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Nov 12

How To Find & (Ethically) Use Leverage To Create BIG Change

By Articles, Behavior Change Psychology No Comments

Does it ever feel like you want it for your clients more than they want it for themselves? Like no matter what you say, how many bomb new recipes you provide, or how many times you “switch it up” at their request – nothing you do ever seems to get them to stick with it?

As their coach, what are you supposed to do when Becky just can’t seem to stop self-sabotaging? And more importantly, is this something that you should be able to coach her through or should you write her failure off as “not your fault, you did everything you could…sometimes people just aren’t ready to change…”

The answer is pretty simple, actually. It just requires you to get a little leverage (and learn how to ethically use it) so that Becky can start showing up for herself instead of showing up in the Krispy Kreme line every morning…

More specifically, I’m about to give you the jedi-skills you need to make even your most difficult clients coachable so you can sleep soundly at night trusting that your approach is (in fact) more effective than a Dr. Phil episode.

Understanding Why People Change

There is one reason, and one reason alone, that people will change how they act, think or feel about something. I’d like you to think of these three things (the combination of behaving, thinking and feeling) collectively as “patterns” we establish over the course of our life.

Every pattern we have created over the course of our life was done so in response to something that happened to us in our environment (a trigger). We combine that experience with a belief about it being either good for us or bad for us.

As an easy example, imagine that when you were little your mom would buy no-name coffee because you were too poor to afford anything else. She would make it really watery and never had any sugar to put in it because that cost too much money. Even though your environment is not the same as it was when you were younger, the smell of cheap coffee (your trigger) is linked to a great deal of discomfort (or pain) for you because of the association (or belief) you have about what that means. And so because of that you only buy expensive Starbucks coffee.

Is it possible, however, that someone who did not have that same life experience could enjoy no-name coffee? Yes, of course it is – the no-name coffee is not the source of the pain.

So then with your clients, is it possible for them to also link negative experiences to behaviours that you perceive to be normal, or even enjoyable? -Yes!

Is it also possible, then, for their negative behaviours (the one’s you’re trying to help them change) to be linked up with a certain amount of pleasure for them? – Of course.

If an action that brings a certain degree of pleasure for your client (even if it negatively impacts them in other areas – like eating fast food for example) is attempted to be replaced by a behaviour that is perceived as uncomfortable or painful (even if the long term result would be pleasurable) your client will not be able to achieve this long term.

They will always fail and resort back to old patterns because of the large amount of energy (or willpower) it would take for your client to fight their natural tendency to move towards pleasure and away from pain (based on the meaning they have associated with those actions)

Make sense?

So then, knowing this…do you still believe that self-sabotage is real if your clients are seemingly just subconsciously reacting to environmental triggers Let’s discuss that next…

Is Self-Sabotage A Myth?

The idea of self-sabotage assumes that you are making a conscious decision to defy something or someone that is intended to be for your benefit. It’s assuming that your client is “giving in” or not staying dedicated to the process. But knowing what I just taught you about why we make choices…do you still believe this to be true?

Self-sabotage is simply the point in which your clients willpower ran out. It’s a sign that the behaviour you’re trying to change brings them more pleasure and takes them away from more pain than the behaviour you’re trying to replace it with.

You’re assuming that they are making a conscious choice to “give up”, but the source of the problem is not found at the decision stage. The source of the problem is found at the belief stage – more specifically, the meaning they give to something that happened around them. Their brain is deciding for them if this is bringing them pain or pleasure based on their model of the world.

So if we use Becky as an example, let’s say that you gave her the goal to not eat fast food for 2 weeks. But you failed to uncover that when Becky was little, her mom would take her to  Burger King whenever Becky was upset about something (which was often, since Becky had a hard time making friends at school). To Becky, Burger King is linked up with feeling connected, loved, seen, and happy. So what happens when Becky has a hard day at work, or she has a fight with her husband, or she feels stressed about her VISA bill that just came in the mail…her past tendency would have been to go to Burger King. But now that that isn’t an option…how long do you think Becky will be able to last without an alternative behaviour that could give her an even more powerful shift towards pleasure (love, connection, significance and happiness) and away from pain (stress, sadness, fear, etc).

Probably not very long…probably less than a week if she really did have all of those underlying stressors going on in her life. So then when she “gives in” to her habitual patterns this causes her to falsely label herself as “self-sabotaging” and feels like a failure.

So then, if we know that Becky isn’t self-sabotaging…how do we help her change this behaviour? We’re going to talk about leverage next – how to find it, how to ethically use it (and basically how to become a jedi-master so you can help Becky change for good).

Finding (And Using) Leverage

So to recap, we know that changing our behaviours isn’t only about changing our decisions. It’s actually more about changing the source of our decisions – the underlying patterns that we have accumulated that guide the decisions we consistently make. Simply put, we need to figure out what is causing us to make these habitual choices in terms of :

  • What core needs is this choice fulfilling for us (even if negatively)
  • And what must we believe about ourselves or the world/others in order for this choice to fulfill this need?

In Becky’s case, going to Burger king when she is feeling stressed, angry or anxious is fulfilling the core needs of love, connection, significance and certainty. In order for this choice to fulfill this need Becky needs to believe that Burger King is going to give her the elevated state that she is seeking, that this is the best option for her to create the most pleasure and remove the most pain the fastest way possible, and that there are no other options available to her that could achieve the same result.

She doesn’t consciously think these things, obviously, she just habitually ends up in the Burger King drive thru and can’t explain her “lack of willpower” (which we will get into next).

So then to find leverage that you can use to help her change this habitual pattern is going to require you to find something else in Becky’s view of the world that could bring her the same (or more) pleasure and move her away from the same pain she is using Burger King to escape from

If you can do this, you have found an alternative – great work! But for this to truly become a new pattern that replaces her current one we must also help her associate Burger King with deep pain, instead of pleasure. THIS is called leverage. And where you look for this is inside of her primary needs. Important to note here is that you dont have to know everything about the core human needs, how people fulfill them, or the exact psychological processes that are going on with your client.

You simply need to begin looking for patterns – these are the strings that if pulled on will unravel the leverage you’re looking for.

Spotting Patterns

The patterns you’re looking for are going to be found using your most valuable skill as a coach. This is your innate ability to listen intently and hear not only the words they are saying, but also to develop the skill of unravelling the meaning behind these words (often before they have connected the dots themselves).

