The Uneducated PT Podcast - #23 Ella Khan - The Fitness Psych

Episode Date: March 25, 2024

In this episode we speak to Ella Khan who helps personal trainers and fitness coaches help their clients adhere to the work. In this episode we speak about limiting beliefs, what you're getting wrong with goal setting, self sabotage and much more! Find Ella's page here

Hello and welcome to the uneducated PT podcast with me, your host, Carlo Rourke. The goal of this podcast is to bring on interest and knowledgeable people from all walks of life, learn a little something from each conversation and for you, the listener, just learn something from each episode. So don't forget to subscribe to the channel, press the box below, show some support and I'll see you on the next episode. Can you tell the listeners a little bit about what you do for work? For sure.

So I primarily help with fitness coaches, usually online coaches and PTs to be fair, to help them with client adherence, client retention and client results, right? Because PTs, nutritionists and things like that are experts at training in nutrition, but you never really get taught the psychology behind it or like the behaviour change components. So that's kind of where I come in. And that's your background. Is it your background of psychology? It is, yeah.

Undergrad, Masters, finishing my doctorate in psychology. So yeah, that's me. Okay, brilliant. And so obviously what was your interest in going down that room in terms of studying psychology and then obviously niching that into coaching coaches. Yeah, so basically I actually started being like a nutritionist and I started working with people and I realised that, do you know what, beyond telling them about a calorie deficit and what they need to eat,

most of it's like behaviour change in the psychology of it, right? Like people know what they need to do. They find it hard to do it. So that's what fascinated me. And so originally I was going to do it to help people that I was working with, but then for me, realizing that I could have more impact for coaches who obviously then have a number of clients.

So that's why I was interesting in going down that route really. Yeah, well, I think it's, it's something like coaches kind of when they don't know what to do, it's a bit of like, you know, okay, the client knows what to do, but it's not, they're not doing it.

And then you're just like, all right, well, what do I, what do I do with this? So I suppose, like, you just helping the coach means that you're actually helping more people because all of them will have, you know, 20, 30, 40 clients that they need to try and get them at him,

adhere to the work. That's exactly it right. And it gives coaches a tool that's not just just do it, you know, asking the client to just do it or pushing them harder, like actual tools and actual things that are going to help the client move forward. Well, that's what happens when a, when a coach doesn't know what to do with a client, they end up just being like, oh, well, just try harder. Yeah. Or blaming the client. You know, it's their fault. I know we might touch on this, right, but they're not disciplined enough. They're not committed enough. And we end up blaming the client, rather than looking inside and thinking, well, what can I do differently? Yeah, exactly.

So we'll go into motivation and discipline and all that and a couple of other kind of things that I want to get you to touch on. I suppose I'm going to start with just goal setting because I think that's a big, obviously, aspect of coaching. It's the beginning of any client's journey. So just in terms of goal setting itself, can you just explain the difference between, you know, goals and values and what we need to know about the difference between the two? Yeah, so I guess at the most simple level,

you can achieve goals but you can't achieve values. And so values are almost like a compass. And so if you have the value of health, it provides a direction that you can go in. You can always make decisions towards health, but it's not something you can get to. You can't ever complete health. There's always more movement that you can do in that direction.

Whereas if we're using that same analogy, then a goal would be a destination on the route. And ideally, the goal would be on route to the direction of the value. And so sometimes we set goals, that are just completely not aligned with what we actually give the crap about. And so we end up getting a bit stuck because, you know, we might value convenience or we might value having fun.

And then we're trying to set this goal that completely is at odds with what we value. So how do we, let's say, all right, so for me personally, something that I value is health, obviously, because I have a personal trainer and my whole identity is basically surrounded by it. So I value looking after myself. I value feeling healthy. And that also leads into things like being productive and, you know, just being a nice a person to be around and stuff like that. So I value going to the gym. I value looking after my body. I value training. But a lot of the clients that I would work with, you know, it might not be a core

value of theirs to exercise or to train or to go to the gym or to look after their health. So how do we get that to become a value of theirs? Because they say that, oh, they want to get in shape or they want to do X, Y and Z, but they're essentially not doing it. Yeah. So there's almost two options here. either you can link it to something that they already value. And so it might be that they value family. It might be that they value freedom. And then it's linking, well, how does health give me freedom? Or how can health possibly be related to that stuff?

Or what it is is essentially having to take action, even if we don't necessarily love the thing. But over time, we start cultivating a stronger relationship towards that thing. So those are kind of, yeah, the two different approaches we could take. Yeah. So like sometimes it's like you're not going to value the thing until you actually do the reap the rewards or the benefits from it and then it starts to become a core value of yours.

Exactly. And sometimes people will only value health, for example, when health isn't good, you realize, oh my goodness, now my health's not there, now I value it. So like you say, you value health, but we don't all, not all of us just naturally value it. For example, if somebody values adventure or challenge, that's very easy to connect that back to health.

