Registration is open!
Course Dates:
Monday, January 29–Friday, March 1, 2024
Live webinars: Wednesdays, 12–1:15 pm EST
(live sessions are recorded)
The Introduction to Wholebeing Happiness for Coaches is an interactive 5-week online course that will give you the science, skills, and practical handouts to assist your coaching clients on their journey towards greater happiness and optimal well-being.
This course demonstrates how you, the coach, can use the lessons in the Introduction to Wholebeing Happiness course to assist your coaching clients on their journey towards greater happiness and optimal well-being.
Here’s how it works: You will be introduced to key principles from the diverse sciences of optimal human functioning, including positive psychology, neurobiology, and the social and behavioral sciences—integrated through the SPIRE model of well-being. And you’ll learn how to share these concepts effectively with your coaching clients.
Plus, you will receive beautiful client-ready handouts for each lesson, which will provide the material needed to establish coaching engagements and build your coaching brand.
In this course, you will learn—and learn how to teach your client—concepts including:
- Best possible self
- Positive focus and appreciation
- The five perspectives of well-being
- How to engage character strengths
- How to use evidence-based tools to make lasting change
Understand the key principles of positive psychology, and learn how to use the client handout resources in coaching situations. In addition, you will learn to:
✓ Practice new perspectives—and understand how changing our mindset can be a leverage point for positive impact
✓ Apply the SPIRE model of well-being to increase appreciation for and application of a multifaceted view of thriving
✓ Focus attention towards the positive for more creativity, motivation, health, and overall success
✓ Integrate personal learning by constructing a narrative that aims towards the Best Possible Self
Megan McDonough, Founder of Wholebeing Institute, is the lead faculty in the course, presenting the prerecorded video lessons each week. As a CEO, teacher, and mom, Megan uses divergent thinking and creative perspectives to lead, harnessing the best in people for the greatest good. She is the award-winning author of four books on mindfulness, and has been teaching well-being for more than two decades.
Sandy Campbell is the co-lead for this course, facilitating the live webinars each week. After spending 10 years at a major pharmaceutical company, she decided to stop working in the corporate world and start improving it instead. As a Positive Psychology Coach, Sandy is passionate about helping clients achieve their full potential by making small but highly impactful shifts. She holds an MS in Counseling from Villanova University, as well as certifications in Positive Psychology (from Wholebeing Institute), Integrative Nutrition, and Mindful Yoga.
This course is designed for coaches who want to assist their clients (and themselves) to define, understand, and move towards their best possible self personally and/or professionally. Here are the logistics:
From day one, you will receive actionable, beautiful, research-based lessons and handouts to help you coach your clients to aim higher—for more happiness, resilience, joy, and connection.
Whether you have already taken the Introduction to Wholebeing Happiness course or this is your first time with the material, you will complete the lessons from the perspective of a student or client. The live webinars are then structured to assist you in the coach role—demonstrating how you can use these lessons and handouts in your coaching sessions as you guide your clients through the course.
Self-directed (as the client):
Each week you will view two pre-recorded videos. You will practice your learnings through completing related worksheets and journaling assignments in order to dive deeper into what each aspect of wholebeing happiness means to you.
Live session as the coach:
You will join a live webinar session, where we will demonstrate how to use the lesson material effectively in your coaching conversations. You may choose to use these supplemental materials in your session, or as pre-work or homework, extending the impact of the coaching session past the live interactions.
Your week looks like this:
✓ View two pre-recorded videos
✓ Attend a live webinar highlighting client handouts and their use in coaching conversations
✓ Practice using the material during in-class peer-coaching interactions
✓ Engage in exercises that apply what you have learned in between webinars
Barbara Fredrickson, PhD, is among the most highly cited scholars in psychology. She’s the Director at the PEP lab at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, focusing on the study of positive emotions.
Sara Algoe, PhD, researches social interactions. She’s assistant professor in the Department of Psychology & Neuroscience at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, & the director of the Emotions & Social Interactions in Relationships Lab.
Patty Van Cappellen, PhD, is an experimental social psychologist interested in the psychology of religion, spirituality, health, and morality. Patty is the associate director of the Interdisciplinary and Behavioral Research Center at Duke University.
Kristen Lindquist, PhD, studies the nature of emotion.She’s an assistant professor in the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and director of the Carolina Affective Science Lab.
