Why health and fitness goals often fail to deliver results?
“What are your health and fitness goals?” It’s a common question asked by many health and fitness professionals all over the world. It seems like an easy question to answer, and most clients will rattle off how many kilograms they want to lose, what dress/pant size they want to fit into, what they want their blood sugar numbers to be, or how much they want to deadlift, squat and bench press.
Unfortunately “outcome goals” like these can sabotage our clients progress. Why? Outcome goals often focus on the things that are out of our control while, simultaneously, distracting us from the things that we can control. We have control over our daily behaviours and if we can change our behaviours, we can change our lives (what a great business motto).
What’s the difference between goals and behaviours?
Goals are about the results you want to achieve and behaviours are about the processes that lead to the end result.
If you’re a team coach, your goal might be to win a championship. The behaviours that will get you the championship are recruiting the right players, inspiring and motivate the players, building a positive relationship between the coaching staff and the players, and how you design and execute training sessions.
If you’re a health and fitness entrepreneur, your goal might be to build a six-figure business. The behaviours required to achieve this financial goal can include; your unique abilities, your strengths, your client niche, the system you choose to build a sustainable business, how you run your sales and marketing campaigns, and the methods you use to deliver client results.
If you completely ignored your goals and focused only on your behaviours, would you still succeed? I think so. The only way to actually win is to get better each day. If you want better results, then place more effort into creating the right behaviours that move you closer to your goals.
Don’t get me wrong, goals are not completely useless. Goals are useful in term of setting a direction. A handful of problems arise when you spend too much time and effort on your goals and not enough time on your behaviours:
Winners and losers have the same goals
Achieving a goal is only a momentary change
Goals restrict your happiness
Goals are at odds with long term progress
The purpose of setting goals is to win the game. The purpose of building behaviours is to continue playing the game. True long-term thinking is goal-less thinking. It’s not about any single accomplishment. It’s about the cycle of endless refinement and continuous improvement. Ultimately, it’s about your commitment to the process that will determine your ongoing success. Stop focusing on the things you can not control and start paying attention to the things you can control.
Turn “outcome goals” into “behaviour goals”
An “outcome goal” is something you want to achieve, such as losing a certain amount of weight, or running a half-marathon in a certain time. A “behaviour goal” is an action that you would put into practice to move you closer to the outcome, such as chewing your food, eating vegetables with every meal, or practising your running technique 3-4 times per week.
Although there is nothing wrong with wanting an "outcome goal," we often struggle to control outcomes because they’re affected by many outside factors that we often can not control. Behaviour goals, on the other hand, are something in our control and they allow us to experiment with the things we can control - action, not end results. Let’s say you have a client that was to lose 10kg of body fat. To lose this weight they have to create certain behaviours like exercising regularly, calorie control, stress management, quality and quantity of sleep, and social connections. Instead of setting a weight loss goal, we can guide them to set "behaviour goals" that will move the client closer to the desired "outcome goal."
Behaviour change is not easy and it requires a lot of effort to create and sustain new behaviours. Shrinking the change is often the best way to accomplish this successfully. For example, you might start by experimenting with two weeks of creating a sustainable exercise behaviour such as “I will exercise 4 times per week for the next two weeks.”
If the client is successful at this, we can then experiment with adding another behaviour change. In the next two weeks, we can experiment with eating slowly, chewing your food, and recording the total calories consumed each day. “I will eat slowly, chew my food, and record my calorie intake each day for the next two weeks.”
If the client has successfully managed to maintain the exercise behaviour and the nutrition behaviour we could add another experiment. For the next two weeks the client can work on improving their sleep quality and quantity by creating an evening routine that calms them before bed. “I will turn off all screens and avoid blue light 60min before bed. I will spend 10minutes in meditation before going to bed and I will aim to be in bed by 9:30 pm each night."
Notice how these new goals are action-driven, not outcome driven? Notice how these goals are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Timely (S.M.A.R.T goals).
There is nothing wrong with having the desired outcome in mind, but the outcome is often not going to be enough to establish the behaviours that will move us closer to the result. As health and fitness professionals we need to be able to support and guide our clients to think about their daily behaviours and the impacts they are having on their desired goals.
Turn “performance goals” into “mastery goals.”