You can challenge yourself through movement. You can seek adventure that is also paired up with health. So there are some things that are easier than others when it comes to linking them. Yeah. Well, yeah, I suppose that makes complete sense because something else that I would value is like, you know, going out for a hike, being in nature, all that kind of stuff. And that would probably tie to adventure as well. And then you're kind of tie in being active and looking after your health with that as well.

Another thing that you said even there on family is like because I'd work with like a lot of mums and, you know, one thing that they say is that they want to show up as the best parent they can be. And I suppose you can essentially tie that to looking after your health and, and, and, and being as healthy as you can and being as strong fit as you can. So therefore you can show up as the best parent that you can be. Yeah, that's exactly it. That's exactly it.

Yes. Another thing that I want to ask you about is what are some of the key mistakes that people make when setting goals? Or what are some of the key mistakes maybe when coaches help their clients to set goals? Couple things. So oftentimes people set goals that they think they should care about, but they don't actually care about. This becomes a really big problem.

So people maybe think that they should lose weight because it's what we've heard forever, right? You should be smaller. And so they set a goal about weight loss, but then it never actually motivates them. And so I think that's a huge one. Yeah, I think that that's the main one. It's not actually setting a goal that is a thing they actually want.

Do you think that's a societal issue? So we see other people achieving things that we think that just because they're hard or difficult to obtain that they must be important. Yes. And I also think maybe we don't often look inside and take. that self-awareness piece, which is that, hang on a minute, when I say I want to lose weight, that doesn't really motivate me, whereas when I say that I want this, that does motivate me, right? So oftentimes we are, we never actually use our own intuition and our own behaviours to

inform us. We often look outside of ourselves, I should feel like this, I should do this, that person does it, so I should do that as well. And whereas I think a lot of times, if we were to look inside and decide what it is that we actually really like and want, you might come up with a goal that's more suited to us. I've noticed myself trying to stop myself from doing that of the last couple of of months. It's like not using things like should or must or have to like because no, it's not should I do this or should I do that. It's like, do I want it because, you know, like I dictate what I do with my life and spend my time and my energy. That's it. And like the worst one for this is New Year's resolutions. You come into the new year and so people feel like they should set a New Year's

resolution. And so they think, well, what should I do? Oh, okay, well, I should probably do. something around health, I should probably do something around productivity, but that hasn't come from them. That's come from that imposed or interjected should. And so no wonder, it's really tricky to follow. Whereas if coming into the year, they realised, do you know what, I actually feel a bit uncomfortable and I would really like this. That's a very different place that that goal is coming from rather than maybe I should do it. Yeah, it's very easy to just let life dictate how you should live because you're following the social norms of what everyone else has done or what everyone else has done on the past. What are some other mistakes that people make when goal setting?

So other ones they make is maybe the goal is too big, too unrealistic. Maybe the opposite is true. Maybe the goal actually isn't big enough and it's not exciting enough. Maybe the goal is super mundane that it's not enough to excite you. Another one that we were talking about at the start, maybe the goal is not connected to the value. And so maybe you've set a goal of running a marathon, but you really value family time. And now it's like, well, how do they, like, I've got a sacrifice family time to run the marathon that's not a very aligned goal and so yeah maybe too big maybe too small maybe not aligned what what would be the reasons why um the if for the goal being too big to um prevent you achieve and it is it like it feels so unrealistic that you just don't start is would that be yeah that's exactly

it and then what we do is we put it into the future like because it's so big it's that's something that i'll achieve next year oh a marathon's a huge thing to do one day i want to do a marathon one day I want to do that. Whereas if we think, right, well, I want to achieve a marathon, that starts with me running three times a week. Well, that starts with me first starting to increase my steps, right? So actually, it's helpful to have both, having a big goal and then having it broken down into the small pieces. And again, it comes down to personality. Some people become extremely motivated by a large goal. They find that a challenge. It excites them. Other people would feel scared and intimidated by a large goal. And so it's about understanding, like, are you

perceiving that go as a threat or a challenge and you want a you want a goal that feels like a challenge not a threat yeah when i was doing my research for this for this episode i i came across a quote that i really liked and it was vision without execution is just hallucination um and i was just wanted to ask you on that so like obviously you even touched on new year's resolutions and stuff like that so like we end up setting all these grand goals throughout the year and then a lot of the time we don't achieve them or we don't even we don't even act on them. So how do we get out of this kind of trap of continuing to set goals and set targets and not achieving anything that we said we were going to set out to do? Yeah. So firstly, pick the right goal. Pick the thing that you actually want to do.

And then secondly, we have to have the steps in place. And so we need a few things. We need to have the knowledge. Do we know what it's going to take to achieve that goal? So when it comes to fat loss, do we understand the kinds of foods do we need to eat? Do we understand the amount of calories? Do we understand X, Y, Z, right? So we have to have the knowledge. But we also need to have some skills. Do we have certain skills?

