We are pleased to share an article entitled “The Role of Joy and Spirituality in Coaching” by Louis O. Biggers, Jr., Quentin Newhouse, Jr., and James T. Worthy.
What does it mean to live with joy? And how does spirituality shape that joy in ways that influence coaching? Joy is often confused with happiness, but they are not the same. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, joy is “a feeling of great pleasure and happiness,” whereas in many religious traditions, joy is far deeper—an enduring state rooted in God’s presence rather than circumstances. Happiness comes and goes with events, but joy abides in the soul.
Spirituality adds another dimension. It is the recognition of something greater than ourselves—a connection to God, the divine, or transcendent purpose and direction. In coaching, spirituality provides the grounding that helps clients move from performance to flourishing. By cultivating joy and integrating spirituality, coaches can help clients clarify purpose, reduce anxiety, and reframe pain into growth.
Joy Across Faith Traditions
Although our article is grounded in Christianity, it is helpful to see how joy is understood across several religions and traditions. Refer to Sidebar for Faith Perspectives on Joy.
Thus, across some religions and traditions, joy transcends circumstances and connects the human spirit to a higher purpose.
Joy, Happiness, and Pain Across Life Stages
Happiness is often tied to self-focus—pleasure, recognition, or material achievement. Joy, however, flows from service, faith, and alignment with God. As one of us has experienced personally: happiness often comes when we think about ourselves, but joy comes when we focus on and serve others.
David Blancheflower and Andrew Oswald (2008, replicated in 2022) found through examining thousands of persons that happiness follows a U-shaped curve across life—higher in youth and later life, dipping in midlife. Yet spirituality and joy don’t always seem to follow that curve. Faith, purpose, and perspective can sustain joy even when happiness falters. Asking ChatGPT to inject spirituality into Blancheflower and Oswald’s cure presents some interesting observations. Refer to Sidebar for Chart: Joy, Happiness, and Spirituality Across the Lifespan.
Pain also plays a role in navigating life’s challenges. While suffering naturally produces grief, it can be reframed as a teachable moment. In faith, pain can deepen compassion, clarify priorities, and strengthen hope. Coaching strategies that acknowledge both happiness and joy—while helping clients reframe suffering—create deeper transformation.
Joy as Fruit of the Spirit
In Galatians 5:22–23 (The Holy Bible), the apostle Paul writes: “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.” Notice the word “fruit” is singular. These are not separate fruits, but one unified expression of the Spirit’s work in a believer’s life.
Love comes first as the root. Joy follows as “good assurance” or a deep certainty of God’s presence. From there flow peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Together they form the character of Christ in Christian believers.
When believers understand and incorporate the Fruit of the Spirit into their life, they receive all these qualities. These qualities are not earned but nurtured as faith matures. Faith is crucial to spirituality as it is anticipated and hoped for before it is experienced. The Spirit is never lost; rather, the fruit ripens over time. Joy, then, is both gift and growth—something planted by God and cultivated through spiritual practice.
Spiritual Coaching in Practice
How does spiritual coaching translate to coaching practices? A spiritually grounded coach can invite clients to:
- Reflection: Using questionnaires or journaling to explore where joy and happiness appear in their lives. Refer to Sidebar for Three 10-item Quizzes to Assess Levels of Joy, Happiness, and Spirituality.
- Discernment: Sharing the joy, happiness, and spirituality chart to help clients distinguish between fleeting immediate gratification or satisfaction and lasting fulfillment, purpose and direction.
- Practicing gratitude: Encouraging simple reflections of thanksgiving, which shift one’s focus from lack to contentment and beyond.
- Embracing silence: Creating space for clients to encounter stillness, prayer, meditation, or mindfulness.
- Serving: Challenging clients to engage in acts of service and kindness, reframing joy as others-focused.
- Reframing setbacks: Exploring pain not as failure, but as an opportunity for growth and deeper faith.
Benefits of Integrating Spirituality in Coaching
When joy and spirituality are brought into the coaching process, several benefits emerge:
- Clarifying Purpose and Direction: Clients anchor decisions not only in goals but in meaning.
- Reducing Uncertainty: Spiritual grounding reduces uncertainty and stress.
- Establishing Joy: Clients develop an enduring sense of peace that goes beyond mere happiness.
- Reframing Pain: Suffering is seen through the lens of growth and purpose.
The result is a coaching experience that is not just transactional, but actually transformational.
The Future of Joy and Spirituality in Coaching
As the coaching field evolves, spirituality is playing an increasingly central role. Research shows that more health professionals are incorporating some form of spiritual practice with clients[]. Generational trends also suggest that younger clients are seeking purpose-driven work and meaningful life integration. Coaches who successfully integrate joy and spirituality will meet this growing demand by helping clients not just succeed, but flourish.
Conclusion
Joy is not circumstantial—it is internal, spiritual, and enduring. Happiness fades with conditions, but joy abides because it is a gift of God through the Fruit of the Spirit. When coaching embraces this truth and its premises, coaching shifts from chasing external success to cultivating and preserving deeper and more enduring life fulfillment.
As the apostle Paul reminds us, the Fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Coaches who nurture this fruit in themselves and empower their clients with its purpose and direction create spaces where people discover not only their goals. This discovery has implications to successfully pursue functional goals and utilize spiritual tools to achieve their God-given purpose.
Coaches who integrate joy and spirituality lead with integrity and timeless principles through spiritual documents such as the Bible, creating an environment for authentic growth and transformation.
When coaching is infused with joy and spirituality, we move beyond helping clients succeed—we help them flourish.
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