There are 4 “tells” that should trigger your spidey senses to pay closer attention…

  1. The first is emotion – this will most often be uncovered when the client feels like their current beliefs are beign challenged, or when change (or the suggestion of change) makes them feel uncomfortable. This can often be picked up in changes of tone of voice, speech patterns (ie: hesitation, bluntness, resistance, etc) and body language. If you are just learning to pay attention to signs of emotional changes, I suggest trying to do your calls over zoom so that you can pay attention to what you’re seeing as well as what you’re hearing.
  2. The second is adherence – if your client cannot “stick to” their plan, assume that there is a deeper reason why this is other than simply “a lack of willpower”. Ask questions that will lead them down the path of figuring out why this plan does not fit their needs or beliefs. Before changing the plan, consider that possibly the plan doesn’t need to change, in fact just their view of the world might need to be adjusted. 
  3. The third is lifestyle – always beginning your client’s journey with the end in mind is my biggest piece of advice I could give you. For example, if your client values her social life (in fact, she meets many of her core needs by being social in this way) removing social activities around food would require a great deal of willpower on her part (and would 100% be a temporary means to an end). Does she really need to give up her social life, or do we simply need to reframe which parts of this are actually giving her pleasure and meeting her needs? Perhaps she has incorrectly associated the food with pleasure, when in fact it’s simply just being around her friends that create the biggest pleasure source for her. 
  4. The fourth is language – the words your clients use are powerful keys that will unlock where there are strings you need to be pulling on. Are there specific scenarios that always shift them into negative language patterns? What are the words they consistently use to describe themselves, their progress, their life, etc? Often, people will use the same words consistently when they are unhappy about something – if you can pick up on the words they use consistently then you will have created a roadmap into their mind and often be able to predict their thoughts and behaviours before they are even aware of them.

As you have seen thus far, your clients actions are intricate, specific, predictable and most often completely subconscious. The way to create big change in someone is not simply to zoom in on their poor choices, but rather to have deep conversations about their life, why they believe they are making these choices, and from their perspective what they are positively getting from making the choices they are. Things like: how do they feel before and after their actions? What is their internal dialogue like before and after? What phrases do they commonly use when they feel bad about their behaviour? Why do they wish they could stop – what do they believe stopping this behaviour will give them?

By asking better questions, you create better roadmaps to true transformational change.

Why Most People Don’t Do This

Your clients likely blame their failed weight loss attempts on a handful of things: willpower, dedication, and motivation being the biggest ones you will undoubtedly hear them say. This is working under the assumption that the choices they are making are always conscious…that they are always in complete control.

If every choice you made required conscious effort you would never be able to operate in the world as you know it. Everything from simply standing up from your chair and walking across the room would require conscious thought. Our brain learns patterns we consistently use and pushes them into the parts of the brain that operate subconsciously.

If we can create a subconscious pattern for things like standing up to walk across the room, or opening a door, without having to think about how to do it, if we should do it, when to do it, why we’re doing it, etc…isn’t it possible that we can also create subconscious patterns for reactions to our external environmental triggers – like going to Burger King?

Of course it is. Behaviours are simply consistent actions we take in response to external stimuli based on what we perceive to bring us pleasure and move us away from pain. Knowing this, you can feel excited about the opportunities here to create massive change in someone’s life in ways they will perceive to be almost like magic. Behaviours that no diet has ever been able to “fix”, you can transform just by having conversations that will guide the plan you create for your client.

Ultimately the choice is yours, coach. You can develop the skills that could allow you to guarantee change in your clients lives…or you can continue to say a little prayer with every plan you put together hoping that this is the one that will make a difference for them. I challenge you to get uncomfortable and try some of these skills on for size – you’ll be surprised how natural it will feel to begin to coach in the way you always felt you should be.

By the way…if you want some serious doses of Laura wisdom to keep you on your toes and growing, I want you in my super dope group

Behind The Change ⬸ click the link to join me!

 

You can also catch me on The Unfiltered Coach Podcast every Wednesday where the hubs and I are committed to helping you step into your power and build the biz of your dreams.

Nov 09

Get “Closed-Off” Nutrition Clients To Open Up Faster

By Client Connection & Communication, Mini Trainings No Comments

When your client refuses to open up…

…do anything we suggest…

…or take responsibility for apparent their lack of effort?

We usually respond in one of three ways:

➡️we either dish the tough love, reminding them that if they don’t put in the work they won’t get the results

➡️we let them off with a pep-talk and a recap of what they “should” have done, and cross our fingers that this week will be different

➡️OR…we shift into fixer-teacher mode, searching for something in the plan to change or some part of our last conversation they “must have misunderstood” so we can course correct and get back on track.

But the problem with all of these ^^ scenarios?

Is that we are approaching the conversation from an us versus them perspective…

…which unknowingly makes them shut down or armor up — neither of which allows us to be very productive in or out of session with that client, right?

So then, you’re probably wondering…what other options are there?

Well, there’s actually a really quick fix to this ENTIRE frustrating cycle…

And the major bonus? Is that fixing this one problem will also save you a butt-tonne of energy, time, and headaches in the future.

Here’s what you’ll learn in this training:

✅Why we all handle resistance in the same outdated way (it’s literally engrained into us as protective wiring) and how this is actually contributing to your clients non-compliance

✅The important role of the ego, why it’s not as bad as we all think…but why we totally need to give it a snack and a nap so it stops hijacking our sessions (and our life!)

✅An entirely new conversational approach to handling EVERY type of resistance from your clients without them reacting, shutting down, or getting defensive (you can literally give this a shot the minute after you learn it, its THAT fast 💨)

✅How these skills will translate into the rest of your life to make you a happier, less stressed, and WAY more productive human (this means no more monkey mind — you’ll feel grounded in every conversation, decision and moment from here on out)

Also…the freebie I spoke about a few times throughout? You can grab your copy right here

 

 

 

Nov 05

A Tell-All Guide To Knowing If Online Coaching Is Really Right For YOU

By Articles, Personal Growth & Expansion No Comments

It’s an average Tuesday night in the middle of winter & it’s dark outside already. You’re just wrapping up with your last client of the day, exhausted you sadly realize that never seeing the sunlight is becoming your new normal. Glancing at your dayplanner your inner voice starts beating you up before you even have the chance to put on your armour.

You did it again.

Your day has ended and you have only 1 of 16 things checked off your to-do list. Your heart sinks further when you realize that you have been rewriting the same items over and over again for the last 3 weeks when you first told yourself you were going to make a change.

That this year was going to be different. You were going to shift online and start to build your own business with your own schedule and your own rules.

“But how” you think to yourself “will I ever be able to make this work when I can’t even find the time to start a facebook group, or post on instagram, not to mention watch the 5 free webinars I signed up for last month on how to get this online business off the ground”

You tap into your email and realize you’re now getting bombarded from all of these different business coaches screaming at you in your inbox…”Want to make your first 10K online? Follow this one simple trick!”…”Learn how I sold 500,000 from my instagram stories in 3 months!”…

As you read the subject lines you angrily select all and delete…you feel your old resistance creep back in. The thoughts of “that will never be me”, “I don’t have time right now”, and “who do I think I am to try to do that”…enter your mind like a tsunami bringing you back to reality.

You know you want to try your hand at this online thing…but the kind of success you see others creating all around you feels impossible to reach…where do you even start, how will you ever find the time, what’s the point in trying when the only people who read your stuff is your mom and your favorite Auntie Sue…

All you know for certain is that you’re exhausted trying to keep up with your current in-person schedule.

You feel like you’re killing yourself every day for someone else’s dream. Like life is slowly passing you by and you are tired of missing out on dinner with friends, sunday brunch with your family, your nephews hockey games and just time to sit and do nothing.

