I’m a Certified High Performance Coach (CHPC®). When I share that designation with people, most have no idea what it means. They ask, “What is Certified High Performance Coaching?”

You may have the same query.

I recently completed my eighth certification in this coaching style. I received my first certification in 2015 from the High Performance Institute in this curriculum created by Brendon Burchard.

That means I’ve been a CHPC for almost a decade.

This most recent certification program reminded me of why I love this style of coaching and the curriculum I’ve been licensed to use. Certified High Performance Coaching is powerful and holistic. Because it is a result-oriented coaching program, clients see results almost immediately.

During certification week, we role-play the coaching sessions in 20 minutes rather than an hour. I’m always amazed at people’s insights and what can be accomplished in one-third of a regular session, which is typically an hour long. For example, I realized how fear is holding me back in my business.

Although I’ve shared a lot about Certified High Performance Coaching on this site, it’s been a long time since I wrote a post about Certified High Performance Coaching—what it is and what makes it different from other types of coaching. Given how jazzed I’ve been since completing the certification, I thought it was time to do so again.

What is Certified High Performance Coaching?

Certified High Performance Coaching is a form of personal development or growth that helps anyone reach higher levels of effectiveness and success in both personal and professional life arenas. It’s focused on helping you become the best version of yourself.

In the context of Certified High Performance Coaching, “high performance” means developing the behaviors and mindsets that help you succeed beyond standard norms consistently over the long term while maintaining positive well-being and relationships. In other words, high performance is about rising above your current success level in any given area of life—not someone else’s success level. High performance is not about working harder or for more hours. Often, it’s about working smarter or doing less better. And it’s about finding life balance. Certified High Performance Coaching helps you succeed at work and home, improve your relationships, become healthier, and make space for your hobbies and friends.

Businesspeople and Olympic athletes aren’t the only ones who need higher performance levels. Increased performance levels also help new moms, college students, CEOs and CFOs, dancers, writers, or engineers. In other words, higher performance supports anyone who desires more success and wants to live fully and up to their potential.

What is Certified High Performance Coaching?

Certified High Performance Coaching is a science-backed, results-oriented, proven coaching curriculum that focuses on empowering questions, developing supportive habits, creating helpful mindsets, and using specific outcome-based tools to help clients become who they need to be to reach their next level of success.

Most coaching programs are not curriculum-based. The Certified High Performance Coaching program includes 12 core sessions and then progresses through another three sets of 12 sessions. CHPCs certified at least four times have access to all 48 sessions. (I have access to all the sessions.)

Each Certified High Performance Coaching session is focused on a specific topic and result, like becoming more productive, increasing energy, or gaining clarity. Someone who hires a Certified High Performance Coach could meet weekly with a coach for a year and never repeat a session.

Certified High Performance Coaching is nothing like “life coaching,” which is client-driven rather than outcome-driven. That’s one reason clients report high satisfaction with Certified High Performance Coaching programs—they get results.

A Coaching Program that Yields High Levels of Client Satisfaction

The High Performance Institute sought proof of client satisfaction. It teamed with a third-party company to track 37,603 Certified High Performance Coaching sessions in 173 countries delivered by CHPCs. They discovered that the average client satisfaction rating for Certified High Performance Coaching was 9.6 out of 10—the highest score ever recorded for any multi-month coaching program.

This satisfaction score is why one of my clients worked with me for three years. She enjoyed every session, even when I asked her tough questions, and she transformed her professional and personal life so much she could hardly recognize either one. She was a different person when she completed coaching with me; she became the type of person who could do all the things she wanted to do to create a balanced and successful life.

A Totally Different Type of  Coaching Program

A few things make Certified High Performance Coaching different from other types of coaching.

• Because most coaching programs have no curriculum, they often provide little value. However, Certified High Performance Coaching uses a world-class, proven, results-oriented, research-based curriculum; therefore, value is built into the program.
• Most other coaching programs offer unclear outcomes. Certified High Performance Coaching provides a clear outcome—high performance. Plus, each session works toward a specific result.
• Most other coaching programs are listening-based. Certified High Performance Coaching is question and challenge-based.
• Most other coaching programs are client-driven. Certified High Performance Coaching is curriculum- and results-driven; each session includes training and education and aims to achieve a specific goal.

