What is the message for me?

This will only happen if you learn to question yourself constantly. However, you have little to question if you don't know what you're looking for. Many of you will work on your own, and if you work within a team you might not discuss your education and professional development on a regular basis with your co-workers . In this section, I'm going to share a list of the subjects that I believe every coach needs to know more about. Do you have to be an expert in all of them? No, not at all, but you need to understand them if you want to help your clients make progress. You also need to know about them if you want to develop your reputation, achieve better results and progress your career. Continually developing your education throughout your career gives you a new way of looking at each of your clients. I remember studying with the Institute of Functional Medicine (IFM) in Florida in 2011, and right at the start the lecturer said that we would have a new set of eyes by the end of the three days. This resonated with me because I knew there was so much more that I could be doing to help my clients - I just couldn't see what. How does that usually turn out? So would you like to try something different? Change the Action Plan If you judge that an Action Plan item is inappropriate or if clients are still unsure they'll do it, you may need to modify it. It's far better to substitute an easier Action Plan item that clients are likely to do than to have them establish a habit of not doing what they had agreed to in session: I'm not sure you're ready to do this. Do you want to go ahead and try or wait until another time? As illustrated earlier in this article, you can also collaboratively decide to make certain Action Plans optional or to decrease the difficulty, frequency, or duration of an Action Plan item. Make the Action Plan a No-Lose Proposition (Initially) When creating Action Plans in the first session or two, it's helpful to stress that useful data can be obtained even if clients fail to complete their Action Plans. Clients who don't do their Action Plans are then less likely to brand themselves as failures.

You need to slow down everything to avoid negative thoughts, and first try to just note them. It will get you more comfort and self-awareness by integrating timers, alerts and actual time blocks into your life to just breathe. Then just breathe them out as you start noticing how many negative thoughts you're having. The key is not comparing yourself or getting caught up in the negative thoughts. Over time, you'll get better at this workout, just like anything else. Become Intentional About Your Attitude Having a positive attitude is a deliberate action starting as soon as you wake up in the morning. Be conscious as you concentrate on the negative, and make the decision to reflect instead on the positive. Your mindset reflects a decision. You draw what you're focused on so let go of something that doesn't match your interests. He's also the author of The Total Money Makeover. Dave helps people get out of debt all the time through a process he calls The Debt Snowball. My husband and I were so desperate we took Dave's advice and got busy with the program. It worked for us and trust me, it can work for you too. First, you have to do the hard stuff. Cut up the credit cards, trim your expenses, take on extra jobs, sell your stuff--just prepare yourself to do whatever it takes. Then it's time to get organized. Make a list of all your debts, putting them in order of smallest payoff balance to the highest. No, interest rates don't matter, just the balances. Every month, pay the minimum payment on all your bills except for the first one on the list (The smallest payoff balance, remember?

When I came back and started asking my clients more questions, I was able to understand so much more than before. It's important to note that a great fitness professional will always refer out when faced with something that is out of their scope of practice. The team at M10 and I have a large range of specialists that we refer out to. Not only is this expected - because you are not qualified to heal or diagnose anything for your clients - but working alongside other professionals is also highly respected by your clients. You will learn a great deal when you work with other professionals, and you will also get the opportunity to see how they operate their businesses. I encourage every coach that I work with to build relationships with a private doctor (ideally functional medicine trained), osteopath, physiotherapist and chiropractor. In fact, when I worked in a health club and moved into my first personal training studio, one of my greatest referral relationships was with a local physiotherapist. I was having treatment every two weeks as a maintenance protocol alongside my training, and through each session we would regularly talk about my coaching and subjects relating to the body. As my physiotherapist started to learn more about my work, I could tell that she was beginning to trust me. It started with one referral and then progressed over the course of four to five years. You might say, If you get this Action Plan done, that's good. But if you have trouble doing it, that's okay--just see if you can figure out what thoughts are getting in your way, and we'll talk about them next time. Sometimes clients fail to do a significant portion of their Action Plan for 2 weeks in a row, or they do it immediately before the therapy session instead of daily. In these cases, you should elicit the cognitions and/or practical obstacles that got in the way and stress how essential it is to do Action Plans daily, instead of continuing to make them a no-lose proposition. PREPARING FOR A POSSIBLE NEGATIVE OUTCOME There are times when you and the client just can't predict to what degree an Action Plan item will be successful. It's helpful to have therapy notes in the Action Plan for clients to read if it doesn't work out the way the client would have wanted. LENNY, for example, fears that if he visits his mother, she'll be critical of him. But he decides to go anyway. We set the visit up as a behavioral experiment and jointly compose the following therapy note for him to read in case her attitude is negative.

The more positive mind-shifts you do, the simpler that becomes. Try The Displacement Theory Have tried not thinking? Do it, and see what happens sometime. If you want to smash the habits of negative thinking, you have to replace them with something else. At the same moment, no-one can dream of two things. Now, pick something you'd love to do and start working on it; Focus On The Promise, Not The Problem No matter what your abilities or current work environment are, if you let them live, there will always be grounds for negative thoughts. If you start feeling pessimistic, simply remember why you're there. For that one, you are going to have squeeze every last drop out of your monthly budget and come up with some extra cash. Even if it's not much, you need to find something. Put that extra money plus the required minimum toward the smallest debt. Keep doing this every month until it's paid off. Once you've paid off the smallest bill, cross it off the list (Feels good, doesn't it? Combine your extra money for the month with the minimum payment plus the minimum payment amount for the bill you just paid off and apply it towards debt number two. Do this every month until the balance is zero. Then move onto debt number three. Now you have the minimum payments from the bills you just paid off, plus your extra money for the month to use towards paying off debt three. See how this works?

When you work with another professional, it's not just a case of what you'll learn; As you go through the subjects in this section, I want you to think about your clients and ask yourself how an increase in knowledge of each particular field could help your clients progress. You have a portfolio of clients, and there is always something that you can be researching or working on that will help them in their journey. Anatomy and physiology One of the first questions that I will ask a coach is whether they know their anatomy and physiology ( A&P). Do you understand what it is that you work on every single day? It's not uncommon for coaches to say that the last time they looked into A&P was when they sat their personal training qualifications or university degree. So, when faced with a question as simple as, `Show me where the pec major originates and inserts', they look completely baffled. Here's something that is vital for you to understand: You are being hired to help someone to improve their body shape, strength, fitness and health. To do that, your clients have to perform exercises, which requires the use of muscles, bones, joints, ligaments and tendons. If the visit to Mom doesn't go well, remind myself: I didn't know whether Mom would be critical or not, but it was worth a try, and I deserve credit for visiting her. I don't need to take her criticisms to heart. She's critical toward everyone, not just me. And she didn't know about my depression, so her criticisms probably weren't justified. I wish she were different, but the reality is that she probably won't change. The next time I visit, I can tell her in advance that it will only be for a short while, and I can figure out some activity we can do together to try to get her focus on something else. REVIEWING ACTION PLANS Before each session, prepare by reviewing the notes and the Action Plan from the previous session. Review the Action Plan with the client toward the beginning of the session.