Getting Professional Training In Well-Being Coaching

 

Whitney Lauritsen has been casually doing well-being coaching for years. She helps people out by tapping into her intuition and drawing lessons from her personal experiences. Even though she is doing this to serve others instead of earning a living, she decided to make it official. In this episode, Whitney shares the experience of getting proper training on emotional well-being coaching. She looks back on how she started offering such sessions with a small group of people and breaks down the six elements of her coaching approach. Whitney also shares updates about her recent challenges with sleeping.

Interested in well-being coaching? Book a free exploratory call with Whitney: https://whitneylauritsen.com/wellbeing

This episode is sponsored by Zencastr. Visit zencastr.com/pricing and enter promo code “wellevatrzen” to get 30% off your first three months.

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Listen to the podcast here

 

Getting Professional Training In Well-Being Coaching

I’m excited about this episode for many reasons. This is the 401st of the show. It blows my mind, and it doesn’t because this is how I’ve been as a content creator. I did an assessment intake of my history on YouTube because a friend of mine might hire me to coach her son on starting a YouTube career. YouTube has not been a big part of my life. I don’t know when that’s going to be because YouTube has taken a backseat for me. For instance, I have not prioritized putting the video versions of this show on the channel.

I have a bit of a block when it comes to my own YouTube work for a number of reasons that I might not get into. I didn’t plan on talking about YouTube specifically, but I still appreciate YouTube and recommend YouTube to people in their careers. It’s worth exploring. YouTube has continued to evolve in a lot of ways. I did this look like an audit of the past on YouTube. The first channel I started was in February 2007. I made this spreadsheet totaling up all of the YouTube channels I can remember, which came to ten.

I know there’s one very private one I made a long time ago, and I don’t remember when that was. I’ve started a lot of YouTube channels. My point is that when I totaled up all the videos I made, it was 1,600. That is similar to this 1,400 episodes where it simultaneously feels like a big and small number at the same time because, for a period of time, it felt effortless, easy, or in the flow for me to make YouTube videos.

I don’t feel that way about YouTube anymore. Podcasting feels relatively in the flow. I will say that almost every time I do an episode, I face some resistance, including this very one. It’s mostly because I had already recorded for two hours with a guest who turned out to be one of the most amazing guest experiences I’ve had in a long time. That episode is coming out soon. Even when I’m looking forward to interviewing a guest or doing a solo episode like this one, there’s still resistance because it takes time and energy.

I am drained from that wonderful two-hour session and had one of the worst nights of sleep I’ve had in a long time. I’ll talk a little bit about sleep. I have a variety of things I want to catch you up on because I spent the last few episodes talking about travel, trip summaries, and my speeding ticket journey. This is only the third solo episode I’ve done since I got back from my big cross-country trip. I still feel like I’m grounding back into it.

Stuck In A Room Since March 2022

Speaking of YouTube and video content in general, I am thrilled in mid-November 2022 because I have a brand new podcast and video conferencing set up. It is an interesting thing that has a lesson about personal development, growth, and achievement built into it. When I started doing the show at this location I’m in, I’ve been recording since around the time that the pandemic started in March 2020.

Previous to that, Jason, who was my former co-host, and I used to record every single episode in person. We were dedicated to it. We thought like, “We want to have the highest quality show, and the way to achieve that is to do it in person. We want the experience and the energy of connecting with each other as co-hosts. We wanted to connect with our guests.” All of our guests were in person. If you go back to the very beginning of the show, up until we no longer had that choice when the pandemic started. We probably thought it was going to be a temporary thing. It ended up being a lot easier. Thanks to the platform that I use, Zencastr, and other online tools.

The challenge for me was I didn’t like the background for the space I was in. Most of that was like because the room that I recorded in had a bed in it. It’s a guest room. It has a bathroom in the background. That’s where I keep my dog. Sometimes she would bark, and sometimes she would be messing on my desk where I record.

For years, this has bothered me. It was not until then that I finally came up with a solution, and it happened in such an interesting way. This is where the lesson is. I had been thinking about adding some backdrop behind me. This is a little hard to describe if you haven’t ever seen the video. You could go back to the most recent videos I put on YouTube because I’ve been using this space for quite some time now, and you’ll see the bed behind me.

The feeling of a bed didn’t like feel the level of professionalism and appropriateness to me, but it did have that element of being casual, which is part of my personality and style. I kept bypassing it, but every time a guest would come on the show, I’d think to myself, “Are they judging me for having a bed in the background?” When I’m presenting professionally, coaching, or doing anything that I consider to be professional, there’s something about having a bed in the background that feels weird, but I wasn’t able to easily move the bed.