You feel certain that growing an online business would grant you the freedom to reclaim your life, actually have the time (and funds) to travel to all of the exotic destinations you have passionately pinned to your vision board, and that if you could only just get started online that your world would take a 180 degree change for the better.

And while much of what you’re imagining can be your reality, what I want you to know and deeply understand is this:

  1. your happiness has absolutely nothing to do with your external circumstance. Shifting your business online to escape your current reality is only a short term solution to a much bigger underlying problem (and as you’ll see this was one of our BIGGEST reasons for shifting online…and ultimately one of our biggest lessons)
  2. You can 1000000% accomplish whatever lifestyle you want for yourself through growing an online business, but this requires you to actually know the life you want and then be okay with making the necessary sacrifices to achieve that end result
  3. Online business is hard AF and there are a lot of things you don’t know in the beginning that I want to illuminate for you so you can make the best, most informed decision possible

But before we dig into the top 10 things to consider before you shift online, I want to create some context for you around why you should pay attention to what it is I’m about to share with you. And the best way to do that I feel is to share my story…

Why We Took On 100K Of Debt To Shift Online

The alarm went off at 4:00am just like it did every morning, and my heart would sink. I would feel my grip tighten on the duvet as if to use it as a shield from the reality I had built. 

“Three, two, one” I would say in my head before I’d launch myself out into the darkness. Like a robot I’d get myself ready for a day full of clients…tossing my hair in a bun, no longer bothering with makeup.

“It surely won’t hide the bags under my eyes or the exhaustion in my body…so why bother”, I’d think.

I was so tired, my passion was gone, and I felt trapped in a life I created by accident. I was no where close to making the amount of money I needed to leave the gym and travel in the way I always dreamed I’d be able to do.

Even if money wasn’t an issue, there was no way I could leave my gym, my team or my clients for longer than a week or two without it all burning to the ground.

I had locked myself into a prison of my own design, and the only way out felt like an impossible option. But an option none-the-less.

It took us months to come to the decision…but in that moment of saying “I’m done, I don’t want a gym any longer” the relief we felt was so immense that I knew we were simultaneously taking the biggest risk of our lives and also freeing ourselves for everything that was waiting for us on the other side of that choice.

I began growing an online roster out of necessity…never in a million years would I have guessed how quickly I could replace (and exceed) the income we were making in the gym. In less than 6 months I was making more money personally than we ever had during our time there. I had cleared the infamous 10k/month mark and Landon was able to step away and shift online as well.

You can listen here for what I attribute my fast 6 figure success to, and how you can totally copy me (seriously, copy me) to create your own 6 figure success story.

Now, you can bet that this was a shortened version of the real story…inside of that transition was a fuck tonne of mistakes, tears, self-doubts, moments of wanting to run away to Bali (I actually planned my escape in a google doc), and loads of financial stress. We didn’t simply wake up to a 6 figure online coaching business…

What I built out of sheer necessity turned into the biggest professional gift of our lives.

It has allowed us the freedom to design our life exactly how we want it to be…right down to packing up everything we owned into a steel box and moving our butts down to beautiful Mexico (listen here for the tell all story on this!)

But freedom doesn’t come without sacrifice…and this was the biggest lesson of all. I truly don’t believe that every coach has what it takes to cut it online. I believe that some coaches are meant to work for others, some coaches are meant to work in person, and some coaches struggle to know the difference between their job and their unhappiness…and that if this is you…there is a lot more going on under the surface that is causing your burnout, dwindling passion and struggle to create the success you desire.

Nothing external is going to bring you what you truly want until you can create an internal environment that can support all of the beauty that the world around you can provide. Until you do that…everything else is just noise.

So before you shift online, consider the following top 10 lessons I learned inside of the hardest year of my life and how you can apply them to your big decision to shift online or not.

The Top 10 Things To Consider Before You Shift Online

Number 1: Technology becomes an essential part of your life

Something that scares a lot of people about running an online business is the thought of needing to marry their iPhone for the rest of their life. Ultimately, if you have zero intention of implementing additional technology into your workflow, the online world is going to be a really difficult one for you to grow in. 

The truth is that no one in the online space is above creating and posting valuable content online. No one is above dming their ideal clients to create engaging conversations. And no one is above using tech to communicate more effectively with their existing clients.

In fact, I would argue that if you’re not willing to do this to some degree, the online space is likely not for you. But before you write it off all together because of your bad relationship with tech, consider this…

One of the biggest mistakes coaches make is they have no boundaries, no content plan, no outreach training, and no idea how much time they should be spending on all of this stuff. It’s very easy to get swallowed up inside of Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, TikTok and all the rest thinking that you have to be everywhere all the time in order to “make it”.

When in fact if you instead focused on…

  1. Only the platforms you ideal client uses the most (Email and Facebook or Instagram is my initial suggestion)
  2. The content your ideal client needs to hear the most (instead of what you feel like posting that day)
  3. Creating as many conversations as possible with the singular intention of helping to solve one problem for everyone you talk to
  4. Creating boundaries around your social media time (adopt the “get in and get out” policy)
  5. Shifting your perspective from social media to business media and limiting your scrolling and engaging with people who will never buy from you
  6. Have a clear plan for your content creation, the types of content you’re creating, why this is best for your audience, and how to repurpose awesome pieces of content to expand your reach further with less effort or time investment.

…your anxiety around social media as an online entrepreneur would completely disappear and the momentum you would create from adhering to these guidelines would be exponential. Without a clear plan, objective, boundaries and message…social media feels like a mountain you can never summit and we burn out faster than we can say “instagram stories”…

When done correctly, incorporating more technology with your lead generation, your content creation, your daily operations and your client delivery can actually make your life easier, not more difficult…if you are willing to put the time into learning what works best for you.

Adopt these strategies and still hate being on your phone?? The online game is probably not for you, friend.

Number 2: Boundaries are essential

There is one resource in the world that is going to run out eventually. It’s something we’re all aware of (some more than others), but something happens as entrepreneurs where we seem to run out of it faster and faster the more we strive for our success.

Time.

We are all on this earth for an amount of time that we have no real control over. But how we spend that time, we have infinite control over. It’s very easy to lose sight of this, and very natural and normal to fall into the belief that we have no extra time or energy to give.

This can truly limit us in how successful we are really able to become…just think if at every turn your unconscious mind is screaming at you to “be careful with your time!” and “don’t burnout!”…the way you respond to opportunities and the way you manage your time is sabotaged without you even realizing it.

This is especially true for the virtual coach or the online entrepreneur. There are so many people and things pulling at your time and your energy constantly that maintaining enough for you to feel good day in and day out can become problematic.

The reason you feel tired all the time isn’t because you don’t have enough energy – you have infinite energy. And it isn’t because you don’t have enough time – you have the same amount of time as everyone else.

It’s because you aren’t holding space for yourself and you aren’t setting clear boundaries in order to do so.

The problem with this isn’t just that you won’t feel good inside of what you’re working so hard to create. It’s also that building your freedom life will end up taking you longer. Creativity, evolution and resilience are all very necessary parts of what will allow you to succeed online. However from a place of “never enough” you are unable to access those parts of you.