What skills am I lacking? Can I cultivate those skills? And then we also need to be able to, you know, structure these things, plan it in place. It doesn't just happen spontaneously. So I think there are loads of things that have to go into actually achieving an outcome. And in terms of, let's say, would, When you said even in terms of knowledge, would that also reflect knowledge in terms of realistic expectations of how long this is going to take or how hard this is going to be in

terms of achieving? Yeah. So I love the question when we're starting out with a goal is to understand what it's going to take and then ask ourselves, are we willing to do what it's going to take? And this is where a coach can come in really handy, right? Because if you say, okay, well, I want to be shredded. I want to have a six pack. It's a coach's job to help you to understand, okay, cool, six.

pack. Love it. This is what it would take. This is how long it's going to take and this is what's going to be required of you. And then obviously the person has to understand that. And then the question is, are you willing? Or another question is, what are you willing to experience and feel in order to achieve this goal? Because you're going to have to feel some very uncomfortable feelings. And if you're not willing, then it's not going to work. Right. Yeah. So we set, we set goals. And when we set them, we're already thinking about the upside of everything. We never think about the downside or the sacrifices that are going to come. We're motivated. When we select the goal, we're like, with motivate, I'm always going to feel like this.

I'm always going to be like super good up. We're not thinking, oh, it's winter. It's going to be pissing it down. It's going to be raining when I'm doing this. I'm going to feel like I can't be asked. Am I willing when I feel like that to still do the thing? Yeah, yeah. And you touched on motivation there.

So I suppose I've got to get into it straight away. It's like you'll see a lot of coaches or a lot of kind of, you know, go hard or go home, kind of these motivational stuff online. Where it's say you don't need motivation, you just need discipline in order to achieve the thing, whatever the thing is. So what is your opinion on that? Yeah, it's a complicated topic. So it depends on what you're defining as motivation.

If I'm looking at motivation through what we would call self-determination theory lens, right? And so the idea here is that when somebody says that you don't need motivation, but you need discipline, what they're talking about is they're talking about you don't need the day-to-day transient motivation. They're talking about you shouldn't wait for a feeling to want to go to the gym, to go to the gym. But what that doesn't take into consideration is underneath it, they're motivated for the outcome. like they actually care about the outcome. They like the gym.

They motivated to go to the gym. They're motivated to look good. So there is motivation there. If they didn't care about those things, they wouldn't have the discipline has to stack on top of what's something they already care about, right? And then the day-to-day feeling is the thing that we need to kind of learn to move forward despite that.

So the answer is you have to have motivation to do the thing, otherwise you're not going to do the thing. However, we don't need to always feel up to doing the thing to do the thing. I kind of look at it like so like you might not be motivated to go to work but you are motivated to go to work because you still want to get paid so you're a lot homeless

yeah exactly so underneath it you have got a form of motivation yeah the form of motivation is the outcome that you want it's just that on that given day you don't feel like going to work but you're going to go to work yeah yeah so here's a question so how do we obviously then like there's there's that underlying motivation right

but sometimes if it's a thing that we don't necessarily need to do on any given day. Like you can take a day off from the gym if you want to, right, if you weren't feeling motivated. And then sometimes that one day turns into five days, turns into 10 days, turns to never go to the gym again. So how do we use motivation to our advantage to get that client to adhere to their training program, for example? Okay, yeah, so this is what's really important. First thing, we have to make sure that we're moving them towards the goal they actually want, right? That's always important because, for example, if you're asking the client to, like, do squats and they're just not doing it, it's probably because they don't see the value in it and they don't have any desire.

So they have to move towards what's important. But then we have to help them to separate their feelings from the actions, right? And so actually it's about them creating their own non-negotiables or them creating their own standards that they like to uphold. And that's not about motivation then. That's like when you're super motivated, you can do more. You can go above and beyond and you can do all of these things. But what is the minimum standard that you want to uphold or hold yourself accountable to when, even when you're not feeling like it, right?

And as we know, that's when change occurs. Change occurs when what you do on the days that you don't feel like doing it, not on the days where you love doing it because that's what you're going to be doing anyway. So how do we get them to hold them standards? What are some things we can do to ensure that, you know, they, you know, achieve them non-negotiables that they've said. It takes time and it takes trust in themselves. And so we have to start off with like small things that they can hold themselves accountable to. And then what they do is they demonstrate to themselves by evidence like, okay, this week I committed to doing 6,000 steps a day

and I showed up and I did it. So now I have evidence that I've held myself to that standard. And so as a coach, our job is to continuously reassure and to provide some level of accountability, but not too much accountability because if we provide too much accountability, it undermines the person taking their own accountability. And so it's always that perfect balance of not taking too much responsibility, not taking too little responsibility. Yeah, because a lot of it has to come from them in order for them them to want to continue to do it. Is that correct? That's correct. You're like as a coach, you're going to be there and you're going to help them, but you can't, you can't do it for them. And the more that you are like checking in saying, are you doing this, are you doing that? It takes the power

away from the person to start to develop their own standards for themselves and to hold themselves accountable. Is that what autonomy is? Yeah, that's what autonomy is. Well, autonomy is about having, feeling like you have control over your life and your decisions and your choices, which is fundamental. So right back at the start, you said that you're trying to move away from shoulds. Well, the reason why shoulds are really tricky is because even when you say the word, I should do this, it feels like you have no control. You feel like you must, that you need to, right? And then what that does is it undermines autonomy. And what we know for sure is that people need to feel as though they have a choice over what

they're doing. And so if they are using language, like I should, I need to, or as a coach, we're telling someone they should or they need to. We are undermining their feeling of autonomy, which makes it less likely than they're going to engage in the action. Yeah, because it's like I'm far more inclined to do something if I think it's my idea rather than someone telling me to do something. Yeah.