I’m sitting here in this space thinking, “What am I going to do? I want to make a decision. I want to do something. Should I get some backdrop that I could put between my desk chair and the bed?” It’s not a huge space. You can go online and get these wireframes or plastic frames you put up and can hang curtains. Some people put these green screens behind them, either hanging like that or even making them for their desk chairs. Zencastr, the tool I use for the show, doesn’t have a green screen feature.

Long story short, my brain was trying to think of a solution. I looked over to the side of my desk, and in this room, there was a curtain, and the curtain was weird. It acts as a door. You probably have never seen this since I always hide it on camera, but behind me, there is a whole wall of storage. That’s where I store all sorts of stuff. I’m not going to get into the details of what’s there, but it’s personal stuff that’s stored for various elements of life. Instead of closing like a cabinet or having a sliding door or whatever, the people that originally owned this space put in this tall curtain that goes almost entirely across the side of the room to cover up the storage.

I never use it. I never closed that curtain because it’s been out of sight. My cameras face the opposite direction. You’ve never seen it before. I looked at it, and I thought, “What if I recorded in front of that curtain because the curtain looks cool? It looks kind of like a nice backdrop.” I’m staring at it, thinking, “I don’t know how I’m going to do that. How am I going to do the lighting? Is it going to look too plain?” I got into this experimenting mode.

I brought my laptop with the webcam on top, which I used to record every video, even though they haven’t all been uploaded to YouTube yet. I propped up that computer on my lap to see what it looked like, and it didn’t look that bad. I thought, “How could I face this direction?” This is where the nerdy details come in, but in case you’re curious, I’m going to share it all with you. My desk is facing a different direction, perpendicular to the space in front of the window.

I love sitting in front of the window and looking out and having natural lighting. It is also like flattering light for the camera. I thought, “If I turn the desk, it’s going to completely dismantle the space. I don’t want it to be permanently that way. What if I had a mini desk the size of my laptop I could use for recording?” As I started thinking about this, all these ideas started coming up. I’ve never considered something like that before. I started looking around the room to see, “Did I have a table that would be high enough?” I didn’t. I decided, “Maybe I can go get an inexpensive one. Ideally, used.”

I went and looked on Facebook Marketplace and Craigslist and found a couple of side tables and tray tables. They were $20 to $30, but either they weren’t the quite height that I needed, or they weren’t the right size, shape, or style. I thought, “I’m going to go on Amazon, even though I have mixed feelings about Amazon.” I’ve realized over time, as a side note, that even if I don’t fully ethically align with certain stores from my mental health, sometimes I need to go with the easiest option. A lot of people can relate.

Even if you don't ethically align with certain stores for your mental health, sometimes you need to go with the easiest options. Share on X

Maybe that’s why Amazon is successful for someone like me who’s like, “I could spend hours trying to find a desk secondhand or from another store and spend money on this, or I could go do a little bit of research on Amazon, find exactly what I wanted and get it delivered to me.” Long story short, that’s what I did. I looked at many desks and tables. If you’re curious, I will link to the exact one that I end up getting because it’s perfect. I’m overjoyed. It came in this relatively small box, probably 30 to 40 hours after I ordered.

It’s this rolling cart that has a ton of cool purposes. This is why I want to pause to shout it out because it’s mostly used to go underneath a bed like they would use at a hospital. You could slide it underneath most beds, and you would have a little desk, or you could use it for your computer for writing, watching movies, or something because it tilts, swivels, and it’s on rollers, so you can move it around. People use it with couches and things like that, but they also use it as desks like I am. It’s perfect because you can put a laptop on it and adjust it to be whatever height you want or angle, and it has space for your mouse.

It’s cool. It was about $50 with free shipping and free returns if you don’t like it. It wasn’t too hard to put together because it comes in a small thin box, and then you take it out maybe ten minutes with easy IKEA-like instructions. I got that desk, and it is a game-changer. This is why I’m excited to share this. I bought some new lights from this brand called Lume Cube, which I had been admiring for a while. I thought they were cool. They make all these different types of lights for laptops and desks for video conferencing and live streaming. I bought them when they were on another Amazon sale. It was Prime Day 2022. I bought them thinking, “I’ll try them out, and if I don’t like them, I’ll return it.” I kept two of them. One of them is called the edge light, which is awesome.

There’s a slight issue with the way it’s built, and I might have to get mine repaired. Other than that, it is an extraordinary light. I brought it with me on my cross-country trip so I could use it in my office setups there. It’s not designed to be portable like that, but it was easy to bring around. It has different color temperatures. It can be like a blue light or more of a yellowy color. It can be different brightnesses and angles. It is such a cool light.