This leads to frustration when you have no idea what to write or say.

This leads to feelings of burnout when you are constantly giving more of yourself than you are replenishing.

This leads to feelings of failure, not being good enough, or not feeling ready to take on more.

This leads to your self-sabotage and a feeling of being plateaued inevitably.

We are living in a culture now where pushing and hustling is touted a admirable and something to strive for. Yet, the results from such actions have been shown to typically leave the hustlers less fulfilled, unable to rest, with limiting beliefs up the hoohaw that stop them from truly enjoying all that they have built around them.

To reach a place of inner and external freedom, boundaries must be put in place early on before self-destructive habits are formed (and you better believe I’m speaking from mega experience here). That being said, let’s start with a few easy questions to bring your awareness to places where you might need to firm up your boundaries:

  1. How do you currently start each day? How does that make you feel throughout the rest of the day? 
  2. How often do you check your social media or your email? How much unproductive time do you spend on these platforms?
  3. How accessible are you to people in your life?
  4. How do you end your day? How do you feel when you close your eyes at night
  5. Is your schedule planned or sporadic?
  6. Do you set time aside each week for yourself?
  7. What does it physically feel like when you feel “behind” in your day?
  8. Do you expect yourself to get done more than you have the bandwidth for? What happens if you don’t get everything done in the day that you expected?
  9. Who are you giving more energy away to than you should be? Are you seeking approval or justification through this?

Reclaiming your time and energy is a single choice…it is an awareness that you have the power to make this shift at any time. HOW you spend your time and energy is only for you to decide, yet until you reclaim that responsibility, the world is going to continue to push you around like a pinball stuck in a game of your own design. You can make it stop at any time, you just have to choose to stop feeding the game quarters.

Number 3: Your Success Is Completely Dependant On Your Mindset

Your mind is a sassy thing, always trying to keep you in one place just the way she likes you.

Challenge her, and your mind is armed with weapons stronger than any dynamite in the world ready to take down your thoughts of expansion – fear, limiting beliefs, self-doubt, comparison, self-judgement, overwhelm, anxiety, perfectionism, justification, proof…it’s all in there. Ready to show you why NOT to do something big and bold that will force you to grow.

Growth feels uncomfortable because when you consciously decide to push past those fears, limiting beliefs and feelings of overwhelm…you are required to shed those layers in order to move through them. You must face them in order to leave them behind you. This is why so many people stay stuck in one place…because they cannot come to terms with the discomfort. They would rather feel comfortable than extraordinary.

The life you’re dreaming of building…it isn’t going to be comfortable getting there. You’re going to be challenged in so many more ways than you can even imagine. But if you are willing to evolve your mindset as you grow your business, you will reach far greater heights than those who aren’t.

Let’s say a group of online coaches are all given the same tactics and strategies to implement. They all understand them equally and they all have a level playing field of reach, attention, status, connections and readiness. The only thing that creates a different experience for each person is found deep within themselves. It’s what they were taught about themselves and the world around them from a very young age…and how that frame of the world continues to show up in their life.

One person might doubt their ability to take action because they were told their whole life that they were lazy and stupid.

Another might fear failure because they watched their father lose his company when he was little and how that devastated their family.

While someone else might constantly feel overwhelmed by everything they have to do because the way they received affection from their parents was entirely dependent on how well they did in school, how much they contributed around the house and through other external accomplishments growing up.

As you can see, the events in your life have a massive impact on your ability to become successful. The truth, though, is that you have the power to change your conditioning. To adopt a mindset that does breed success and fulfillment.

The first step is awareness around where you’re holding yourself back.

The second step is exploring all the parts of you that are affected by this thought pattern, emotion, fear or belief.

The third step is learning to let that part of you go. Of choosing to believe a different story than the one you have been listening to all these years. Meditation, affirmations, boundaries, reflection and a conscious awareness of who/what triggers these past patterns is where everyone should begin their mindset journey.

Number 4: You’ll Need To Disconnect From Your Environment

This is a really challenging hurdle for a lot of new online entrepreneurs. Previous to shifting online likely your schedule was set for you, there were expectations of where you would be a when you would be there, and the environment you were in was someone stable – controlled even.

The instability of being able to completely control your schedule and your work environment is both freeing and problematic. A lot of type A entrepreneurs struggle with the working-from-home situation because of this instability and unpredictability. The shift from rigidity to complete flexibility is difficult to internalize and many get caught up worrying about what’s going on around them in their subconscious search for normalcy or stability.

Disconnecting from your environment suggests creating boundaries around your physical space so that when you’re working on your business and with your clients you will not feel pulled in multiple directions. You can focus and be productive. So if you work from home, for example, create an area where you are meant to work that is removed or disconnected from your personal life. The last thing you want is to be in the middle of writing a piece of content, and get sidetracked by laundry, the dog, or the mess in the kitchen your kids neglected to clean up.

Holding physical and mental space for your business tasks will transform how you feel inside of what you are able to accomplish each day, all else being equal.

You know how they say to improve your sleep don’t keep a tv in the bedroom? Well to improve your productivity don’t keep your personal life in your work space.

The reason I bring this up here is because a lot of people aren’t even going to realize this is an issue until they feel overwhelmed with everything they need to get done in a day – not even seeing that most of what they “need to get done” has nothing to do with their online business at all.

Number 5: People Won’t Get It

Listen, anyone born before 1985 is going to seriously struggle to understand how in the hell you’re able to make money “without working”. Your dad is going to pressure you to get a “real job” and your mom is going to constantly be your reminder to “be careful with your money”. Essentially everyone who is close to you is going to worry that you’re living off of tuna and ramen and just not telling anyone. Even when you’ve “made it”.

The online world is just so different from their frame of what success looks like. To them, success means working your way up the corporate ladder, getting promotions, and landing a gig where you get 6 weeks paid vacation. You know there is a whole other world out there, but my advice to you is to not waste your energy trying to convince them with your words.

Show them with your actions instead.

You must understand that just because online entrepreneurship is all around YOU, it’s not common knowledge for everyone. If someone cannot comprehend it, their doubt in your ability to be successful (and people will doubt you) has more to do with their care for you combined with the frame they see the world through.

Be careful who you ask for advice from where your online business is concerned. Ultimately in the early stages we have a lot of doubts ourselves about our ability to succeed. Logically we know we CAN, but internally there are other wars going on around “am I good enough yet?”, “what will people think?”, “is this really possible for me?”…that when we ask the wrong people to justify our choices, these inner wars are reinforced instead of dismantled.

I recommend finding a community or mentor that lives in the same world as you to direct all questions, doubts and fears towards. This way, you will be met with relevant guidance that doesn’t reinforce your already raging inner wars, but rather guides you through the discomfort towards overcoming the enemy (yourself).

Protecting yourself from negative, uninformed inputs is extremely important in the beginning, or you risk stopping yourself before you even get started. You risk falling back into the comfort of the predictable and stable because “that makes more sense” instead of pushing forward into your life of freedom that is right there waiting for you to reach out with a brave hand to take it.

