Goals and Success
The funniest thing about being a nutritionist is when people sit down across from me and I start asking questions. What are your goals? What are you looking to accomplish? What types of things do you like about yourself physically and what are you wanting to make better? Some people will sit across from me and start with words like weight loss, tone, lean, bodyfat loss. Then I have to ask for specifics. Some will show me a picture of a celebrity or they will tell me about someone they want to look like. They look at me and say, “I don’t want to be as big as you”. In fact, I have heard this from most folks that come in my office. I usually tell them, don’t worry, that won’t happen…….
The reason isn’t that I am better than you or that I work harder. The reason is that between goals, genetic capacity, and life requirements, I am not your goal. Neither is the celebrity who has a chef and a trainer daily. Your goal should always be what you realistically would become if you followed a plan to YOUR goal. This is a part of my job that was never explained. As they say, It is more than just food and weights when you are a coach. You are the therapist, friend, and confidant. People tend to say things to me that they don’t tell anyone else. It’s our job to manage that emotion and keep people in line.
So we set goals TOGETHER. You can never allow someone you work with to have unrealistic expectations of your time together. Goal setting comes from two views. Subjective and objective. Subjective is usually what your client wants or feels they need. They will wax poetic about who they could look like and where their bodies should be if. Objective is how the coach has to look at them. If their frame is small or if they have small dense muscles or long lean muscles. Some things are fact, and that’s where we have to manage the expectation. If you are wanting to look like a 6’0” model and you are 5’1”, there needs to be someone willing to help adjust your goal.
When I say adjust, I don’t mean we change it to what we see for you. That’s never going to work out well for the coach/client relationship. I mean, we adjust someone’s vision to themselves. Stop worrying about what the airbrushed 1% and start thinking of a time in your life where you felt the best. If that time is right now then we make small tweaks and adjustments based on your current Basil Metabolic Rate, Body Fat %, and Activity level to make you perform and look that much better. If it was during college then, depending on your current nutrition and schedule, we may have more work to do. Whatever it is, it’s up to me to manage expectation and set small milestones on the way to that goal.
Some clients may not like the reality of the situation. One thing I ask my clients when we first meet is what is their motivation to do this. If it is an outside influence, then it’s going to be a difficult journey. If someone else is forcing you to change then it is not a concept your mind is willing to accept yet. I do not feel comfortable taking money from someone who is going to look at what I send them and say, “At least I tried.” No, you didn’t try. You didn’t want to try. At this point, the work you need to put in for your goals is harder than your mind is willing to accept. That is not a successful situation. It is a situation where you tell your friends my plans don’t work.
In reality, what I teach works. I have many more successful and happy clients than unhappy. I am blessed to be in a place where I can tell someone that I don’t believe they are ready and not take their money. No, I am not rich and I am not in favor of turning down money but I do not want something that I did not work for.
When it comes down to the brass tacks, change doesn’t begin when you walk through my door. I am a guide on your journey. I can tell you to the macro what to eat, when to eat it, and why you are doing so but if the change hasn’t begun inside of you first, success goes out the window.