The other one, I don’t remember what it’s called, but it’s a smaller version that suctions to the back of things like a laptop or a phone. That’s designed to be portable. I hadn’t used it. I was feeling like I wasted it because I went beyond the return date. It finally came in handy, and I’m using both lights right now. I have my edge light on one angle for me and the other mini one right behind my webcam. I got great lighting. I had these fake plants that I put behind me to give it a little bit more of an interesting look.

I hung up this cool plaque on the wall because there was a weird hole in the wall next to me that I wanted to cover up. I also wanted to hang this plaque because it was gifted to me by the members of my private community Beyond Measure, which is a huge part of my life and becoming more. I’m going to talk a little bit more about that too. When we crossed the two-year anniversary of that private community, the members got together and created this cool plaque. They all signed their names and even planted five trees in Superior National Forest through Arbor Day Foundation. They got it all professionally framed with glass. It’s beautiful.

I hung this up here. When I sat down in this space with my new desk and my lights, it shifted everything. That’s why I was excited to tell you. It felt like such a great celebration of crossing 400 episodes. If you’re wondering where the lesson is beyond all these product recommendations and tools, it’s that I have been in this room for a few years using this as my office space, recording, moving things around, and feeling stuck.

I’ve been feeling frustrated and a little embarrassed because I didn’t like my background, but unsure what to do about it. It took years before I simply looked across the room and thought, “What if?” I couldn’t have forced it. This is not, “I need to make a decision. Here’s the answer.” Sometimes answers take a long time, and we don’t even know where the ideas for those answers come from. I don’t know what it was. I don’t even know where the inspiration came from. Something I struggle with a lot in my life is this feeling of wanting to do something but either not knowing how to get it or not having the energy and the motivation to get there.

My Emotional Well-Being Coaching Training

Maybe ironically, I now help other people overcome that because I finished my emotional well-being coaching training, which I’ve talked a little bit about since I started in July 2022. It was about a four-month-long program. Every week, I had to spend four hours in class, virtually, plus about 1 to 2 hours studying, watching lectures, and reading material. It was intense. It took up to 6 to 7 hours a week for me.

I had to do practice sessions and get evaluated on it, but I did grow as a coach. It was such a transformative experience for me and also affirming. I had been working casually as a well-being coach for years. In fact, the foundation of the brand Wellevatr, which is the website domain that this show is under, all was centered around mental health coaching. I was doing that based on my intuition and personal experiences. I didn’t have any training.

I didn’t feel fully comfortable advertising it. At one point, I had the word coach in my bios on social media and my website. I was doing “coaching sessions” and trying to build that up for myself, but in the back of my head, feeling a little bit like a fraud. Fraud’s a little bit of an intense word, so I use that very lightly. I didn’t feel legitimate because I wasn’t trained. Now that I’ve come out on the other side of a coach training program, I’m glad I did that. My strengths as a coach were strengthened. It doesn’t make any sense, but you know what I’m saying. I also got frameworks that I didn’t know before.

I got to see the things I was doing that weren’t within my scope of practice as a coach, maybe putting me more in the expert position or trying to lean more toward therapy, which I’m not even qualified as a therapist because that’s a whole another process and career path than a coach. Now that I’ve completed my training, I feel not only more qualified but excited about it. I plan to take the national board exam, which makes me nervous, but I’m going to move forward with it. That’s my plan, at least. It’s supposed to happen in March 2023. It’s something I have to spend money on. It’s the coach training program I need to study for.

I need to become incredibly dedicated. This exam has turned out to be a much bigger undertaking than I initially thought it was going to be. I joined some groups on Facebook that are dedicated to preparing for this exam, and it’s a lot. It makes me nervous because, historically, I don’t do very well on exams. I don’t know if that’s part of learning difficulties or neurodivergence, but I have these moments where I think, “Do I need to be board certified?” The answer is generally no. As a well-being coach, I don’t even have to have training. I could have continued with my practice from this intuitive standpoint, but I wanted to be trained.

Now, I want to be certified through a nationally recognized exam because I value this position much. Well-being coaching has become a big thing for me. I feel like it’s an honor and something to take very seriously. It’s not something that I’m doing for money. It’s something that I’m doing as a true service. As I mentioned, I can see where I’ve got stuck and felt unsupported. I could see where I was yearning for someone to be in my corner.