Number 6: Freedom Comes With A PriceTag

What does freedom look like to you?

What does it feel like to you?

How will you know you’ve actually reached it?

Picture yourself shopping at the highest end designer store for a dress. You find one you fall in love with, its long and flowy completely covered in crystals and beads. You know it will fit you perfectly, it will emphasize every sexy curve and will make your ass look incredible. You know you need to have it, but you have no idea how much it costs. You just spotted it in the window and you imagined how it would make you feel, how you will look in it and how it will change your perspective of yourself. You’ll feel powerful, unstoppable, important, worthy, and happy.

This is kinda like freedom.

We have an idea of what it’s going to look and feel like…but we don’t think about the price-tag attached to it. We just know that no matter what its something we need to have.

So my question to you is, when you realize the price tag for that dress is 1 Million dollars, do you drop your dream and walk away, or do you plan for how you’re going to get it one day?

I know a dress and your LIFE aren’t exactly the same thing, but what I’m trying to get across is that the price-tag for freedom is this…

  • Opening old wounds and growing through them…this is painful and scary but completely necessary to step into the version of yourself that is able to hold and keep the amount of success you dream of having
  • Giving up time in other important areas of your life…the path to freedom is rocky and difficult. You will need to sacrifice many things in order to get there, the most of which being your time and energy. Dream of working a 3 hour day? You can make it happen but it will likely require many 13 hour days before you earn that lifestyle.
  • If you aren’t happy right now where you are in your current life, more money and more choice will only amplify that which you already are. 
  • Mistakes and failures pave the way to freedom…no one in history ever achieved anything great without them. Are you willing to fail (and I mean hit-rock-bottom-fail) and pick yourself back up and keep going? Do you have an unwavering belief in yourself?
  • Are you willing to accept that your version of freedom and what is actually going to unfold for you may not be the same thing? Will you be flexible in how your life and business evolve together? 

Success without happiness is the ultimate form of failure. So how you define freedom and what you actually achieve is going to heavily depend on your ability to first create internal freedom. Freedom from fears, doubts, stress and worry. Freedom from expectations and perfectionism. So you can truly enjoy your life and how you spend your time each and every day, without clinging to your business with a deathgrip waiting for the day you can finally let go. Freedom doesn’t work that way. You must find joy and happiness inside of all of it – the failures just as much as the setbacks – if true freedom is what you seek. Here’s how you start:

  1. Disassociate your happiness from the outcomes of your business. Clearly define why you are shifting online, how that will impact the world, and how it will impact your life. Cling to that vision over the outcomes.
  2. Define how freedom will feel for you and check in on yourself daily on how you can insert little pieces of that same feeling into your life right now. By waiting to “make it” until you achieve something external you are simply holding freedom hostage and what you achieve will never be enough of a ransom to let it out.
  3. Commit to celebrating every single day.
  4. Define what is truly important to you and how success is going to amplify that which you already love. Success isn’t magic – it just gives you more of what you’re already attracting to you. So what do you want to start attracting now so that it can become amplified? Better relationships? More time? Adventure? How can you start finding those things in small ways NOW before achievement?

Number 7: You CAN Make A Lot Of $$$, But Most People Don’t Ever Become Truly Wealthy

You are already in the 1% of people on this entire planet who have taken the risk to start their own business online. Our world might feel saturated, but truth be told the online coaching space is only just beginning and is actually quite small relative to what it’s going to grow to become in the next few years.

The real question is not whether you’re going to live in the 1%…but if you’re going to thrive in the 1% of the 1%?

What do I mean here…

Well…a lot of people start an online business. But not a lot of people make a lot of money doing it. And those who DO make a lot of money, have also lost just as much money figuring out how to “make it”.

They either made a tonne of money and then realized they still weren’t happy.

Or they struggled for a long time, failing a lot, before they came out on the other side.

Are you willing to do what it takes to get into the 1% of the 1%?

I’m not talking about how much money you deposit in your bank account every month. What I’m talking about extends far beyond monetary wealth and flows over into mental, emotional, and freedom-based wealth (time and choice).

That kind of wealth is far more difficult to build, will require a great deal of sacrifice to truly find, and will absolutely, no questions asked, require you to go into the depths of YOU and heal the past traumas, beliefs, and limitations you are currently living inside of.

Your world, as you see it now, is not the same world you will be living in when you “make it” to this ever abundant place. Your current perceptions of the world around you have been crafted by YOUR mind to hold you inside of a box.

In this box with you are none of the skills, beliefs or values you must learn to adopt in order to step out of the box and into the 1% of the 1%.

What you DO hold inside of your box are all of the tools you need to break the walls of that box down and expose yourself to an entirely new perspective of the world.

You see, true wealth really has nothing to do with pushing harder, hustling faster or doing more. The real challenge is realizing that you are already enough and that your fears, worries and anxieties are nothing more than a false reality your mind is creating to keep you from breaking down the walls of your box. If you believe your aren’t good enough, ready or smart enough to survive in the world “out there” you wouldn’t dare break those walls down.

And so that’s the story your mind presents to you.

Along with a whole mess of stuff to prove to you that it’s right.

So your journey into the 1% of the 1% starts with breaking the walls of your box.

And that starts with noticing.

Noticing when you are telling yourself stories that are holding you back from doing the things you know you should be (and want to be) to get ahead and grow.

Noticing when you feel afraid, anxious or worried about something or someone.

Noticing when you feel overwhelmed. When you stop yourself before you start. When you fall into victim mode, perfectionism and imposter-syndrome (which really, all feel super similar).

Are you willing to take the time to notice?

Because simply by noticing, you are starting to pick up the tools in your box, and overtime you will begin to swing at those walls. Until they are all on the floor around you and you can see what you were missing out on all this time.

A world of opportunity that is ready to flow to you.

You never had to push harder or work more. You just had to stop blocking what was trying to come to you.

This is how you achieve mental wealth, emotional wealth, freedom and lifestyle wealth and monetary wealth. While feeling aligned and doing what you love. 

Can you achieve monetary wealth without this step? Yes. Many do.

But without exploring deeper within yourself, you will never truly know anything beyond that. 

Money won’t give you what you want it to. And you will stay stuck on a hamster wheel of filling voids and reaching for more external fixes for your internal problems.

Number 8: Up-levelling Your Focus & Prioritization

Learning how to focus and prioritize in the early stages is like telling a 5 year old standing in a candy store to choose just ONE candy. Picture yourself as that 5 year old for a minute…

You can’t think logically, your mouths are watering at the sight of every chocolate, sour gummy bear and peach penguin they see.

It takes you hours to decide on just one because what if you choose wrong? What if you miss out? What if you choose the sour gummy bear but the peach penguin was actually better?

And then your friend walks in, heads straight for the jawbreakers, pays and walks out.

So you also choose the jawbreaker because, well, he did it with such confidence. Such conviction. It MUST be the best candy in the store.

But you forget that you don’t even like jawbreakers. Your favorite candies are sour and chewy. Not sweet and hard.