And it's, yeah, that's it. I was going to say, and it's really simple to do that as a coach. So rather than saying to a client, okay, so this week you're going to do, or this week you really need to make sure you do this, this, this, this. Instead, it's, okay, so this is how that week went, what would you like to do this week? Or what do you think is important? Or based off of that, what is it that you would like to do? And so that's how you would hand the autonomy back to the client.

Is that, could I could link that in as another reason not to essentially give clients meal plans. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. They have a time and place, possibly, right? Especially at the start because if a client is really overwhelmed, which a lot of us are overwhelmed, life is super busy, life is super stressful. And then we come into a coaching world where we're being asked to track, download apps, join a community, do measurements.

And then suddenly we have to do, it's too much. And what do you mean I've now have to figure out my calories. So if we're told, look, just eat this, that can help to reduce overwhelm. But of course, it's not going to last beyond a couple of weeks. we have to. But if you're if you're someone who has already learned the skill of eating and you essentially know what you're doing and you and then it's your actual choice to decide that you want someone to make you a meal plan for you to follow, that's essentially autonomy as well.

That's autonomy, but what could be even better is like, well, if you already have the knowledge, why don't you create your own meal plan? Because then it's like you're deciding your own constraints. Yeah. Yeah. And which makes you more inclined to do it because you have decided to do it and you've decided to make this plan. Yeah, and we're talking about like building confidence in yourself. Well, what you're doing there is you're showing yourself like, okay, I'm choosing to eat this way. Here's what I'm picking and I'm following fruit on it. If I have a client who is like riddled with self-limiting beliefs and they have this kind of negative top pattern that keeps on occurring every time they try to achieve a certain goal, what can I do to help make them more confident in their abilities?

Okay, so when it comes to confidence, the best thing we can do is get evidence, right? And so like there's no amount of positive affirmations or a person trying to convince themselves that they can do something that's going to do it. The way they're going to build confidence is by doing it. And so as a coach, I always like to think of the idea about the Goldilocks zone. We want to set goals, not too hard, not too easy. It's got to be the right level of challenge because if somebody does something, but it was too easy, it's like, well, that was too easy.

Like, I'm not going to get confidence from it because anybody could do it. but if it's too hard and I can't do it, that's more proof as to why I'm not capable of why I can't do this thing. You'll go backwards into your own shell. You're like, oh, see, I can't do it. I'm a failure. I'm not going to be able to do it. Whereas if we manage to give them the perfect level of challenge,

that client then is able to do the action. And then it's like, okay, so I can do it. And then that trust is built in themselves through repeating the action over a longer period of time. It does take a lot of effort and work, but eventually that's how the confidence begins to build. They can trust themselves, basically. And that's why it's kind of important to really know your client and where they're at in their journey.

Otherwise, like for example, so I'll have one client who is so kind of riddled with anxiety that just them actually walking into the gym and walking on a treadmill is a massive win for them. And that could boost their confidence. But it's quite challenging as well. So like it's better to, you know, get that. Their goal is just walk into the gym and walk on the treadmill rather than walk into the gym and do a full work. workout, you know, over by the weight section with all the scary bodybuilders. Like there's, that's going to be too much of an overwhelm for them. Exactly. And so that's exactly it, like setting the right challenge level and like having

a conversation with the client about what success would actually look like. And as coaches sometimes, we can get in the way a little bit because if the ego gets in the way of like, oh, but I want them to move faster. I want them to get the results quicker. And so we try to set them these things. And that's more about the coach than the person. And so yeah, like what would success look like for this person with where they're at right now? And it might not be that they're losing five kilograms or they're running a marathon. It could just be that like you say, that week they managed to walk through the door, walk through the door of the gym.

They managed to stay there for five minutes even when they started to feel anxious. Yeah. And I think a trap that coaches can fall into is thinking that like all their clients are like them or want to be like them and train like them. And they just set them exactly what they would do even though they're on a completely different end of the spectrum to where they would be on their journey. That's one of the biggest challenges that I see with the coaches that I work with.

