Youth Coaching Expert Insights
Stay informed, inspired, and engaged in mentoring and coaching tweens, teens, and young adults with the Youth Coaching Institute blog. Here you’ll discover expert strategies, research, and tools to empower your practice or organization and foster growth and resilience in adolescents.

How Meaning and Purpose Shape Fulfillment (Coaching Tips Inside)
Introduction: This article introduces the concepts of meaning and purpose, and explains the ways in which they contribute to inner peace and fulfillment. It also provides insight on ways to create meaning, and how to coach clients to identify opportunities to discover meaning, purpose, community, and belonging in their own lives. Purpose and Meaning Defined: What is purpose? The American Psychological Association defines purpose as “the reason for which

Three Ways Coaches Can Help Teens Create Meaningful Friendships
Introduction This article explains how values and attitudes impact the bonds we form with other people. It also examines the nuances of making friends as an adolescent, and what they seem to value in the relationships they keep. Finally, it provides three tips on how to coach adolescents to create meaningful friendships. How Values and Attitudes Impact Friendship Values are the principles that we live by. They are indicators of

How Community and Connection Can Change Your Health and Wellbeing
Introduction Contrary to popular belief, our health is not simply a result of our individual choices. Our environment, combined with the people and resources within it, are major determinants of our overall health and wellbeing. This article explains the meaning of community, and highlights the major impacts connection has on physical, mental, social, and emotional wellness. What are communities? Communities are where we live, work, and play. They are made

Why Health Coaches and Clients Need to Know about The Mind Body Connection
What is the mind-body connection? The mind body connection refers to the relationship between the brain and the body – specifically, how mental and physical processes interact with each other. A recent study at The Washington University School of Medicine discovered the physical links in the brain that enable the mind body connection, called the Somato-Congitive Action Network (SCAN). This finding speaks to the power of the mind on behavior.

Physical Activity 101: What It Is, and Why (and How) You Do It
What is physical activity? Physical activity refers to any bodily movement produced by the contraction of the skeletal muscle that increases energy expenditure beyond a basal level. Exercise is a form of physical activity that is planned, structured, repetitive, and performed with the goal of improving health or fitness. Although all exercise is physical activity, not all physical activity is exercise. When it comes to promoting overall health, fitness, longevity,

Nutrition and Weight 411: Terms to Know and Facts to Learn
What is nutrition? Nutrition is the act or process of nourishing or being nourished. The sum of the processes by which an animal or plant takes in and utilizes food substances. What are the nutrition basics? Food is energy. Think of it like the fuel you put in your gas tank. The quality of your nutrition impacts the quality of the energy in the body used to perform tasks. Here