*Opportunity Exclusively for WING Members*

Coaching has been known to boost confidence, improve work performance, and build effective communication skills. The benefits can be even more vast and specific to the individual. Without enough investment into your coaching skills, you might notice that:

• You have a hard time connecting with new clients.
• Your existing clients are becoming less engaged.
• You may feel like you’re not progressing in your practice.  

No. As much as health coaches work in collaboration with physicians, dietitians, social workers and other practitioners, they do not have the credentials to diagnose or prescribe medication.

Yes. You can start or stop the Academy at any time. You do need to attend a minimum of five training sessions within the year that you join as a member. Make sure you are aware of the attendance policy. 

With the Coaching Academy, you’ll learn what choices produce healthy outcomes and what tends to hinder healthy outcomes. You’ll also be exposed to and encouraged to try new things that contribute to a healthy lifestyle in our group coaching sessions. After being equipped with this knowledge and experience, you ultimately decide for yourself what health outcomes you want to achieve, then receive support in making the changes you choose to make to achieve your goals. You will always have the autonomy to make decisions that best suit your needs. 

An easy way to remember this is therapy is for recovery and coaching is for discovery. There are many similarities with therapy and coaching. A therapist will help people who present with significant emotional problems such as anxiety, depression, and feelings that are intense enough and long enough in duration to interfere with daily functioning. They will commonly explore the origin of those feelings and then offers coping strategies and how to change those behaviors. The difference in coaching is that coaches will support a person’s feelings and navigate stressors to effectively strategize options, obstacles, and action plans to experience some relief. 

During coaching, if personal feelings of anxiety and depression were the dominant presenting problem in a health coaching session, then your coach would make a referral to a therapist. If your desire is to create health behavior changes for yourself, establish health routines, and support with follow through in the context of personal growth, then coaching would be appropriate.

Coaching creates independent thinkers who can access their inner wisdom to make the best choices for their lives. Effective coaching is a process and the amount of time it takes one person to let go of an old belief or habit might be different for someone else. Coaching is a fluid process based on independence rather than codependence. What the client wants for themselves, the coach wants for the client.

The coaching academy was created to increase the self-efficacy of the Armed Forces in their ability to coach and support others. This academy is to help educate members on basic health coaching skills that could set you up for success in pursuing an accredited program like UW-SP or UW-Madison.