You suck on it for as long as you can, all the while walking around the store dreaming of the sour, chewy candies you COULD be enjoying instead right now.

You feel stuck with this jawbreaker, trapped by it’s never ending layers. But so confused and overwhelmed by what you should have done. If you could spit out the jaw breaker and pick something else you would – but WHAT? So you do nothing.

You just stand there, overwhelmed by all the choices, sucking on your lame jawbreaker hoping that you will “figure it all out” one day soon. Until then, you’ll just do what you see everyone else doing. Sucking on jawbreakers.

Here’s what happens…when we’re presented with too many ideas, options, or opinions we can’t process the link between where we currently are and what will get us successfully to where we want to be.

So we just haphazardly insert strategies we see other people doing. Even though we have no idea why, or how, we just blindly follow what we see and hear other people like us doing.

The problem with this, is that a lot of the time we insert really great strategies at the completely wrong times. We don’t consider where we are at, and what is going to be the lowest hanging fruit for us to help us move forward the fastest. We just think “as long as I’m doing something, it’s better than standing still”.

We hop from strategy to strategy, just like each layer of the jawbreaker you were sucking on, hoping that next strategy will be the one that “sticks” but just like the one before it, slowly it dissolves and you’re on to the next.

Focusing on the right strategy at the right time and prioritizing with confidence this above all the other candies in the store is what is going to give you the opportunity to get ahead, to move your needle, and to really build a skill that is essential to online growth.

The ability to put blinders on and focus on what YOU need to worry about right now, not what everyone else is doing…and without worrying about missing out on something “better”.

This whole journey is about you learning what works and what doesnt work for you.

Here’s a little secret. Every single strategy out there can work. Whether it works or not just depends on your readiness to implement, your personality, your business model, your level of focus, and your definition of “works”…

Just like every candy in the candy story is delicious to someone – even the gummy hamburgers or fake bloody fingers. They’re in the store for a reason – someone inevitably walks in and buys them eventually.

So which candy are you going to enjoy for the next 1-3 months? Decide on that, put your blinders on, and give yourself time and space to learn and grow. Without this level of focus, you will never know how to get where you’re going because you will always be distracted by all other options with the illusion that they might work better.

Number 9: Connection + Communication Is A Brand New Skill

For many of you who have never known a day in your life without the internet, the iPhone, or the countless apps we use to connect and communicate every single day, this might come as a shock. Connecting online through the lens of growing your business is completely different than what connection looked like when all you cared about was how many people “liked” the cute picture you took when you were out with your girlfriends last Saturday night.

You cannot simply toss up photos of yourself and expect a flock of raving fans to throw their credit cards at you ready to buy whatever it is that you’re selling. Connecting online is a skill, and a priceless one at that.

Ultimate the key to being a great communicator comes down to three simple things:

  1. Have The Balls To Go First – just like any good relationship, you must be willing to put yourself out there if you’re ever going to get it off the ground. In this relationship, you are the one who is going to have to take the first scary step and initiate. By simply waiting for your raving fan base to find you, you’re putting yourself in a very dismal position where the chances of them finding you, liking you and trusting you becomes 0.00001%. If you want to shift those odds in your favor, start doing some thinking about where they are hanging out online, and how you can place yourself in front of them through conversation.
    1. Initiate a conversation from a genuine place (in other words, if you don’t actually think their baby is cute, probably don’t comment on that part of their life)
    2. If you wouldnt reply to you, don’t send the message (this rule pretty much rules out every chance you had at coming off as slimy or salesy)
    3. Try to discover how you can provide them value, NOT how you can craft the perfect conversation to sell them. If you lead with this intention, you will grow a much more loyal following
    4. No one is above conversation – not even the billion dollar man. 
  1.  Appreciate Your Followers – stop trying to collect followers like wildflowers and actually show them appreciation. Time is the only resource in this entire world that is non-replenishable. And they are spending some of their time on you. Do you get how incredible that is? They care about what you have to say. They look up to you. They want what you’re throwing down.

Start reaching out to them more often to start conversations. Not to sell, but to show them love right back. Relationships are about give and take – and you better believe that you are in a brand new relationship with each and every one of the people following you. If your followers feel ignored by you, do you think they are going to ever warm up to actually buy from you? Hell no. If you had 100 loyal fans who bought every single thing that you put out, you would be in an incredibly profitable place. But we all get so caught up in appearances that we think we need 100 000 followers in order to look and feel successful.

We tell ourselves that no one will take us seriously because of what our follower count says about our authority. Let me tell you, I built my first 6 figure business off of less than 1500 followers, and I did it because of this one single x-factor. Connection. 

  1.  Be A Good Person – help where you can, lead with a giving hand, never make someone feel badly about not wanting to buy from you and understand what it is you’re actually trying to accomplish in this world. Spend some time each day to reflect on this and your entire business will transform. This, I promise you.

Those who act selfishly, who have no meaningful driving force behind their business, and who are simply only willing to communicate with those who are going to give them something in return will always struggle in life. Don’t become blind to the real reason you became a coach in the first place – it wasn’t to “look” like an authority. It was to actually be an authority to a select few whose lives you could change forever. Never lose sight of this.

You don’t need to take a course on how to talk to people, you just need to rehumanize yourself. We spend so much time behind the safety net of our screen that we forget how to use our emotions to connect. We forget that true connection requires an investment of time and energy to be lasting and meaningful. We cannot hack great connections by using bots or software to grow our following for us. We must be willing to invest time and energy first into the people whom we want to invest time and energy back into us.

Money is energy.

Number 10: There Is No Playbook

When we decide to become an online entrepreneur, we deep down kind of expect it to be easy at first. There’s so many people doing it that there must be a formula that they all follow to reach the success that they have been able to attain for themselves.

There is no formula. There is no playbook. There are no rules. There is no guarantee.

The online world is ever changing. What is relevant today will be obsolete tomorrow. This is both the beauty and the frustration of growing an online business. You must learn to fall in love with the game.

If you are to truly thrive in the online space, it’s going to require you to be willing to do things many are not.

  • Iterate your program 17 times before you create a version that people actually want
  • Post 13489034 times before anyone starts to notice who you are
  • Spend as much time working on yourself as you do your business
  • Listen to 20 “no’s” for every “yes”
  • Say “no” to every shiny object that isn’t your primary focus right now
  • Believe in yourself and your mission more than anyone else
  • Have hard days and keep going anyways
  • Have incredible days and not let it get to your head
  • Do things you dislike until you get to a place where you can outsource them

With your online business, you have the power to build any kind of life you want for yourself. My hope for you is that you know what kind of life that is before you start, that you are clear about why it is you’re chasing what you’re chasing, and that you never lose sight of this. And my gut feeling is that if you made it to the end of this blog article, not only do you have what it takes, but you are committed to becoming the best possible online coach you can be for your clients and for yourself. I celebrate you, and I’m excited for you.

One last thing I know, without a shadow of a doubt, is that what that holds us all back from taking messy action boils down to three main things – mentorship, your mindset, and a clear, easy to follow method. I want to invite you to check out my Free 3 Day Momentum Challenge where we’ll dive deeper into each of these AND give away our secret sauce to landing your next 5-10 online clients super quick. See you in there!