Coaches, like you said, you even value health, right? You value health, you see why it's important and it's clearly the foundation. Everything comes from health. And so a lot of coaches can feel frustrated or they don't understand that other people don't value health as much as they do or don't take action the way they do

or don't challenge themselves the way that they do. Yeah, and they just end up banging their head as to why this isn't working? Is self-sabotage a real thing. Yes, self-sabotage is a real thing. I mean, have you experienced self-sabotage? Yes. I've constantly disrupting and destructive my life with certain actions and behaviours. So what, like, what essentially is self-sabotage if you could explain it and how do we prevent clients from engaging in this behaviour? Okay. So there are a few reasons why people self-sabotage.

So let's go through them, right? Yeah. Three main reasons. The first one is a fear of failure. And so what ends up happening here is a person is starting to make progress towards their goal. And then they worry that they're going to fail because they failed in the past. And so what they end up doing is they end up sabotaging because like making it a guarantee that they're going to fail is less painful than trying your best and failing.

Can I give you an example of that that just came into my head? So I remember I was doing a podcast with a lad and he was saying that, he used to always fail as exams, right? And he had this big exam coming up and he studied really, really hard for it and he was, you know, and then the night before the exam was coming up, he just went on a complete binge,

went drinking and didn't show up for it. And I think that was because he was petrified that he wouldn't pass the exam. So he gave himself a reason to why he didn't even do the exam. Yeah, and then you see this in sport a lot. In the sport literature, it's called self-handicapping. So what you'll do is you'll have some who will go into a competition, but they will, they'll say, oh, I'm injured or I'm tired or I didn't

fuel myself correctly. So then what ends up happening is that if they fail, they have this thing as an excuse, which protects their self-esteem. It wasn't me that wasn't good enough. It was because of my sleep was crap or my diet was crap or whatever. So it protects the self-esteem. But if they win, they still get to the benefit of winning. And so that's called self-handicapping, where you put a reason in place that protects your self-esteem if you were to fail. But the problem is, as we know, is that when we put these things in place, it means that we're holding ourselves back from actually fully giving something and go. So fear of failure is the most common reason probably why people self-sabotage,

but there's also fear of success. And so you find this when clients are doing really well. And usually it happens when they're so close to their goal weight. And like, oh, they're so close. They've done all the hard work. But for those final five pounds, for some reason, And whenever they get close, they end up going backwards and they end up self-sabotaging. And this can actually be a fear of success.

They haven't been at that weight before or it's been a long time since they've been at that weight. And so they end up sabotaging their success. Why are we afraid of success? So part of why this is, obviously it's complex, but part of why this is, is that when we're successful, we have to let go of some parts of our identity that are actually quite beneficial. And so, for example, if somebody's going to be successful with health and

fitness, they may have to let go of this idea that they are not committed or they have to let go of this idea that they give themselves an easy time, right? So because they now have a new standard, they're going to have to hold themselves to. So that's more pressure. And then there's that fear of like, can I keep it up now? Am I going to lose it? Am I going to go backwards? Do I want to hold myself to this higher standard? And so all these fears come because you have to be a different person or you perceive that you have to let go of these parts of yourself. So that's part of it anyway. Yeah, that makes complete sense. And is there any other reasons to why people with self-sabotage. Yeah, another reason is fear of uncertainty. And so you find this like when

clients aren't necessarily seeing progress or they are nervous. And so what ends up happening is people, humans, we find it very, very hard to deal with uncertainty. And so what people will do is if they're not sure, am I going to lose weight, am I going to be able to do this? Is it going to work? They will, they will force an outcome. They will make it not work because it's better to know that it's not going to work than to have to deal with that uncertainty that comes with the process. I can kind of see that in myself from a business perspective. Like, so I've been an online coach for, I think, five years now. But I think the first two years that I was doing it, I was like, okay, this isn't really working for me.

Or I'm not seeing the kind of success I wanted to see. And I was uncertain of like the choice that I made. So then I was attempting to kind of change career, go back and do something else because of that. Yeah, yeah. Because you can't tolerate that feeling of uncertainty. and not being sure. Yeah. And that's so uncomfortable

that you create, yeah, you create these conditions. Yeah, that makes sense. So we have fear of failure, fear of success and uncertainty. Yeah,

pretty much. And then, you know, you might throw in their belief, which is the fear that somebody doesn't believe that they're actually going to be able to do it,

which is very similar to failure. It's less about feeling that they're going to fail and less that, it's more that they feel like they're not capable of doing the thing. And with that all,

so if we went back to goal setting and creating the goal too big, would that kind of tie into themselves, sabotage because yes yes and some clients wouldn't actually say that goal feels too big they would say oh yeah okay that that sounds fine but they have this subconscious process which is like i don't think i'm going to be capable of that and so they don't actually make the forward steps or the goal feels too far away or too big yeah so their their actions are really telling you how they actually that's a really by the way that's a really important point like that's that what you just say is

really profound if coaches understand that actually a lot of clients communication is through their behavior and not their actual words will be in a lot better position. Yeah, it makes some complete sense. Another question I wanted to ask you, does practicing gratitude have a place in coaching clients and helping them to achieve success? So for me, it depends. So I help a lot of coaches with their checking forms and a lot of coaches have a gratitude question in their checking form.