How often do you have clients who want to improve their performance? Maybe they want to lift a certain weight, run faster, or jump higher. "Performance goals” are a lot like “outcome goals” as they focus on the end results and not the behaviours that are needed to accomplish the result.
“Mastery goals” are about learning, skill development, and the intrinsic values of becoming excellent at something, or establishing a better understanding of something. “Performance goals” have limitations because, just like “outcome goals,” there are many things out of our control. If you're aiming to run a 5K PB and on race day you're running into a headwind and you've had a bad night sleep, you’re not going to perform at your best. If we don’t accomplish our goals we can feel demotivated and fall off the wagon.
Mastery is about the continued process of skill development, which can lead to better performance in the long run. Changing the focus to mastery allows us to focus on the joy of learning. Which is gratifying no matter what others think or how long it takes us to run a 5K in poor weather conditions with bad night sleep.
To help clients turn a performance goal into a mastery goal, you might consider what key behaviours will move the client closer to the desired result? If the client wants to set a new 5K PB, you might consider working on smooth, efficient running technique, learning to pace, learning to increase speed, and learning to control the breath. This could involve:
Watching videos of the clients running technique and regularly practising running drills.
Practising different running intervals the allow the client to “change gears” and learn to pace their speed
Practice running at a sustainable aerobic pace that allows the client to maintain a certain breathing rhythm.
Learning to breathe deeply and control the breath between intervals.
Having performance goals is great, but don’t stop there. Start to think about the skills required to achieve the objective and turn those skills into a series of behaviours. We want to turn the goal into a set of behaviours that allow us to focus on making progress and not just the end result. “I will practice running drill 4 times per week at the beginning of my running sessions.” “I will spend 10minutes each morning before breakfast practising diaphragmatic breathing drills to improve my aerobic fitness and breathing awareness."
Turn “negative goals” into “positive goals”
Often clients set “negative goals,” something they don’t want: “I don’t want to be overweight,” or “I don’t want to have a sore back” or “I don’t want to be out of breath when running for a bus.” Negative goals like not smoking and not eating junk food are psychologically counterproductive because they focus on the negative and highlight the problem and not the solution. They often reinforce the feeling of failure when we mess up.
A “positive goal” is something you do want: “I want to feel confident and strong,” or “I want to live pain-free.” Positive goals give us something positive to focus on when old behaviours might have otherwise taken over. Positive goals give us a chance to feel good and inspire us to stay on the path to success. Instead of “no junk food,” try focusing the attention on “eating more fruits and vegetables." Instead of “no soda,” try focusing the attention on "drinking more water throughout the day." Instead of “No stress-eating,” try to focus on "stress-relieving activities such as breathing or meditation."
Creating health and fitness goals is often not enough. The key to achieving the results we want in life is to create sustainable behaviours. As coaches, personal trainers and gym owners we must support and guide our clients to set “behaviour goals” that they can experiment with. Behaviour change is identity change. WHO do you want to be? If your clients want to be strong, they must implement the behaviours of those who are strong. If a client wants to be lean, they must implement the behaviours of someone who is lean.
Stop focusing on the end goal and start focusing on the behaviours that will help you move closer to the type of person you want to be.
Behaviour change science is an exciting field of psychology that has been missing from the health and fitness industry. As health and fitness professionals we want to be able to help people improve their health and longevity, but we’ve been limited to exercise and nutrition advice for far too long. The fitness industry is failing to flatten the curve of obesity and illness because we are not supporting and guiding our client behaviours. It’s easy to blame our clients, but could we be offering a better set of tools to help them stay accountable?
My goal with Protect The Asset is to coach health and fitness professionals to create fulfilment, freedom and financial abundance. Success in our industry starts with protecting our number one asset. Through self-discovery, we can build healthy sustainable habits. With integrity, we can enhance our self-worth and self-motivation. When we learn to protect the asset we start to lead by example and cultivate more pleasure in our lives. As personal trainers, gym owners and coaches we want to help as many people as possible, but we don't want to compromise our health and relationships in the process.
The level 1 Protect The Asset course is now available. In this first installment, we will work together to uncover your Unique Abilities, your strengths and values, and implement behaviours that help you work less, be more productive, and earn more. We will also start to look at the science of behaviour change and start exploring different tools that we can use to help our clients create sustainable behaviours that lead to long-term results.
If you would know more, please book a Protect The Asset qualification call.
