Today we’d like to introduce you to Rachel Braun.
Rachel, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
I’ve taken a very circuitous route to get to my current and most fulfilling role as a women’s healthy habits and transformation life coach. I have to admit that although I am not a Texas woman, I have met quite a few phenomenal southern gals since I moved to Dallas from Boston, Massachusetts back in 2011. Before I relocated, I had finished graduate school and was working in special education, waiting tables, and working at a gym while I awaited a full time teaching position.
At the same time, I met my soon to be husband, who was living in Dallas and traveling back and forth to Boston to manage his brother’s professional basketball career. After two years of being in a long distance relationship and falling for him, and for the city of Dallas, I took a leap of faith, moved down south, and decided to pursue my longtime passion of fitness and became a professional personal trainer at a corporate gym and then, at an elite training studio. I thrived as a trainer because I got to hone in on my natural roles as a teacher, coach, encourager, and counselor.
I absolutely loved working with my clients on making positive changes in their health because it united my strengths, passions, and my love for people. I was able to understand how making a lifestyle transformation takes so much more than just physical habit change. It requires tremendous self-awareness of our mental and emotional habits that create why we do what we do. It was working with my clients on this level, the relationships I built during these transformations, and helping them navigate the challenges that come from within our belief systems and internal world that made me want to pursue the coaching path further.
However, just like many of my clients, I struggled with the dichotomous patterns of thinking, restrictive mindset, and body image challenges that are common when working towards fitness and aesthetic goals. Although I loved working exclusively in this field, I saw what was missing in my own life and in the health industry, and that was the need to turn the focus inward. I needed to understand how our mindset affects our physical behavior so I could help myself and ultimately help others. Just like I took a leap of faith moving to Texas, I followed my intuition to further pursue this calling, committed years to learning Positive Psychology and doing the necessary soul work before starting my own transformation coaching business.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
I don’t think that any step into unknown territory comes without some obstacles, challenges, or fears. However, I also believe that anything worthwhile, like a career change, life transformation, or pursuit of a goal is a journey and a reward in itself.
A major life change is often a learning process in which we get to see what we’re made of, understand our strengths, our weaknesses, and opportunity to work on our own self-awareness and personal growth. The biggest challenge I had to overcome was my lack of confidence as a coach. I had to challenge my own self-limiting beliefs, question my fears, and attack those head-ons in order to empower myself so I could help my clients.
I worked diligently on my own personal development and coaching skills and sought out other like-minded coaches, entrepreneurs, and positive leaders who I could learn from. As my clientele grew, so did my competence as a coach, and it created a feed-forward cycle with my confidence level. My clients saw tremendous success and I no longer needed to doubt my skills as a coach.
Like anyone who starts their own business, I certainly made some mistakes early on in the process. Fortunately, when I committed to launching my own business I recognized the need for me to sharpen my business acumen and to plant good seeds by learning from my peers, networking, and building trusting relationships with positive like-minded entrepreneurs.
Please tell us about Rachel Braun Coaching.
I started my business with one purpose, and that was to encourage and empower others by teaching them what I wish I had known about the importance of mindset work, what it is, and how our perception creates our reality. I never had a lesson on how to actually make my mind work for me, or how to guide my own thoughts and habits. It seems so simple, but I truly never knew how to use it effectively! Our mindset is simply our mental attitude.
It is our collection of beliefs and mental habits that dictate how we view ourselves, our situations, as well as our ability to reach our goals. Therefore, it plays a huge role in making a successful transformation and I believe it is this element that is missing from health and fitness. In order to reach any goal, whether it be physical, professional, or simply a goal of finding greater fulfillment, our beliefs and our habits need to be aligned. I teach women how to reach their goals by challenging self-limiting beliefs and creating supportive habits that facilitate a mindset that supports positive change.
I am proud of the work I have put into learning about how our subconscious mind, beliefs, and habits create our behavior because I can further help my clients build awareness of how to make a successful transformation. We must study & change our habits as well as our attitude about the habits in order to reach our goals. I want my clients to feel empowered and at peace through the process of making a change. So often, we approach our goals from a place that makes us feel broken, as though we are in need of fixing, and I wholeheartedly believe that we cannot make a positive change from this place.
Although my coaching is not limited to helping clients transform their physical health, I do like to think of myself as a liaison between a counselor and a personal trainer, because when you walk into a gym, there is no one there to talk about the mental and emotional habits that need to change in addition to the physical habits. It is there that we need to focus…why we do what we do, how our beliefs are responsible for our cognitive patterns and habits, and how turning the focus inward is the key to reaching our goals and becoming the most empowered and fulfilled versions of ourselves.
I am a transformation coach, and transformation comes from building awareness, taking ownership, and creating a sustainable, realistic, and personalized plan of action. I love the work that I do, the satisfaction I get from helping others see their potential, and to achieve goals they thought were unattainable.
• Solution to reach your goals will be tailored to your needs and where you feel most comfortable. Reaching your goals, finding peace and power in the process comes when you turn the focus inward.
Do you look back particularly fondly on any memories from childhood?
I loved growing up in Massachusetts because I got to enjoy all four seasons. Summers were spent going to the beach with my parents, fall was spent apple picking with my best friend and her family, and winters (although I do not miss them now), was spent playing in the snow or skiing in the mountains with my dad. I had a wonderful childhood growing up in Boston.
I loved going to high school in the city. I remember my mom teaching me how to navigate the entire city on the subway when I was 14. I loved learning about the history of the city, and it was my love for Beantown that inspired me to get my Masters’ in History. Although I have acclimated to Dallas, I absolutely love going back to spend time with my loved ones and in the city, I definitely call home.
Contact Info:
- Address: 2801 Denton Tap Rd
- Phone: 6178750317
- Email: Gamechangingcoaching@gmail.com
- Instagram: @rachelabraun
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/rachelbrauncoaching
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