And my response to that is always like, why is that question there? What is the intention behind that question? If it's part of your coaching philosophy and you have a philosophy that's built around, you know, maybe positive psychology about being grateful and how that impacts, then that's perfect. If it's just in there as a throwing question at the end and if you don't do anything to it, I guarantee you'll see on every single coach's client checking, give me one win, fitness or non-fitness related for a week. I know, it's like, which is fine, but it's like, why is it there?

Like, what are you going to do with that information? And that's how I feel about the gratitude question. Like, is gratitude helpful? Yes. but being grateful is like a whole philosophy to life. It's like a way of looking at the world. It's a philosophy of how you live your world. So it's kind of like just taking one small part of a way of being

and just plopping it in there. Like it has to be a point behind it. Yes. It would. If you notice that you have a lot of clients who have kind of a negativity bias, they're always looking at all the things that went wrong in the week. Or they weren't able to sit to their calories or they didn't get the steps in that they wanted to, they were supposed to get $8,000 and they only got $6,000, which is still

better than what they were doing before. So would I have a place in it then if you were to be like trying to question the clients on, okay, well, what do you think you did well this week? Or what do you think, you know, are good aspects of your week, of your day of what you have in your life? Yeah, I like that. So there's a clear intention and the intention is to enhance, I guess, the positive ways of looking at things or enhance optimism. And so that makes complete. complete sense. Another thing that I would say though, which you've probably experienced yourself, is that when clients do have a negative outlook and we ask them to find something positive, and what ends up happening is they find it very, very hard. And the more they think of something

positive, the more it strengthens the negative voice in their head. That's natural. It's pretty much very similar to the idea of psychological reactance, which is that, you know, the more we push one idea, that the more we react to the opposite, we don't necessarily, but that's just a quirk of human nature. I think that would that kind of relate to, so I was talking to a dietitian during the weekend and we were talking about a negative body image and how it's

easier to go from having a negative body image to try to get someone to like a neutral stance around their body image rather than trying to go from negative to positive because they don't really believe in what they're saying. Yeah, because if in your head you're looking in the mirror and you're saying like, I really don't like what I see and then you come back with, you look amazing.

Then what does a voice say? It's like, no, you don't. You look awful. So the more, so that, yeah, exactly. That's not how the mind works. The mind is instead going to literally give you the opposite or it's going to come back with what it really believes. Okay.

So it's not enough to, it's not enough to just say it. You have to kind of truly believe what you're saying as well. It helps to truly believe it. And so if they do an actual gratitude practice where they're actually sitting with it and actually thinking about what they truly feel grateful and allow the feelings of gratitude to come through, then that's great. If they're just doing it as like a, I've got to write down three things. things, then it's, it's not necessarily going to have that same effect.

Is, if, if you find that you have clients with a negativity bias, like, is that something that you can work on to change to put someone as more of an optimist than, let's say, a pessimistic view? Yeah, the research has said that you, that there, you can become more optimistic, which is good. I think a really important thing that we need to remember, though, is, is, is that what the client wants to work on? If we've attracted somebody into our world, because they want fat loss, and then we say, okay, cool, but hey, now I'm going to get you. you to do these journaling exercises and now we're going to work on your relationship with your body, well then they might not want to do it. So it's, it can be a very great thing to do if the client

understands the importance of it and wants to do it. So let's say I have a client who I know, has a negativity bias and it's actually preventing them from achieving their fat loss results. And then I tie that in. But is it important to help them to understand why we're actually tying this into you getting the result that you want? Yeah. So this is where, the autonomy comes in. So what I were doing that situation is if we come against the brick wall, and that's because they have this negative image and that's what the brick wall is, the conversation would begin of like, I noticed that we're not making any progress. And I'm wondering, I'm thinking that this is what's getting in the way. Here's my thought process around it. And I think that we could

do this, but I would love to know what you think about this. So would this be something that you'd be willing to explore? So you're asking them, you're giving them the permission. And if they say, no, then we're like, okay, we leave it there. And then maybe in a few weeks time and there's still no progress. We're in a better position to come back and say, you know what? I really think this thing might be helpful. Is that, are you willing? And what we want them to do is we want them to be willing. We want them to say, yes, okay, I'm willing to to hear about this now or try this. Is that is that a, is that a quality from a coaching aspect that you always have to give the client a decision to make because then again, it comes from them and they're more likely to, you know,

go through with the outcome or go through with the action because you've left them the option to decide. Pretty much, yes. It depends on the type of client. If they are, they're quite an action oriented client. They're quite happy to follow your direction. And so they're quite happy for you to say, we're going to do this and they're like, yeah, okay, cool. If it's a client who is less like that, then they're going to appreciate autonomy more and they're going to want that say. But coaches worry about handing the control over to clients because they're like, if I give them a choice, they're going to pick the wrong choice. But first we have to accept that every person has wisdom inside them. So people have the answers inside them. But secondly, you don't give them unlimited choice.

