Coach your patients to nutritional success
By Margaret Neville

Patients come to you for chiropractic treatment, but you may impact their lives in more ways than by giving adjustments. You can do this by coaching them to better nutrition.

Coaching can add a whole new dimension to your practice. It can tell your patients that you really care about their well-being and that you see them as unique individuals. And it can help them choose how actively they want to be involved in their own healthcare.

Mastering some coaching skills can help you support your patients for better results. Why? Because some of coaching focuses on naming the obstacles that keep people from getting what they really want in their lives.

Coaching is not therapy. Coaching is about asking powerful questions that can awaken your patients’ internal processes. This opens up the truest and best motivators for them to achieve what they really want.

As you work with your patients on their nutritional needs, ask these five questions to coach them to success:

1. What do you really want? To be effective, coaching requires patients to hear themselves say out loud what they want relative to nutrition.

Initially, their answers will most likely be simple. They may say things such as, “I want good nutrition” or “I want to eat healthier foods” or “I want to lose weight” or “I want better health.”

2. Why is this important to you? This question causes your patients to delve deeper into their motivations.

They might answer: “I want to have good health” or “Better health will give me a better life“ or “I don’t want to have a heart attack” or “I don’t want to have cancer” or “I had cancer and want to restore my health.”

Respond to their answers by asking again, “Why is that important?”

The purpose of repeating this question several times is to take the patient away from external reasons such as, “Doctors tell me...” or “I read this article that said ...” Asking “why” gets to your patients’ core values and beliefs on the role of nutrition and their lifestyles.

Ask “why” as many times as you feel is necessary.

3. What will it cost you if you do not get what you want? This question is the wake-up call. This makes nutrition very personal and very internal.

Patients need to hear themselves tell you what the end result will be if they do not make consistent changes in their lives.

Some possible answers:

• Money. Perhaps it will cost them money — money for prescription drugs, surgeries, in-home healthcare costs or nursing-home costs.
• Mobility. They may be less able to walk and move.
• Time. Illness wastes time. Patients cannot do the things they want to do when illness keeps them down.
• Shorter lifespan. Poor health causes a shorter, less productive life.

4. What are you willing to do to get what you want? This ques-tion moves patients into action steps.

Before you ask your patients this, repeat the first three questions and their answers. (They will appreciate your listening skills.) Then ask them what they are willing to do to get what they want.

Provide them with an “action steps” worksheet and ask them to fill it out in your presence. Tell them to post their worksheet so they can see it every day. And ask them to bring the worksheet back for their next appointment.

5. Were you successful? When your patients come back for their next follow-up visit, ask them about their successes.

If they were successful, ask: What was it that enabled you to accomplish what you did?

You can anticipate that many will not have done anything listed on the worksheet. If they were not successful, ask:

• “What would have helped you achieve the success you wanted?”
• “What got in the way of your getting this done? Was it more important than your action items?” If “yes,” commend your patient for practicing good self-care and acknowledging a stronger need for the time. If “no,” ask what could have helped the patient prioritize better.

Coaching is not about scolding for unsuccessful behavior. It is about finding the hidden motivators we all have that are exposed when we do not get what we want. This exercise will help uncover principles that can apply to all aspects of life.

Practice asking these questions in all aspects of your patients’ care. It will take you a few more minutes, but in the long run you will have patients seeking you out as you help them to tap into their internal knowledge.

Margaret Neville is a Certified Success Coach and graduate of SUN (Success Unlimited Network®) coaching school. She is also a Registered Corporate Coach. She is a member of the International Coach Federation and the Worldwide Association of Business Coaches. She can be contacted at Margaret@margaretneville.com or through her Web site, www.margaretneville.com.