Our career journeys – much like anything else in life – are often filled with twists and turns. These changes can come in the form of pursuing a new job opportunity, facing an unfortunate layoff, or transitioning within our existing roles. Whether it’s new responsibilities, team restructuring, or leadership changes, these shifts can be overwhelming.
While health coaches aren’t career coaches, they can provide a valuable service during times of uncertainty both in and out of the workplace. With uncertainty often comes stress, self doubt and even a tendency to neglect our mental and physical wellbeing as we work to reconfigure our work lives around new changes.
Real health coaches step in, working with employees one-on-one to offer personalized support when it’s needed most. Especially during career transitions, health coaches can prevent burnout; foster a healthier mindset; and promote productivity when we need it most. In today’s blog, we explore some of the ways health coaches help us stay healthy, happy and productive during career transitions.
Health coaches enable stress management through uncertainty.
According to recent data, stress and uncertainty are inextricably linked. It’s undeniable that, when we’re faced with a new environment, new responsibilities, or new leadership at work, we might experience negative emotions around anticipated change. First and foremost, through techniques like motivational interviewing and active listening, health coaches help us recognize these emotions and understand their source. They’re able to ask insightful questions around when we experience these emotions. For example, are they trickling into our outside of work life, suggesting a need for better boundaries? Are they bubbling up because we’re neglecting healthy habits that are exacerbating our bodies’ stress response?
From there, health coaches work with you to anticipate when you’ll experience this stress so you can craft a stress management plan that’ll work for you. They teach stress management techniques – like deep breathing, meditation, or progressive relaxation and ensure you’re optimizing healthy habits to reduce physiological stressors. Managing stress is ever important during times of change, and especially critical in preventing the dreaded burnout.
Health coaches implement tailored routines to maintain stability and prioritize health.
Especially when it feels like so much is outside of our control, leaning into a healthy routine can help you maintain stability that enables growth through career transitions. Real health coaching we provide – the kind that requires the dedicated support of a trained human health coach – is the most successful way to create healthy habits that actually stick. That’s because health coaches help you tap into your intrinsic and extrinsic motivators, work to understand your unique values and needs, and troubleshoot through any challenges to ensure you’re creating health habits that fit seamlessly into your lifestyle.
When we’re stressed, we sometimes deprioritize our health in favor of work. We get less sleep. We neglect our nutritional needs. We fail to exercise. Unfortunately, this creates a negative feedback loop that results in more stress. Health coaches intervene before this becomes a pattern, preventing burnout, absences, decreased productivity and overall dissatisfaction with work and life.
Health coaches build self-efficacy through a strengths-based approach & positive psychology.
Career changes can shake our confidence. This goes beyond instances of losing our jobs but can also surface in the form of imposter syndrome when moving into a new role or in questioning our abilities when teams are restructured. Health coaches build self-efficacy brick by brick, inspiring confidence, happiness and better overall mental health. They work diligently with clients to help them recognize, leverage, and build upon their existing strengths to achieve personal health and wellness goals.They ensure health goals are built with these strengths in mind and celebrate opportunities where goals are achieved.
Not only that, but health coaches teach principles of positive psychology, helping clients tap into joy and gratitude, fostering a growth mindset and helping them conceptualize a sense of purpose through achieving their goals. They build resilience through self-compassion so that set-backs never really set their clients back, but instead, remind them why they’re motivated to keep moving forward. All this builds a self confidence that makes them better humans and employees.
A note to employers…
Employers, it’s no secret we’re facing career tumult at the micro and macro level. Especially now, it’s more important than ever to provide employees resources that equip them to manage change while preserving their physical and mental health and wellbeing. Only REAL health coaching can truly support your workforce through their growth and development within your organization. If you’re interested in learning more about how we can deliver REAL and impactful health coaching to your employees, send us a note to team@yourcoach.health, or to schedule a complimentary session for yourself to see why YourCoach is chosen time and time again!