidly and be long-lasting. A fundamental tenet of most Life Coaching includes focusing a limited amount of time on the client’s problem, and more time on guiding the client through steps of breaking (existing) negative beliefs or patterns rapidly and effectively. Once the old pattern or belief is eradicated, clients are guided to find a new and empowering belief or pattern, and taught how to incorporate these positive paths for lifelong change.

How can Life Coaching affect health and fitness? Following are a few areas of Life Coaching that relate directly to clients’ overall health and fitness:

Your beliefs about health and fitness affect what you are, and are not, willing to do. To follow through with a plan, you need to believe in that plan and mental roadblocks can hold you back from achieving your goals.
Your beliefs about who you are and how you view the world can lead to success or failure. Do you truly believe you can reach your goals, or do you think it only happens for other people?
Life Coaching tools such as visualization, positive affirmation, and goal setting can assist in maximizing your personal development around health and fitness. Can you picture what it would be like to be fit and healthy? Do you know the right things to say to yourself to motivate yourself to follow through? Do you have written goals and benchmarks?
Eliminating beliefs that are holding you back will help you reach your goals faster and more effectively. For example, why do you overeat? Do you ever say “I know what I should be doing, but I can’t seem to follow through”? Such thoughts limit your ability to succeed, and may be holding you back. Identifying and reconciling your beliefs can be curative.
You can learn to make the best choices for yourself. Life Coaching is based upon individual needs and desires. Working with your Coach, you learn how to overcome obstacles when they present themselves.

One thing is certain, once you make the choice to become healthier, challenges will show up in your life. It is how you view, process and take action upon these challenges that will determine your quality of life.

Life Coaching is a very valuable tool in learning how to focus energy on developing yourself; how to tailor valuable information to meet your specific needs; and how to take action with the knowledge you have acquired to attain your goals. Once you combine knowledge with action, you secure life-lasting results.

Lew Bronstein is a Certified Fitness Trainer and Life Coach at Revitalize Life in Rancho Mirage and can be reached at 760.328.8080 www.revitalizelife.com