I want to invite you to check out my Free 3 Day Momentum Challenge where we’ll dive deeper into each of these AND give away our secret sauce to landing your next 5-10 online clients super quick. See you in there!
Check it out now!

I love helping coaches confidently get started online so we can build freedom into their life. The biggest thing that stops us has nothing to do with our ability as a coach and everything to do with what we believe about ourselves and what is possible for us. That’s what I love – showing people the path out of their own damn way.

If you’d like to connect with me more, I host a free Facebook Community called Online Coaches Building Momentum – we’d love to have you! And if you don’t know me well yet, go check out my podcast, The Unfiltered Coach that I co-host with the husbie every Wednesday!

… if you have any questions, hit reply. It might take a little while, but I respond to every email, personally…

Finally… if you’d like to see if we can work together… take a look here for details on that

Nov 01

The Easiest Way To Instantly Become A Better Nutrition Coach

By Articles, Personal Growth & Expansion No Comments

“I didn’t lose weight again this week…”

The seven words every coach hates to hear rang through my phone as Cindy’s text popped up on my screen Saturday morning.

I was supposed to have my phone off, taking the weekend to “be present” I think is what my husband called it. But this was an emergency! If I didn’t text her back by Monday morning she would surely fire me…

So I snuck off to the bathroom and pretended to be, well, ya know…but really my fingers were flying in a fury texting Cindy back everything I could think of to encourage her, console her and keep her happy…with me.

Cindy texted me every time she felt like she was going to lose control around food…and I didn’t know it at the time but I would jump to her defense in an instant because I really didn’t know what else to do to get her to stop this negative behaviour.

^^Me texting Cindy back all day like…

Don’t you agree that there are so many times when our clients don’t “fit” the case studies we were given as client examples to get our certification? It all seemed so easy when we first learned to do x+y with our clients and it should equal z. The fancy formulas and research papers they referenced felt bulletproof. No one was above science – they taught us. But the reality is that human behaviour (nevermind actually changing human behaviour) doesn’t happen in black and white. What are you supposed to do when your clients struggle to adhere to y and can never quite seem to reach the z?

Your Clients Aren’t Robots

In order to go beyond science and pull the curtain back on how change actually goes down, we need to dissociate your clients from the science. You’re making wild accusations, even if subconsciously, that are reinforcing your hardwiring as an “evidence based coach”. Things like “I’m missing something” or “she’s self-sabotaging again, maybe I’m not feeding her enough” are examples of this in action. But your clients are not robots, human behaviour doesn’t change just because the textbook you studied says that their physical body should be.

Logic actually has very little to do with your client’s ability to change for good. In order for a person to make a behaviour change at all, emotion must become a part of that equation. Even a client who does everything you say and consistently progresses every single week has a deep underlying emotion governing their behaviour –  they receive a deep reward from pleasing you, from achievement and from being your star client.

There are literally thousands of emotions that your clients could be using to reinforce their old behaviours (or their new ones)…so how do we even begin to figure this out?

The only thing you need to understand is that every human behaviour is formed by an emotion. And that emotion is a result of fulfilling a basic human need, of which there are six. We will focus on the four that are most relevant to a weight loss client:

  • Certainty (as seen in someone who can stick to a meal plan but struggles with the concept of intuitive eating)
  • Uncertainty (as seen in someone who cannot meal prep because they get bored and need variety in their life)
  • Significance (as seen in someone who wants to stand out, be seen and heard, and uses their poor relationship with food and body image to do that)
  • Love & Connection (as seen in someone who’s food choices often mirror the social circles they are a part of)

Humans will seek to fulfill their needs by whatever means possible – this means that if your client’s predominant need is certainty – you will likely see perfectionism patterns, over-reactions when they make a mistake, and a strong need to have data to support what they are doing. If you can identify which need your client’s negative behaviour pattern is controlling their current behaviour, you now have the key to unlock how you are going to help them change for good.

Your Role Is Changing

Before you can identify these needs and understand how to effectively recognize the emotions that are causing the behaviours you see happening in your clients (a process that requires a great deal of intuition, trust and strategy on your part) you must first be willing to look in the mirror and evaluate where you still have growth left to do. I know you’re a great coach already, but in order to create this deeper change in someone else, we must first be able to move ourselves through it.

There are certain behaviours I see many coaches fall into simply because they don’t feel completely confident in their ability to create change in someone else. You’ve probably had moments where you suspect a client needs more from you. You may have even prescribed “mindset work” to them (things like journalling, meditation, intention setting). But when those things didn’t work, how did you respond?

Often times we get defensive and feel the need to prove that we are right, we make ourselves “too” available in a subconscious attempt to fill any value voids our clients feel from their struggles, or we simply undercharge because we are uncertain in ourselves.

 Take a moment to recognize in yourself any of the following:

  • The need to reply to your clients instantly when they text or email you
  • Writing novels back to your clients basic questions
  • Giving your clients access to you 24-7 (even though you tell them you aren’t available you still reply)
  • Spending hours doing things for your clients that you would rather not be doing, but you are afraid to upset them (like researching hundreds of recipes)
  • Getting nervous when a clients renewal is coming up, unsure if they will continue

How you respond to your clients when they struggle says everything about the work you still have to do yourself as a coach. There are likely 2 main needs that your actions and responses are shaped around – the need to feel certain that you know what you’re doing, and the need to feel significant in the journey your clients are on.

But does this type of behaviour serve you and the coach that you want to be?

Before you can lead your clients through deep change, you must be able to step behind your reactions and understand that this type of change requires you to trust yourself and release the need to prove anything to your clients. You cannot lead from a place of need.

To begin this shift, can you think of a time where you felt entirely unstoppable? The next time you catch yourself inside of these behaviour patterns I want you to stop yourself, bring awareness to what’s happening, move your body (jump up and down, snap your fingers, anything to change your physiology) and picture that unstoppable version of you. 

Hey, it’s not for everyone. But I would much rather feel so confident in my ability as a coach that I never feel the need to “prove it” to anyone, rather than always getting an anxious pit in my stomach when a client texts me a simple question about their plan.

You getting empowered af ^^

Rapport & Pre-Framing

“But, Laura, even if I wanted to help them in this way, I’m not a psychologist. I don’t know what questions to ask…”

It’s normal for your mind to come up with evidence to support your choice to stay the same. Your brain doesn’t want you to change, but the reality is that for you to become a master of change, you need to be willing to explore new parts of your natural skillset. We all have these abilities inside of us, but they require a great deal of vulnerability to uncover them.

Just as uncomfortable as you feel in asking the questions that will unlock the truth in your clients behaviour, so too your clients feel being on the receiving end of these questions. But there is a way to make this process run a little more smoothly, and can be done with any client, even one you are already in the process of working with.

