What is health?

Over 50 years ago, the World Health Organization defined health as “a complete state of physical, mental and social well-being, and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.” Health does not just mean caring for our physical well-being, but depends on finding and maintaining a satisfying balance between our physical, mental, social, emotional, spiritual and cultural needs, appropriate to our age, culture, and personal abilities. When we lose that balance between risk factors and the actions we could take to protect ourselves, then we lose that dynamic state of wellness.

What is resilience?

Resilience is an increasingly popular term used to describe the capacity of people to cope with stress and adversity. It is also used to refer to one’s resistance to future negative events. Building resilience is an important goal if we are to deal with hard times in healthy and constructive ways. Resilience underpins our capacity to adapt positively to change, and is determined by the dynamic interactions between risk factors – circumstances or events that undermine wellbeing – and protective factors, or those resources we can draw on to reduce the damaging impacts of adversity.  

What is “life coaching”?

Life Coaching is a new approach to help people achieve their dreams and ambitions. It is different from counselling or other forms of psychological therapy. Life coaches focus on the strengths you have, rather than “clinical” symptoms linked to mental health problems. We view these strengths as tools you have to reach the outcomes you want to achieve. Our role is to work with you as a motivator, helping you set realistic goals and developing strategies or learning new skills to steer you towards achieving your desired outcomes, such as improving work skills, strengthening your relationships, or achieving a health target.

How can a life coach help me?

Many people think we should be capable of coping with difficulties or achieving our ambitions ourselves. It’s common to hear people say that it’s a weakness to consult someone for help. Well, why do we consult doctors, naturopaths, dentists, or other health practitioners? Mostly we consult health practitioners because our troubles have not cleared up despite our best efforts, or because we believe there is some specialised care we need to get back on track. Many people view this as common sense. Life coaches, as health practitioners, are there to help when getting back on track isn’t working. They are people with specialised skills who can give you helpful strategies to restore a sense of wellbeing or to achieve something you couldn’t quite achieve alone.

Apart from helping restore a sense of direction, life coaches also work with you to support, motivate and reward your wins. Think about elite athletes – all achieve remarkable outcomes through the ongoing support and encouragement of their coaches. Whilst only a few people are destined for the greatness of elite athletes, every one of us has the potential to achieve greater things if we only knew how to set realistic targets, plan strategically, and had someone encouraging us stay on track to achieve the desired outcomes.

A Life Coach works with you to:

• Set goals based on your own personal strengths and resources;
• each you the skills you need to accomplish your goals; and
• ive sustained encouragement and realistic feedback along the way.
  

How do I choose a life coach?

There are increasing numbers of people offering life coaching in Australia, so how do you know if you are making the right choice? Currently “life coaches” are not registered in this country. This means anyone can call himself or herself “life coach” without necessarily having any qualifications. There are no industry-recognised standards or registration requirements, so you do need to be careful and ask questions before choosing your life coach.

Chrysalis Wellness Services only employs registered health practitioners such as psychologists. Psychologists, like doctors, are registered by their state-based health practitioner boards. They must complete at least 6 years of supervised tertiary education and meet rigorous standards to gain approval to use the title “psychologist”. In addition, they must also commit to ongoing professional development that is recognised by their professional body, the Australian Psychological Society.
So when you think that you could benefit from talking to someone about changes you want to make to your life, always ask about the person’s qualifications, whether they are a registered practitioner, and whether they are a member of a recognised professional association. If in doubt, you can check with the Health Practitioners Registration Board of your state.

Why is Chrysalis Wellness Services unique?

A quick web search reveals any number of practitioners offering life coaching. Many have attractive websites and many offer programs guaranteed to achieve positive outcomes. In fact, some even offer “free samples” of their services. Few, however, offer you peace of mind knowing that they are highly qualified and registered health professionals. And few offer services aimed at promoting healthy change both from the personal level through to the organisational structures that shape so much of our lives.

At Chrysalis Wellness Services, we believe that individual change must be supported by change within the places we live, work and play. We offer a unique service through our corporate consultancy, providing a range of programs to help your work teams function better, to set a vision and put in place realistic corporate plans that will ensure your organisation as well as its people are resilient and able to withstand the challenges of turbulent times, and to strengthen the “social capital” of our communities. That is, we are committed to holistic principles of health from a multi-level perspective, not just making it the responsibility of the individual. We believe change is a dynamic outcome for factors at three levels:

1. Individual Health
2. Healthy workplaces & organisations
3. Community networks (sense of connectedness)

All our programs are built on extensive and up-to-date research evidence, and our training and coaching methods are rigorously reviewed so they keep abreast of modern adult education and training theory. You can be guaranteed that our services are amongst the most professional available. And to ensure this, we thoroughly evaluate all our programs and provide feedback to our customers.