Q & A with Will Owens, MA – Director of Life Coaching Services for OPI Living Programs
Recently, we connected with Will Owens, Director of Life Coaching Services for all OPI Living programs, including the Optimum Performance Institute, specialized OPI Intensive and new Intensive Outpatient Services, to discuss a few items regarding his valued work here at OPI.
Q: What is your vision for life coaching and how has it grown (diagnostically)?
A: To me, life coaching has always been about helping our participants develop a goal planning and achievement process that is tailored to their individual strengths and assets; one that promotes agency and accountability, while helping move our participants toward their goals in a clear and systematic manner.
Q: Tell us about your concept for toolboxes. What will the participants get while working with the Department of Life Coaching?
A: A comprehensive life skills curriculum, covering: time management, organization, budgeting, basic nutrition & fitness, and effective communication.
Q: Your experience with participants – what is special about OPI for you?
A: OPI is unlike any place I’m familiar with, in that you have the opportunity to work with such a diverse group of young adults for an extended period of time, while being so deeply invested and involved in almost every aspect of their lives.
Q: How have you motivated, inspired and supported our participants?
A: Sometimes, treatment can focus so much on “what’s wrong,” that “what’s right” gets lost in the background. Obviously, part of our work involves helping people identify and solve problems. At the same time, it’s important that we don’t define them by their problems; and it’s just as important that they don’t start defining themselves by their problems. I do my best to help my clients solve their problems, while also helping them recognize, embrace and nourish the strength and talent that already exists within them.
Q: Have you been inspired by our participants?
A: All the time. Treatment is hard work, and I’m inspired by the courage that many of our participants show in their willingness to acknowledge, work on, and persevere through the very difficult issues that many of them face.
Q: What have you learned from participants who’ve attended OPI Living programs?
A: Regardless of where you’re from, or what you’ve been through, life is truly what you make of it. They’ve taught me that every obstacle can be an opportunity; and likewise, that every opportunity can be an obstacle. The events and situations that happen to us don’t have to define us; rather it’s the meanings that we give to our experience that will inevitably shape who we are, who we are becoming, and how we engage the world.
Q: What changes have you seen in participants?
A: Many times people enter treatment “wanting” to change; but I find the real change occurs when they start genuinely “believing” that they are capable of making that change. It’s a subtle shift, but I find when they start to truly embrace that their lives can be different, more visible results start to follow.