Strengths Work in Health & Wellness Coaching

Part of our work at Take Care Coaching is to help clients identify and utilize their strengths. Strengths are capacities that a person is instinctively good at and that energize them when practiced (Stoerkel, 2020). All of us have strengths. They are innate to us, part of who we are and benefit us and others. In a coaching session, we highlight and bring out strengths in clients because strengths work can help a client strategize around obstacles, discover new parts of themselves, expand their perspective, and move forward in reaching their goals (WellCoaches, 2017). By identifying strengths and applying them, clients experience more positive emotions. They are engaged or in flow more often, find greater meaning in their lives, experience better relationships, and have more self-efficacy to accomplish their goals.

Strengths work is an integral part of the National Board for Health & Wellness Coaching’s Scope of Practice. “…Coaches support clients in mobilizing internal strengths and external resources, and in developing self-management strategies for making sustainable, healthy lifestyle, behavior changes…” (NBHWC, 2019).

There are three things National Board Certified Health & Wellness Coaches are trained to do that spot strengths in clients. First, we ask questions about strengths. We listen for examples and we affirm the strengths that we see.

In every coaching session, the questions we ask clients tend to be strength-based questions. For example, during a first session, a National Board Certified Health and Wellness Coach may ask a client, “What are you currently doing to support your health and wellness?” When we ask this question, we are asking about what is currently working well and why. This gets at strengths, the things a client does innately well right away. We then pull out the strengths from their responses. For example, we often hear from clients that they take their medication daily. In hearing this, a strength is that they are organized. They are consistent. When they think something is important, like taking their medicine, they are going to follow through on this. We will reflect this back and later on ask how they can apply this strength to their current goals. 

When a National Board Certified Health and Wellness Coach picks out strengths in their client, this requires active listening skills. We are trained and assessed through our approved training program and the National Board Health and Wellness Coaching Exam for our listening skills. We pay attention to the words clients use, their energy, their motivations, things they learn really fast. This can all indicate that a strength may be at play (WellCoaches Professional Training, 2017).

Lastly, National Board Certified Health and Wellness Coaches make acknowledgements to affirm the strengths we hear. We notice and observe examples of strengths. “Acknowledgement helps clients see what they sometimes dismiss in themselves out of a distorted sense of humility or simply don’t see it at all. By acknowledging that strength, you, as the coach, give clients more access to it. Clients will know when the acknowledgement is honest and true. They will be more resourceful in the future because they recognize the truth you illuminated” (Withworth, et al., 2007, p. 45).

In sum, strengths work is an integral part of health and wellness coaching. Strengths help our clients identify what it is they do innately well, what has worked well in the past and to apply that to their current goals. It also gives them a language to describe how they work best and to focus more on positive energy and emotions, which will propel them to move forward in reaching their goals. Ultimately, the beauty of strengths work is that it impacts not only their immediate health and wellness goals, but how they live a deliberate, intentional lifestyle. In health and wellness coaching that is our goal, to coach our clients to change their behavior for their lifetime.

RESOURCES

Fredrickson, B. L., Cohn, M. A., Coffey, K. A., Pek, J., & Finkel, S. M. (2008). Open hearts build lives: positive emotions, induced through loving-kindness meditation, build consequential personal resources

Gallup (No date). Learn about the science of CliftonStrengths. https://www.gallup.com/cliftonstrengths/en/253790/science-of-cliftonstrengths.aspx

Moore, M., Jackson, E., & Tschannen-Moran, B. (2015). Coaching psychology manual. pp 52-61

National Board for Health & Wellness Coaching (2020). Scope of Practice. https://nbhwc.org/scope-of-practice/

Stoerkel, E. (2020). What is a strengths-based approach? PositivePsychology.com. https://positivepsychology.com/strengths-based-interventions/

University of Pennsylvania (2020). PERMA theory of well-being and PERMA workshops. https://ppc.sas.upenn.edu/learn-more/perma-theory-well-being-and-perma-workshops

Wellcoaches School of Coaching (2017). Professional Coach Training. https://www.wellcoachesschool.com/professional-coach