Health Coaching 2025: The Good, The Bad & The Ugly
… and exactly what you need to do to make 2025 your best year yet!
We’ve reached a tipping point in the world of health coaching. In fact, I believe 2025 is poised to become The Year Of The Health Coach.
At the very least, we can make it YOUR year. Because a bunch of things are lining up that make this the perfect year to build your dream health coaching business.
I’m going to lay those things out here. Better yet, I’m going to tell you exactly what you need to do to jump on the waves I see forming and make 2025 your best year yet!
Let’s start with The Biggie…
1. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as head of the Department of Health and Human Services
When Trump nominated RFK Jr. to head the Department of Health and Human Services, I could practically hear the cheers from my client’s Atlanta office all the way in my home in Connecticut.
This client sells a range of supplements. (I write a number of their promotions.) And they see RFK’s appointment as being good great for their line of high-quality supplements.
No doubt, there’s a lot of controversy around RFK. Whether you agree with everything he says or not, I believe his appointment is a good thing for health coaches, even if you’re not in the U.S. (more on that below).
He’s an outspoken advocate for holistic health approaches. (And he’s even skeptical of conventional medicine.) His mission to “Make America Healthy Again” will hit multiple areas, like Big Ag and Big Pharma, right in the gut.
Here are a few things he has planned that will create excellent tailwinds to help propel your health coaching business forward…
1. RFK wants to end the chronic disease epidemic
RFK often speaks out against the current public health establishment. One of his main objections is their focus on infectious diseases. He believes this fuels the pharmaceutical companies and creates a system of doctor-led “health”.
Instead, RFK wants to direct more of their resources toward the chronic disease epidemic – things like obesity and type 2 diabetes.
2. RFK views food and nutrition as an essential pillar in helping people get and stay healthy
It’s no secret to those of us in health & wellness that the U.S. food system is a shambles. And sadly, we’ve exported a lot of those problems to other countries, too.
For example, the French culture still favors cooking from scratch with real food ingredients. Even so, “Big Ag” and farming practices are causing health problems there, too. I’ve seen articles where they talk about the use of Roundup and the growing problem of autoimmune diseases and other health conditions.
I’m thrilled that part of RFK’s plans include making it easier for people to access organic and unprocessed foods. (And I sincerely hope his efforts in this area will include supporting small, local farms.)
3. RFK wants to provide Americans with more data so they can make informed health decisions
The idea here is to give people what they need to take control of their health. That includes everything from revamping the food system to his proposal to dedicate 50% of the National Institutes budget to "alternative and holistic approaches to health.”
Efforts like these put natural health & wellness center stage. This will help to raise people’s awareness and create momentum for building your business.
Now here’s a possible bad thing.
RFK is very focused on preventative care, which has me concerned.
No, I haven’t lost my mind. I’m a huge proponent of preventative care. I make choices every day that put prevention into practice. And as a health coach, you probably focus on prevention, too.
The problem is, most of the population is NOT prevention focused because it goes against our biological wiring. Quite literally.
The oldest part of our brain is laser-focused on immediate survival… both individually and as a species. So it’s all about our safety (food and shelter) and making babies (sex).
That’s it.
As you may know, this part of the brain works on autopilot. It guides us subconsciously. And it rules most of our daily behaviors.
That means it’s focused on getting us food, shelter, and sex. Prevention isn’t even on the radar.
A lot of coaches want to focus on disease prevention. They want to help people optimize their health. But out in the internet wild, those kinds of marketing messages are very easy for people to ignore. They rarely get past people’s brain filter because they aren’t focused on one of the Big 3 – food, shelter, or sex.
So coaches who focus on prevention will have a much harder time getting clients.
(More about this, and what to do if you really want to focus on prevention, in this article: These Popular Niches Keep Coaches Broke.)
If things go as planned for RFK, we could see a shift towards prevention. As the population becomes more educated about it, messages that focus on it may start to resonate.
But our biological wiring won’t change… at least not in our lifetime. So our brains will still prioritize immediate problems over prevention.
Now for an interesting caveat…
Millennials are often referred to as the “wellness generation” because of their interest in staying healthy. So if your audience is born after 1980, prevention messages have a better chance of resonating.
That said, the data show that millennials (and Gen Xers) are in worse health than the generations that came before them. So you’re still better off helping people solve a problem than trying to prevent one.
The Bottom Line
Overall, I see RFK’s appointment as a real boon for health coaches. A lot of the changes he’s planning will prime people for wanting help. That creates a fantastic spotlight for health coaches to step into.
I’ll tell you how to step into it in a moment. But first, I want to tell you about 2 more changes that are adding momentum for you to build the health coaching business of your dreams…
2. Technology
If there ever was a silver lining to covid, it’s this. People have embraced the idea of working virtually.
When the world was shutting down in 2020, my work helping health coaches and practitioners build their online businesses boomed.
Practitioners who were forced to shut their clinic doors had to reinvent themselves online. And as people on both sides of the coaching table got used to the idea of working over Zoom, a whole new world opened up for many people … both figuratively and literally.
Coaches realized they could have a business that didn’t tie them to a specific location. They were free to do their coaching from wherever they wanted!
One of the coaches I worked with bought an RV and took her kids on a year long trip around the U.S. She home schooled them and did her coaching from the road, making $25k a month.
Even my lifestyle of spending 2-3 months a year in France has inspired coaches to build virtual businesses.
This is one of the reasons why you don’t have to be a U.S. coach to take advantage of the health & wellness wave that’s building here. You can be anywhere and offer your services to people in the U.S.
Whether you want the freedom and flexibility to run your business from other parts of the world… or you just want to be in control of your schedule so you can be a bigger part of your kids’ lives or care for a loved one… a virtual business makes it possible.
3. The “Jolie-laide” of AI
The literal translation of the French term “jolie-laide” is “pretty-ugly.” It originally referred to a woman who was generally considered attractive, but also had some unattractive traits. (While it started off as a term directed at women, I was happy to hear they eventually came up with a male equivalent – two, in fact! – beau-laid and beau-moche.)
In the case of AI, there’s a lot of “jolie”. I personally love it as a research assistant and a brainstorming partner.
But there are ugly sides to it, too. One of the ugly sides I see is people relying on it to do their writing.
A lot of the AI generated copy I see is “okay” as a first draft. It still needs work. But if a person doesn’t know what makes “good copy,” they can’t take the okay AI draft and make it good.
Here’s an even bigger problem. AI simply compiles information that’s already out there.
So if a health coach uses AI to generate their copy, they won’t be saying anything new and different … and what they do say probably won’t be written in a way that’s considered “good copy.”
That means there’s a great opportunity for coaches who create their own messaging to sound unique. And there are ways you can protect and control access to your messaging so you decide what you want AI to see. (More on that some other time.)
So here’s what to do now so you’re positioned to ride the top of the coming health coaching wave…
Your next steps:
Create an offer that focuses on a problem people want solved. Read how to here: This Works Better Than Picking a Niche
Craft key messages that will make it past people’s brain filter and position you as the obvious best choice for people to work with. This article gives you an overview: The 5 Game-Changing Messages Every Coach Needs)
Create marketing assets that get people excited to take the next step with you. My favorites are a website (check out This Kind Of Website Gets You More Clients) and a lead-gen webinar. (More about that coming in February)
Build and nurture your email list. This is critical. The best way is to have an amazing lead magnet (again, a webinar is fantastic for this). That’s how you get people on your list. Then you need to email them regularly so you stay top of mind and can constantly show them why you’re the best option to help them