Before you’re going to be able to evoke emotion in someone else effectively you must develop a certain level of rapport with them. In other words, they need to feel safe to expose their deepest vulnerabilities with you. Could you imagine your dentist asking you to describe what it feels like when you lose control around food? No, you would look at him like he was crazy. But that’s what your clients will feel like, too, if you don’t take the time first to establish rapport on this level.

don’t be awkward

Begin to do this by exploring with them the idea that your plan thus far hasn’t been as effective as either of you would like, and perhaps this means there is something a little deeper going on. Getting them to agree with you here opens the door to simply ask questions like:

  • Would it be okay if we talked more about that?
  • How would you feel if we started to explore how we can change the root of the problem instead of trying to just stick bandaids on you that eventually fall off?
  • Help me understand from your perspective why it is you think it’s hard to stay consistent?
  • Would it be okay if we spoke about other areas of your life that could be playing a role here?

By asking permission, you are pre-framing them for the deeper conversation you’re about to have. You’re also establishing yourself as an expert in a new way by owning the lack of success, taking the burden off their shoulders, and bringing them onto your team.  The key is for them to never feel as though you are making assumptions about their life, and to show them that it’s normal for plans to need to evolve over time – this isn’t their fault and it isn’t a failure. It’s just a redirection.

The truth is that all you know is that there is a basic need that is being filled by an emotional reaction causing a specific behaviour. By asking better questions you can slowly begin to understand what that formula is for your client and help them to understand their pattern as well.

Asking Hard Questions

The biggest mistake that most coaches make inside of how they go about creating change in someone else’s life is that they wait too long to ask the hard questions. They wait until the client trusts them enough to offer up some golden nugget that changes the course of their plan. They wait until they feel like they have enough trust in their client to start to poke around under the surface. But by waiting too long, they risk losing the client before they’re really able to effect change. They risk becoming disempowered when a client faces failure too many times before you get to the real, underlying thread of pain by which you are able to begin the change process. Usually waiting to ask hard questions comes down to a combination of three things…

  • You don’t know what to ask
  • You don’t know how to ask
  • You don’t know if you should ask

So here’s a really simple formula for you to follow to begin the process of peeling back the layers you have been waiting to peel themselves…

The direction a person’s life is going is the result of the actions they take repeatedly.

The actions they repeatedly take are dictated by decisions they make.

The decisions (conscious or subconscious) they make are determined by how they view that specific situation as it relates to what they have linked up to bring them pain or pleasure.

For example, a client is not self-sabotaging when they eat ice cream every night instead of the apple you recommended to them. They simply have linked up that at night when they feel lonely they eat ice cream to fill the void – this moves them away from pain and towards pleasure. Ice cream isn’t what is causing pain…being lonely is causing pain…which is ultimately causing them to eat ice cream repeatedly which is causing them to gain weight taking their life a direction they don’t want it to go.

Begin the process of asking better questions by starting with the external direction and guiding them down the process of uncovering the pain or pleasure source this is rooted in. Keep in mind that the linkage they have made will not always make sense to you, but there is meaning there to them and it’s your job to figure out what that is so that you can evoke change at the source.

Questions like these are good places to start:

  • Help me understand why you believe that _____ is the cause of your pain?
  • Why do you believe that losing weight will make you feel ______?
  • What would need to change in your life for this to happen?
  • Can you remember a time when you didn’t feel this way?
  • Does eating _____ bring you pain? [“No”] So then what do you think is the thing that is really causing you pain in those moments?

Fear of Failing

Many coaches fear failing their clients more than they fear just about anything else – they worry about giving them bad advice, losing their trust, not getting them the physical outcomes they hired them for, or ultimately harming them emotionally or mentally. So then, I ask you this – why would that be painful for you?

Remember what I said earlier about moving away from pain or towards pleasure in every decision we make? The decision you make to not initiate these conversations with your clients moves you away from pain in some way. Often, coaches become coaches most often because we have overcome some large emotional event in our lives and we now feel pulled to help others overcome challenges in theirs.

If you think back to the moments in your life that set you on the course you’re now on as a coach, can you pick out 2-3 major emotional events that you overcame that brought you here? Perhaps you struggled with your own weight loss journey, or maybe you watched your mom struggle with an eating disorder when you were young. Maybe it had nothing to do with nutrition, and you just felt compelled to become a successful entrepreneur to earn the love of your parents.

Whatever that was for you…likely there was severe pain associated with that event, and moving away from it took a great deal of work. Now, faced with a client who you witness struggling with similar emotions, it can be rather difficult for you to engage them because you fear amplifying their pain or triggering your own. 

The reality is that if you didn’t associate those emotions with pain, you wouldn’t think twice about asking them about what they were feeling, why they behaved a certain way, what has happened in their life that has caused them a great deal of pain, and the real reason they want to change their body? It would feel as normal as asking them what they ate for breakfast yesterday morning.

So if you fear the outcomes of these questions, it’s important to first look in the mirror and ask yourself why this could be? What inside of you is blocking your courage to become the leader your clients need you to become?

My Origin Story: The Client That Changed Everything

I believe that if you have an innate desire to help others change their life, that there is something very special about you. Something that you, uniquely have that sets you apart from everyone else in the world. That you have a natural ability to see in others the possibility that they struggle to see themselves. And that often times you don’t even realize this to be true.

This is exactly how it happened for me, and likely how it has already happened for you, too. I remember Brenda’s face like I still see her weekly. I was a freshly certified, green personal trainer working at an uppity private studio. Brenda, a wealthy woman who always wore one quarter-sized diamond ring on each hand (no exaggeration, she didn’t even take them off to lift weights) and funky glasses, was a 60-something woman who desperately wanted to distract the world from her true self. But I saw her deeply. I connected with her instantly. And she trusted me without fault. I reserved all my emotional energy for Brenda every day, knowing that what she would divulge to me would test my ability to hold firm my boundaries – back when I didn’t even know that’s what I was doing.

Brenda was the first client I started developing these natural born skills with. I had gut instincts with Brenda, I asked her difficult questions that  no one else had the balls to ask her…and I helped her realize the root of her lifelong relationship with food was rooted in abuse and the desire to hide her soul under her body and everything she wore on top of it.

For the first time in her life, someone saw her. Me. And my willingness to trust myself enough to follow my instincts allowed me to change her life forever. I still have the card Brenda wrote me when I left that studio where she called me her “Angel”…

There is truly nothing more powerful than knowing you had a hand in changing another’s life beyond their weight or the food they eat. When you give someone the gift of being seen and accepted for who they truly are you have the power to set their life in a completely different direction just through your compassion and willingness to listen. 

Your mission: begin this process by looking at yourself first. You cannot become the leader you want if you fail to move through these steps in your own life first. What you’ll discover, if you have the courage to move past what is holding you back, is the ability to initiate change in another deeper than anyone else because you will have unlocked your unique gift and used it for the first time.

To become the one Behind The Change, join my private facebook group where you’ll have access to LIVE training’s, daily inspiration, a community of badasses (I’m supa picky about who’s in this circle), and of course doses of Laura wisdom to keep ya on your toes and growing.

Thanks for being here friend! Can’t wait to pull the sparkle out of you.

XOXO

Laura