Megha Nancy Buttenheim, MA, E-RYT 1000, is CEO and founding director of Let Your Yoga Dance® LLC, and author of Expanding Joy: Let Your Yoga Dance, Embodying Positive Psychology. A lifelong singer, dancer, and actor, Megha is a longtime teacher-trainer at Kripalu Center for Yoga & Health, and director of movement and meditation for Wholebeing Institute.
Maria Sirois, PsyD, is the course director for WBI’s yearlong certificate course. She’s an inspirational speaker, seminar leader, and author who has worked at the intersections of wellness, psychology, and spirituality for nearly 20 years. She’s the author of Every Day Counts: Lessons in Love, Faith, and Resilience from Children Facing Illness and A Short Course in Happiness After Loss.
Tal Ben-Shahar, PhD, is co-founder of Wholebeing Institute. Tal taught one of Harvard’s most popular–and life-changing–courses on positive psychology, and is the author of five books, including the best-sellers Happier: Learn the Secrets to Daily Joy and Lasting Fulfillment. He holds a doctorate in organizational behavior and a bachelor’s degree in philosophy and psychology from Harvard.
✓ Welcome and Introduction to Your Coach: Create your own introduction letter welcoming your client to the program. The template includes your approach, program specifics, an introduction to SPIRE, and a section you can personalize, which is all about YOU. Use existing language designed for Wholebeing Coaches, and add your own unique twist.
✓ Start with Yes: Why did your client say yes to working with a coach? Uncover the reasons that drive the desire for change. Help your client explore their underlying “why.”
✓ Happiness Set Point: Help your clients move beyond habitual patterns, lifting their happiness level over time through purposeful choices and actions.
✓ Shaping YourSELVES: Help your clients begin to identify, understand, and make sense of the many different, sometimes conflicting voices or selves within them. Use this handout to help clients aim towards an aspirational vision.
✓ Ideal Self: Clients use this handout to reach towards their Ideal Self, envisioning and then writing about a desired future.
✓ SPIRE Check-In: Use this foundational integrative health model to check in with how you feel right now on all five SPIRE perspectives.
✓ Meaningful Goal Pursuit: Teach your clients the six benefits of committed goal pursuit and then use this handout to help them determine what they would personally like to improve upon.
✓ SPIRE: A New Perspective on Life: Share the five perspectives of well-being with your clients, helping them paint a masterpiece of life using all five.
✓ Apply SPIRE to Your Goals: Use this worksheet to help clients map out an important goal, utilizing the five perspectives of SPIRE as a guide and inspiration.
✓ Focus on Strengths: Educate your clients about putting strengths front and center. Engage them in exercises designed to uncover their own enlivening and energizing superpowers.
✓ S for Spiritual, Pay Attention: Use this handout to reveal the importance of paying attention, and how that focus can help build meaning and purpose in life.
✓ P for Physical, Act Out Your Ideal Self: Use this handout to help clients understand and harness the power of the mind-body connection—how the mind affects the body, as well as how the physical body can influence attitude and perspective.
✓ P for Physical, Take Care of Yourself: Use this handout to help clients build self-care habits, by focusing on how to nurture the body, move more frequently, and prioritize sleep.
✓ I for Intellectual, Deepen Curiosity: Foster and follow curiosity with your clients, using this handout to promote the openness and engagement that helps them stay connected to continued learning and growth.
✓ R for Relationship, Connect with Appreciation: Help your clients recognize and grow the #1 predictor of well-being: strong relationships. Guide them in using the power of appreciation to notice what’s working well in their connections with the people who are most important to them, and elevate these connections even further.
✓ E for Emotion, Reach Towards Positivity: Show your clients why positive emotions matter, and how their view of the world is shaped by the emotional lens they are looking through.
✓ Moving the Whole Forward: This handout weaves all the information together, helping your clients sculpt their days towards the ideal by mapping out an intentional day with conscious, deliberate choices. Help clients create and plan for a 30-Day Practice that will serve them beyond the coaching engagement.
✓ “Stand Alone” Worksheets: Three “one pager” worksheets created from ShapingYourSELVES, Apply SPIRE to your goals, and Moving the Whole Forward are included to encourage an easier exploration of those topics.
✓ Follow-Up Form: Encourages client to reflect on what is going well, and leads the coaching session with more focus and direction.
Your course material is housed in the virtual classroom, a password-protected area where students watch the videos, join the live webinars, connect on the forum, and get information on all course-related material.
Need help navigating the online educational experience? Our Student Support and technology team are here to assist you. Contact us at [email protected]
The next session runs January 28–February 29, 2024
Registration is now open!
Tuition for this course is $495. USD