You give them a pre-selected options that are already going to be helpful. Yeah. Yeah. So you're, being strategic with how you're kind of working. To get like regardless of what they choose, it's going to be a good outcome for them. Pretty much. Yeah. And then I suppose it's also probably wise or a good quality of a coach then to understand the different personality types to know whether to you know this person prefers clear instruction and what to do and this person prefers to have some sort of a decision in the outcome yes i think it's essential what i see like one of the most common issues that i see so uh me and a good friend of mine came up with this avatar concept right and so There are four different avatar types.

Now, what I see so often is that there's these type of people, they're called balance seekers. But what they're doing is they are trying to be the person that tracks all the time and does the data and they're really meticulous. And then they're wondering why they can't stick to it and they think there's something wrong with them. If only I was more disciplined,

if only I did this and I was more extreme. The reality of it is, actually, they just need the approach that works for them. They need an approach that allows them to still enjoy life, to have balance. They're just scared of doing that because everything they've heard about fitness is that you have to be meticulous. And probably their coach is quite meticulous

because coaches tend to be the kind of data, tracky, that kind of person. And so that, to me, is essential to understand what type they are and to move in that direction. I'm just going to read out a few quotes of yours that I want you to just respond on. So one thing I, no, they're all good, trust me. One that I read that you said was,

stop reacting to what your clients are saying and start responding to how they're feeling. What does that mean? I love this. Yeah. So when somebody's talking, you've got the story and the storyteller. So the story is what the client is actually saying.

I'm so stressed this week. I didn't get it done. I didn't do this, this, this, this, and most coaches just focus on the story, like the content of what the person is staying.

But within all of that, what we're not doing is we're not focusing on the storyteller, which is the person that's telling us the story. Right. And so good coaching listens to the story. They're listening to the content of what the person's saying, but they're really thinking, like, what is the storyteller feeling

or what are they actually trying to tell me? And so typically, if a client is coming to us and they're giving us like a hundred reasons why they couldn't do the thing, you know, I didn't have time and perhaps take the kids here. The coaches are normally like, okay, cool, if you didn't have time, here's a solution to this, you should do this, this, this, this, this, because they're so fixed on the story, rather than saying, oh, it sounds like you were really overwhelmed this week, right? That's a very different approach. It sounds like you were overwhelmed. And the person might say, yeah, I'm really, really overwhelmed and blah, blah, blah, that opened the door to a far more productive conversation than just giving a solution based on what it is a person saying.

So is it more case than like before you even look for a solution? It's like you need to validate the feelings of what's going on. Yes. Yes, yes, yes. Because if a feeling isn't validated, it keeps showing up. So what you'll notice is if a client keeps getting stuck with something, it's likely that the emotion hasn't quite been acknowledged properly and it hasn't quite yet been work through. And until that's done, they're going to keep getting stuck with the same sort of things. Yeah, that makes sense. Another quote that you said was, behaviour change requires identity change. What does that mean? Yeah. So essentially, we typically behave in a way that's aligned to our current identity. And as humans, we find it very hard to act out of alignment. It takes a lot of energy

and effort. And so our behaviours are pretty much in alignment with who we think we are. And so in order to behave in a different way, we have to see ourselves in a different way. And it comes hand in hand. So for example, if I think that I'm a quitter or I think that I'm lazy or I think I'm an over-eater who can't control myself around food, I then act in a way that's aligned with that identity. So whenever I have chocolate in front of me, I have the identity of I can't control myself. And so what do I do? I don't control myself because I can't control myself. And so that reinforces this idea of C, I'm the kind of person that can't control myself. And so really, in order to be the person that can control myself, I have to first be that person, have the identity of that

person, which then leads to a congruent action, right? And so, and it goes hand in hand. Like, sometimes we have to act incongruently to give ourselves the evidence that we can do it a bit different and then it reinforces itself. But yeah, essentially, that's why what we see, that's another reason why we self-sabotage actually, because what we're doing is we've got like this ideal self and we've got our current self and then every behaviour is like a vote for one or the other. We're like, oh, well, if I ate chocolate, that was bad. So that was like my old self. And so I can't be my ideal self if I'm doing these bad old behaviours. And so we're very binary. Whereas this is a better way of looking at it, this idea of kind of rather than being one or the

other, we're always choosing the actions that we want to take, if that makes sense. Makes some perfect sense. So when you were speaking there, I was thinking about my own situation. So I didn't read a book until I was 23, I think it was. All right. Crazy. But I used to always tell myself, I'm just not a reader. I just can't stick to a book. So I just then just stayed away and shied away from doing them. And then obviously when I kind of got into the fitness industry and I got really interested in being more knowledgeable so I could help my clients, then I started to read there, you know, more nutrition books and more training books. And then I was like, oh, actually, I enjoy reading these things. And then I was like, wait a minute. I actually am a reader. And now I'll like,