I’ve talked a lot about therapy, and I’ll pause the well-being stuff for a moment to pivot over to therapy as I mentioned different things. In fact, I’ve had some guests on the show who have talked about therapy versus coaching if you’re curious about it. The last episode was with Shonda. I’ve had many great guests and people talk about similar things. I’m pretty sure it’s Shonda. It’s coming out on December 2, 2022. Stay tuned for that.

My process through therapy has been remarkable. I dedicated a whole episode to some of the things that I’ve been learning. Every week that I meet with my virtual therapist, I feel an enormous shift, truly. There are things that I might not share with you until further down the line, until I’ve processed them. There are things I may never share with you. Part of therapy is that private, confidential experience. I consider you, a valued reader, as someone that’s part of my life, and that’s why I share these things. I’m excited to offer them up in case they’re useful to you.

Having that safe space every week I have a therapy session has been transformative in itself. I have found that in the majority of my therapy sessions, I get choked up to the point where I can barely talk, and I cry from a place I don’t feel outside of therapy. I attribute this to the power of the therapist I’m working with. He’s remarkable. At this point, I can say he is the best therapist I’ve ever had. The way he holds space for me, talks, and guides me through things. I feel trust in him. I feel held emotionally by him. It is enormous in ways I never expected.

I went into therapy thinking, “Do I really need this?” Here I am studying well-being. I’ve been studying Psychology for a good chunk of my life. I’m immersed in this. I’m having guests on this show all the time, “Why do I need therapy?” That was my mentality, but something within me told me it was worth a try, and I’m glad I listened to that voice. I’m also grateful that my insurance covers it because therapy is a financial privilege. A burden for me is wondering about the cost of it and what the process of getting my insurance to cover it would be. Fortunately, it was not that hard once I dug into it, but I also had to trust that I would be paired with a therapist I liked.

I was afraid of going through the process of several therapists. I truly lucked out, whereas the first person I was assigned to through my insurance was this remarkable man with my best interest, which is why I broke down with him. I can barely talk because my emotions start to seep out of my body. The reason I bring that up is because that experience with him has propelled me even further into coaching. Even though coaching and therapy are two different things, there are a lot of crossovers. In fact, some of the practices that my therapist, tools, and the formats of our sessions are very similar to what I’ve been trained to do as a well-being coach.

That excites me to no end because I’m witnessing that process for myself as a client in therapy and thinking, “I want to offer something at least similar to this to somebody else and become deeply gratifying.” I want to share more details about what well-being coaching is. I want to be fully transparent that I’m not financially motivated. At least at this stage, well-being coaching is an addition to the rest of my income. Most of my income comes from working as a freelance consultant in the marketing space.

I have a few clients who hire me to support them with social media, podcasting, thinking about marketing and community building, and how they authentically promote their business and bring in new customers, clients, etc. I love doing that, and I make a living from that. The well-being coaching is something I’m offering on top of that. I’ve made room for my schedule. I’m trying to keep my rates in a range that feels affordable. I’m experimenting with a sliding scale model, although I don’t know how long I’ll be doing that. My promise to you is to always be very transparent when I talk about it on this show.

I also want to say that as I talk about well-being coach, it’s partially me sharing my life experience as I do in every episode, and partly there is so you know that I offer this now. If you’ve been looking for support or maybe not knowing what you need, but this sounds good to you, I’m available for that. I will charge in most cases. I hope, at one point, to offer pro bono sessions if you’re wondering why I don’t outwardly do that if it’s not about the money. I feel uncomfortable offering a service like that for free because, in the past, I’ve found that people struggle to value something that they don’t pay for. They don’t get quite as invested. I also want to be transparent.

I’m trying to think of pricing from different angles that don’t get in the way but support you and myself. People deserve to be compensated for the work that they pour themselves into. Sometimes rates indicate the level of professionalism and experience someone has, whereas sometimes if you have a low rate, people don’t value or respect you as much. As a side note, I want to be transparent that I may be promoting these services. I’m definitely in this episode, but in the future, if you hear me mention it, that’s where I’m coming from.

Rates indicate the level of professionalism and experience. If someone has a really low rate, people won't value them as much. Share on X

If you’re not comfortable, that’s okay. Maybe we can talk through it. Part of my journey as a well-being coach is navigating that world. Ironically, I don’t like marketing myself that much, even though my career is helping other people market themselves. It’s like what I’m saying with YouTube. I don’t prioritize YouTube as a creator anymore, but I love helping other people understand YouTube because I have much experience with it, and I still appreciate it.