Proof that Certified High Performance Coaching Provides Results

Burchard, the High Performance Institute researchers, and graduates from the Master of Applied Positive Psychology (MAPP) program at the University of Pennsylvania developed a scale, called the High Performance Indicator (HPI), to measure the factors that matter most in predicting individual high performance as defined as long-term success. Based on research and proven performance improvement methods, the HPI is the world’s first validated assessment on high performance created and backed by a high performance coach (Burchard) who has over a decade in the field.

The HPI, the largest and most comprehensive high performance study ever conducted, analyzed over 100 human performance variables in six key categories proven to relate to a person’s long-term success potential. The researchers found that the HPI correlates strongly with external measures of success (sales performance, academic GPA performance, executive promotion odds, business unit financial success) and important life outcomes like happiness, health, positive relationships, and confidence.

There’s more to the science of Certified High Performance Coaching. A report was published that offers much more information on the HPI. Remember, this assessment measures the habits that lead to long-term success across domains. It’s comprised of six sub-scales that separately measure clarity, energy, necessity, productivity, influence, and courage.

The two studies had a total of 174,054 participants and showed that the HPI was predictive of several important life outcomes:

• happiness
• confidence
• education level
• perceived excellence
• life satisfaction
• quality of interpersonal relationships
• work quality
• career impact
• income

Indeed, high performance is about leveling up every area of life. Certified High Performance Coaching clients experience a positive impact in many areas.

Certified High Performance Coaching Clients Get Results

I’ve seen this with my clients. For instance, they may be writers who want to become more productive. After a few Certified High Performance Coaching sessions, they begin exercising regularly, decluttering their homes, and spending more time with friends and on hobbies. However, they also start writing consistently, which makes them more productive. One writer went from writing inconsistently (at best) to completing his manuscript and publishing it.

My clients who are professional dancers want more confidence. Yet, they start meditating daily, using a planner to organize their days, and reducing the time they spend looking at screens on their phones, computers, and tablets. And…they find themselves moving to the front during daily dance classes, boldly learning choreography, auditioning for parts…and getting them. I worked with a 17-year-old dancer who lacked confidence; three months later he had landed a professional job in another country.

The entrepreneurs and business people I work with tell me they want to increase their income or bring in more clients. They create more downtime, revamp their calendars and schedules, and pursue long-forgotten passions. Plus, they also implement new work habits that make them more effective and plan how to persuade team members and potential clients, which helps them become better leaders and land new accounts consistently. I began working with a doctor during COVID. She was overwhelmed and exhausted. She found ways to let go of jobs she didn’t enjoy, prioritize a work project she valued, step out of her introversion and begin speaking at conferences and on podcasts, and even buy a new house (which she previously didn’t think she could do), adopt a cat, and make time for tennis with friends, travel with her family, and paddle boarding with her daughter.

What are High Performance Habits?

Since Burchard published High Performance Habits, “high-performance habits” have become concrete goals in personal development—especially in Certified High Performance Coaching. After his research studies, he wrote his book and discussed the fact that high performers have six distinct habits. They are:

1. Seek Clarity
2. Generate Energy
3. Raise Necessity
4. Increase Productivity
5. Develop Influence
6. Demonstrate Courage

Surprisingly, these habits were already part of the Certified High Performance Coaching curriculum that Burchard created and that his coaches were already using. These are intentional habits developed consciously to increase performance. And that’s the result when used consistently.

A Long-Term Impact Program

Many coaching programs provide only short-term results. The impact coaches have on clients doesn’t last.

This especially can be true if the coach doesn’t focus on getting results, helping the client change mindset and habits, or using specific tools to help get results.

That isn’t the case when working with a CHPC. While they may act as your cheerleader, you pay a CHPC to challenge you to change…to level up. And the changes you implement while working with the coach last.

Of course, like any coaching program, you only get results if you do the work. However, if you apply your insights from Certified High Performance Coaching sessions, consistently take actions that result in new habits and mindsets, and use the tools provided, you will achieve more in 12 or 24 weeks than you have in the last 12 months…or years. And you will enjoy your life. You will become a high performer.

Now that you understand what Certified High Performance Coaching is, are you ready to hire a coach and begin leveling up? If so, click here to apply today. (Scroll down that page to find the application). And please share this post with someone who might benefit from reading it.

Image courtesy of dotshock.