I'll always take out a book and I'll read it like, it can be anything from fiction to anything else. but it was like I had to do the action and believe that I was that person and now I don't know I could just read books and it just doesn't mean anything to be yeah because you know why? Because readers read yes so it's a kind of like

the chicken and the egg kind of thing what comes first is like you do the action and then you start believe you are the thing but then you also believe you are the things so you do the action it's like a self-fulfilling prophecy and like the reason why you read now is because readers read you have the identity of a reader and so what the readers do they read and if you if you have the identity as a non-reader well non-readers don't read right and so it's the same thing with fitness like

you're a runner well I'm not a runner okay well if you're not a runner you don't run right whereas if you call yourself a runner what does a runner do they run right and so yeah it's always a self-fulfilling cycle if you will and at some point we have to start behaving in a way that's slightly different. We have to start viewing ourselves in a way that's different as well. But this relates back to the point we said at the start about being disciplined and how some fitness people talk about discipline. They forget the fact that it's coming from identity. They are somebody who goes to the gym. They are a fit person. And so even if they're not motivated, it doesn't matter because they are somebody that goes to the gym. And the reason why this doesn't

translate to clients, because they don't yet have the identity. And so for clients who don't yet have the identity, they are relying more on things like motivational commitment. And until they start stepping into that identity. Yeah, it's very easy for me to go to the gym because I'm a personal trainer. It's what I do, it's here I am essentially, like in so many aspects. Another quote of yours,

you can't make someone change. What you can do is make it more likely that they will change. What does that mean? Yeah, so we have to understand that, like, it's only ever the person's choice, right? And so whether you are a coach or you're the client, the realization, as a coach, you can't force the person to do the action

and you giving them a kick up the ass or you, you know, insulting them or you're pushing them. It's not going to make them do the thing, right? But what we can do instead is we know that in psychology there are like poor conditions and if these conditions are met, it's more likely that a behaviour is going to occur. So our job is to meet these core conditions, which make it more likely that behaviour is going to occur. What's, I'm just going to ask you a couple more questions and then we'll wrap it up. What do you think is one of the most favorable qualities that make a good coach?

Openness to like listening and stuff like that. Authenticity, they have to actually be aligned and believe what they're saying. And probably flexibility as well, maybe those three. What do you mean by flexibility? So flexibility is kind of like you have your approach, but you're willing to learn different ways of doing things or you're willing to kind of shift slightly to meet the client's needs. Yeah, that makes sense.

What's one of the quickest ways a client can lose trust with a coach? So like the client no longer trust the coach or the coach doesn't trust the client? The client no longer trusts the coach or trusts in the coach ability to get them the result. Okay. Usually this comes from the coach being too directive. And so what I mean by that is like the coach is too fixated on the result. I'm not fixated enough on the person. And so they're not seeing the person as a person.

They're seeing the person as not getting the result. That often breaks trust. okay so what what can we do to ensure that we always have trust for the client so what you have to do is you have to show the client that you care about them regardless of the outcome so you have to take interest in them so it's not just you're not just reaching out to say hey did you do your steps today hey you're on track of your nutrition you're also saying like how are you all right like how's things going how's life are you okay that kind of stuff yeah it goes back to that saying people don't care what you know until they they they they're right know that you care. Exactly that. And I guess another thing I'd throw in there is when coaches do a lot to bring you into their world and then they're not replying to your messages, but you see them all over their story marketing for new clients. That is a best way to break trust. Coaches first and foremost should serve the people that they actually work with and then after that they should then try to get new clients. Whereas some clients, it breaks the trust when you realise, hang on a minute,

do they just want to get me into the program and now they've left me alone? Yeah. Like your best market will always be getting clients good results because essentially we're looking after them and take care of them. Yeah, for sure. What would you consider are your poor values? Freedom, authenticity, growth, inner peace, variety. Yeah, those are the main ones.

And how did you come to figuring out what your core values were just for like other people who would be listening to this who might not even, or might have only under, there's only kind of hearing the term core values today. And they're like, what are my core values? How do you figure that out? So you could do a test online, but what I would recommend is to pay really close attention

to your experience, right? And so what is it that makes you feel expansive? What excites you? What makes you happy? What do you want to do more of, right? And what is it that really stresses you out? Like, stresses you out more than what it stresses most people out. So for me, for example,

I hated it like when I had to, to be at work at a particular time and I couldn't leave. Like that really stressed me out. So I realized, oh, maybe I have some sort of value here around freedom or autonomy, right? And so understanding the areas of your life where something really stresses you out and understanding what brings you a lot of joy can be a sign as to what your values are. Okay. Where if anyone, anyone's listening to this, any coaches are listening to this, I want to reach

out and ask you a couple of questions about what we spoke about today or maybe want to reach out to work with you, where can they go to find you? on Instagram at the fitness psych underscore is the best place to find me. Thanks for watching. If you like that episode and you want to see more content like this, make sure you're subscribed and I'll see you on the next one.