I created this form for the members of Beyond Measure. To go back a little bit, I mentioned them with the plaque and all of this. Beyond Measure is a private community rooted in well-being. I created that in the summer of 2020. It came out of this vision I had for a safe, supportive community of like-minded people who could be there for one another without judgment and who would connect not just with me but with one another. I didn’t know how to do it or what it was going to look like, but I knew I had to. It was strong within me. I launched it and have been testing it for years. It’s amazing how the journey is similar to me setting up this new space in this room, but I didn’t get all the answers to how to develop Beyond Measure right away.

I thought I would. I thought, “I’ll pick a platform, invite people to come in, and we’ll figure it out quickly,” but here I am years later, still developing it and still struggling to find the word to describe Beyond Measure. Now that I’m doing the well-being coaching, I’m looking at how the two can go hand in hand. I have dedicated a small group of people in Beyond Measure. Every week most of us come together. It’s always optional, but most people that are loyal members of Beyond Measure jump onto Zoom, and we talk.

Some people don’t have their videos on. They’re using their audio. Some people use a chat, but the majority of people have their video and audio on. We’re hanging out as friends. We have all different well-being practices. We have activities, or sometimes it’s an open space for about one hour to talk about anything in life. This dedicated group of people returns over and over again. It has blown my mind. They got the very first dibs on my well-being coaching. A week before this episode, I created a form to outline to them what well-being coaching is. That’s what I’m going to read to you. Before I start, I’m not sure what the next steps are if you are interested. Whenever I figure out what they call in the business world a funnel or a landing page, I’ll put that in there, but now it doesn’t exist.

 

If you read this episode before that link exists and want to coach with me, I would love to talk to you. The best way to get in touch is either through email or social media. If you happen to be part of Beyond Measure and you’re reading, you can message me there. Beyond Measure also has a messaging platform. If you’re not part of the Beyond Measure Community, email me, but you can also try me on a platform like Instagram. I want to make it easy for you. Send me a message and say, “I read you are talking about well-being coaching. I’m curious about it.” You and I can do a session like we can get on a phone call or a Zoom call and talk it out, but maybe what I’m about to share with you will give you some framework for what that could look like.

What Is Well-Being Coaching?

What is well-being coaching? 1) It’s designed to facilitate and empower you to develop and achieve your self-determined goals related to health and wellness. I also emphasize the mental health side of it. Health could be a lot of things. I don’t plan to focus on physical health, although as part of my board certification exam, I’m having to study a ton about physical health to at least be knowledgeable about that because physical, emotional, and mental health is all interconnected. The other side of well-being coaching is about encouraging personal responsibility, reflective thinking, self-discovery, and self-efficacy.

 

Self-efficacy is one of those words that comes up in my training. I’m still trying to get a grasp on exactly what that means. It’s interesting. To me, it’s parallel to self-awareness. It’s about accountability. I’ll always be transparent about what I’m learning. Some of these terms are confusing to me. Here’s what well-being coaching entails, and this mostly comes from the textbook I use. It’s a coaching manual. That’s why some of this wording might sound a little like not in layman’s terms, and I’ll translate whenever it seems right.

In a coaching session, I can support you with mobilizing internal strength. Instead of mobilizing, I would say putting them into action, like using your strength and external resources and developing self-management strategies for making sustainable, healthy lifestyle behavior changes. Essentially, it’s tapping into your inner strengths and using the resources beyond you, whether those are other people or things in your life or physical tools, digital tools, mental tools, and all different types of resources.

Another is developing self-management strategies, like how you get yourself to maintain sustainable healthy lifestyle behavior changes. Part of coaching is determining what that means for you. That’s why together, we can connect the dots between who you are and who you want to be. That’s one of my favorite phrases in the definition of emotional well-being coaching. We’ll take incremental behavioral steps that will enable you to succeed in that desired change that you’re determining.

 

I can support you in leveraging your strengths and building those psychological resources needed for good. That could be mindfulness practices, self-awareness, positivity, hope, optimism, and resilience. Through coaching sessions, you can achieve a higher level of well-being in performance, life, and work personally and professionally, especially when navigating these changes feels hard.

Let’s get into more of the nuances of that. As a coach, I can help you discover, clarify, and align with what you want to achieve. A lot of people aren’t sure what they want, or they haven’t verbalized it. They haven’t written it down or are not clear on it. Let’s figure out what that is. Get clear on it, and then make sure that’s an alignment with who you are and who you want to be. Together we can generate solutions and strategies. I’ll hold you accountable and responsible. One of my favorite things is helping you feel empowered to achieve your goals related to health and wellness.

Some goals and components of this are building resilience, awareness, balance, clarity, connection, and flexibility. That’s all part of this wellness wheel that plays a big role in your life. I also want to be transparent. This was the other side of this coaching program I’ve come through. I’ve been trained to accept and meet you where you are now. That was a big shift for me. I’ve been a very accepting person most of my life. I strive to be at least not to be judgmental. I’m not always perfect.

What I’ve learned to do is meeting you where you’re at. In the past, as a coach, I used to try to push people farther beyond their limits, outside their comfort zones, and stretch them. If that’s not where you’re at and where you want to be or are not ready, it’s not a good fit and practice. I can guide you in mindful thinking, feeling, and doing work that builds your confidence so that you can stretch if you would like to. I help you define a higher purpose for health and well-being and uncover your natural impulses to be well. Most of us have that, but sometimes we’re not even aware.

Coaches usually try to push people beyond their limits, but that is not always a good practice. It is much better to guide them in mindful thinking that builds confidence. Share on X

I support you in tapping into your innate fighting spirit. I like that too. Sometimes we lose track of that. It feels in alignment with confidence, where maybe we feel weak. I’ve had coaching clients who don’t even know what their strengths are. They’re not in alignment with that. They’re focused on the negative. That’s very common. A coach can support you so much with this. I can encourage you to set and achieve realistic goals, whatever that means for you. Not what I think realistic is, but what you think realistic is.

Another big pivot is that I’ve shifted so much from projecting my beliefs onto people. Now I’m trying to align with your version and support you. That’s part of that acceptance. I can help you harness the strengths needed to overcome obstacles. First, identify that those strengths are there and bring them out because obstacles are going to happen all the time, and you need strength for that. We can reframe obstacles and opportunities to learn and grow. When those obstacles come up, you can see them in a different light. It can help inspire and challenge you to go beyond what you would do alone. Not forcing you to go beyond, but inspiring you, challenging, welcoming, and encouraging you. I love all these words. This is coming from my textbook.

How about some obstacles you can experience from coaching? Number 1) Increased self-awareness and self-knowledge, increased personal responsibility, which is efficacy. Acquisition of new knowledge and skills is the big outcome, attainment of personal and professional goals. That’s one of the main reasons people go into coaching in general, although it’s important to distinguish that this is still related to health and wellness.

I’m still focused on the scope of health and wellness. There are many facets of life beyond that. I’m also not trained as a career coach. I’m curious about that. Maybe in the future, I’ll go through that type of training. This has inspired me and pointed out what I’m not trained to do and what’s not within my scope of practice. I can refer to other people, which I’ve done for clients before, and encourage them to see a therapist, for instance, a career coach. Some people might want to go to a personal trainer.

What Is Not Well-Being Coaching?

There are all different things that are beyond what I can do as a coach but complementary. I can help you with sustainable behavior change, increased life satisfaction, developing a sense of purpose and meaning, and ultimately becoming your best self. It’s also important to touch upon what well-being coaching does not entail. I outlined that a bit a moment ago. 1) It’s not expert advice and problems. It’s not about telling you what to do. That’s typically why you would hire a consultant or a mentor.

Knowing that about coaching has shifted my perspectives on what I do as a consultant and mentor. That’s another line of work that I’m in. I can give expert advice on marketing when someone hires me as a consultant, but if you hire me as an emotional well-being coach, I’m not going to give you expert advice. I’m not even going to give you expert advice when it comes to well-being. That’s not my role as a coach. The expert hat is on you.

 

2) I’m not going to give prescriptions because I can’t. Those solutions are typically what you go to a doctor for. Next is education on new skills. Certainly, you may develop these things. I can provide resources, A) If you ask me for them. B) If they’re appropriate in our sessions, and C) If they fall within the code of ethics as a coach. These are also the things that I’m training on. In education on new skills, I’m not there as a teacher. That’s a difference with a coach. I’m not a trainer or an educator.

I’m not going to treat disorders, trauma, or mental health conditions. Even though mental health plays a big role, trauma may come up. Your disorders may be part of your well-being, but I’m not treating them. That’s something that a doctor, psychologist, or psychiatrist would be fit for. Likewise, not healing pain, dysfunction, and conflict because I’m not a therapist. I’m not improving a clinically diagnosed condition. I’m not a doctor. This is important because some people go into coaching thinking it includes those things, and that’s okay.

My role as a coach is to be transparent with you and encourage you to get other help on top of it. If you’re thinking about these things, let’s say you’re limited with your time and money, like a lot of people are, or even your energy. Maybe all you can afford right now is to work with a doctor, psychologist, or psychiatrist. I also want to be transparent that I don’t have an LLC. I haven’t even got my insurance yet. There’s much more for me to develop a coaching practice and take it to another level. I might not be a fit for you at this point.

It depends on when you read this episode. A lot can change since episodes are done, but I want to be very transparent because I don’t want you coming into a coaching session with me or any coach with expectations beyond what they can ethically do. This is part of the training. Here are a few more elements of coaching. I want to share the process of that. What does that look like? I broke it down into six steps.

1) Working towards the creation of a vision for yourself. 2) Developing oftentimes within a three-month span a plan and a set of goals to achieve in that container of time. 3) Committing to small steps or experiments each week that we meet. Most coaches, therapists, and a lot of these professionals work on a weekly basis. Taking that each week to make progress. 4) To review the progress from the previous week. 5) Brainstorm strategies and generate possibilities, and 6) To guide you towards developing solutions for yourself. That’s a good framework for the process of coaching.

Lastly, the well-being coaching structure, at least the one I’m using, could differ from coach to coach. One is the length. I’m doing sessions that are between 20 and 30 minutes in length. I tend to go more than a 30-minute realm. That works well. The energy is involved, and the time is nice and short. It can lower the cost to 30-minute sessions. That’s worked well for me in my client base, but I might expand to more 1-hour long sessions or even 45 minutes. That can differ. If you come to me or another coach and you want different timeframes, ask for it.

A lot of us can work within your preferences or at least validate why we have them at a certain length. What’s the rhythm? A lot of coaching programs are centered around 3 months or 12 weeks, and that depends on your availability, preference, my availability, client base, and all of those different factors. That can shift. You could even do more than that. You could have a couple of sessions a week if you’d like. My therapist even offered this to me, not necessarily on a regular basis, but he said if there was ever a week where I was struggling or having enough tough times, it was okay to have multiple sessions per week. I feel the same as a coach.

Lastly, the location. I do the sessions on Zoom. I’ve enjoyed Zoom as a tool. There are other platforms, but I’m using Zoom now. We can do that through audio only if you’d like. We can do that with video and audio. Technically, we can do sessions through chat, although I find that that’s a little challenging. The pacing and the flow of things are a little bit hard. Some coaches offer email coaching. I don’t know if I’ll do that. That can be part of it. I don’t know if I want that to be the main type. I’m also starting to experiment with group coaching sessions.

In fact, that’s going to be an element of Beyond Measure, at least as a test in December 2022 as well as January 2023. I might continue if those few months go well. That’s an option for you, whether through the container of Beyond Measure or in another group environment on a platform like Zoom separate from Beyond Measure. The other thing is these platforms allow us to record and transcribe, which has been effective for my clients.

Being able to reference back to the audio, video and/or text of the session is helpful to see your progress and go back and clarify your goals and the words that you’re saying. A lot of my clients say the most brilliant things in our sessions that they wouldn’t have occurred to write it down, or they can’t even believe that they said these words themselves with a little encouragement from me as a coach. Having that written down and saved is powerful. That is always an option. I ask my client’s permission before we do any recording. I take confidentiality incredibly seriously.

 

These sessions are generally for you and me, and for any other reason, there’s even a desire to share them that is thoroughly discussed and will never be done without permission. I take the ethical side of this work seriously. That’s the overview. Even if you don’t want to do coaching, I hope that me exploring this with you opened your eyes. Maybe you’ve been curious about it.

I have an upcoming episode with a guest who is a hypnotherapist. I knew nothing about hypnotherapy. It was interesting for her to talk about it. It feels cool to share this with you and open up about who I’m becoming and how things have evolved through my work with this show, outside of this show, and how my passions are shifting. Some readers have been with me for many years, from my days back on YouTube and other facets of social media.

It’s that commitment to bringing you along the journey and supporting you. I see coaching as another way to support people like yourself. I onboarded a number of new clients. I’m excited to get to know them. One of the joys of coaching is this rich look inside someone’s life, how their mind works, and understanding humanity. I’ve always loved that, and I’m overjoyed to be adding this in.

Here’s one last thing, which is completely unrelated to that in terms of my coaching. Let’s shut the door to coaching. If I don’t have the link at Wellevatr.com for signing up or exploring coaching, like doing a free session, maybe I’ll set up a calendar booking page. Sometimes the idea pops up when you’re least expecting it. There will be a link to my Calendly, which is a booking site where you can book a free session with me. We’ll talk for 10 or 15 minutes and explore it. We’ll figure out all these things as I’m developing it. In the future, I’ll probably replace that link with a more official landing page for coaching. In the short term, it will be a discovery call that you and I can have to discuss this. You can choose whatever time works for you, and we can have a cool conversation about it.

My Sleeping Journey Update

Aside from coaching, another thing I wanted to share is that I went through some interesting things with my sleep journey. I did a sleep study because of a history and an ongoing challenge with sleepwalking, sleep talking, and sleep episodes in general. Every night from between 30 to 60 minutes, sometimes as far as two hours after I fall asleep, I have a sleep episode literally almost every single night. I’m emphasizing how frequently it happens. I’ve been documenting this every night for weeks, and I’m amazed.

One night I had one of the worst sleep experiences I’ve had in a while. I was restless. I was having a food reaction in the middle of the night. It was awful. I did not sleep well at all, and I haven’t even reviewed my recordings to see if the sleepwalking happened. I did the sleep study in December 2021. It was inconclusive. I didn’t want to take that as any definitive answer. One of the things I’m exploring in therapy is trying to figure out what’s going on with my sleep.

I also got an MRI for the first time of my brain and an EEG, which is an electronic measurement of my brain waves. I have not received any information about what they mean. I have the images from the MRI, which were eerie to look at, but I don’t know what they mean. I’ll meet with a neurologist to look at them and then discuss options with my psychologist about different things.

It’s an ongoing journey that I might do a whole episode on once I get the results because I’d love to share with you what the process of an MRI was like. If you’ve never had one, I found it deeply fascinating. The EEG was not that exciting, but I can share a little bit about that if you’re curious. I’ll certainly share my experience with a neurologist. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a neurologist before.

Around mid-December 2022, I’ll put in an episode about that. Stay tuned. I also mentioned the amazing guests that are coming up. I recommend reading. I’m more concerned with you reading guest episodes and these solo episodes. Sometimes readers tell me they prefer this. I’m amazed. I’m like, “Really? I feel like I babble on for one hour.” My aim is to share with you life, what I’m learning, what I’m doing, and how I’m growing as a human being.

I want you to see my humanity. That’s what the show has been about. I’m very turned off by people who try to seem like they have it all together. They have all the answers. They’re perfect. They don’t want to share or the opposite end of the spectrum where people are capitalizing on their misery. I’m trying not to be judgmental, but I have a little bit of judgment because I find that triggering. It’s like the content creators and influencers who share life in a way that’s not fully authentic, and that’s not taking into account all the challenges that the world is facing and all the nuances between us as human beings. I’m committed to acknowledging who I am at my core, how I’m changing what I’m learning, and where my flaws are.

Many content creators and influencers share their lives in inauthentic ways. Always acknowledge who you are at your core and accept your flaws. Share on X

That’s what these episodes usually encompass. We’re going into the holiday season with even more reason to offer my support, my love towards you, my appreciation, gratitude, and all these positive emotions for you being part of my life, even if we’ve never talked before. This is part of the reason coaching is exciting to me. If you come out of the woodwork and you’re like, “I’ve never talked to you before, but let’s talk well-being coaching,” I would be thrilled. That’s part of the reason I created Beyond Measure. It’s a free place for you to come, chat with me, meet other people and feel love and a lack of judgment and freedom to express yourself. That’s what I’m committed to.

I mentioned a lot of things in this episode, from the technology I use to set up my new recording space. It’s just a recording corner. It’s not a new space at all. It’s the same room I’ve been in, but in a different area. What I wanted to mention was Bearable. That is part of how I’ve been tracking my sleep episodes. I’d become enthusiastic about Bearable. I’ve been using it for a while. It’s the app that’s free. It’s freemium. There’s a free and a paid version. I’ve been using the free version, but I’m waiting to see if they have a Black Friday sale. I’ll have it signed up for a paid plan because I use it so much. You can log your sleep, mood, energy, or any physical, mental, or emotional symptoms.

You can track your bowel movements on there. I track every little detail, like exercise. It paints this picture and gives you insights into how you’re doing as a person. The paid version apparently gives you great insights than the free version. I treat it as a tracking tool because whatever symptoms are going on, I can bring them to the doctors and say like, “This is what’s happening. These are the times, the days, and the frequency.” It’s super helpful.

It can even be helpful for you to connect the dots about who you are and why you’re feeling that way. You’d be amazed. If I missed anything or if something comes to mind for you, that would be helpful. Another reason to reach out is through email and social media at Beyond Measure or however you want to reach out to me. I would love to find more ways to support you. With all that said, I’m going to wrap things up for this episode. Thanks for reading. Stay tuned for the next episode.

 

Important Links

• YouTube – Whitney Lauritsen
• Rolling Laptop Table
• Lume Cube
• Beyond Measure
• Well-Being Coaching Booking
• Bearable
• Email – Whitney Lauritsen
• Instagram – Whitney Lauritsen

 

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