You can know the science, math, and engineering behind exercise and nutrition. But, if you can’t teach your clients how to implement any of it into their lifestyle and help them develop healthy habits, are you helping?
Keep The Goal, The Goal
Goal setting is the process between coach and client deciding on objectives. It’s a two-way street, and neither side is more important. Early on in my career, I was falling into the trap of telling clients what they wanted to hear. As soon as I found a balance of informing clients what they needed to hear, clients felt inspired and supported.
Developing a practical training and nutrition program is not the end of the road. The work is just beginning. The right kind of goal will either demotivate or encourage your client. Expectations are inevitable, and managing them will determine how realistic the goal is. Once you’ve agreed on realistic expectations, you must monitor strategies and check-in with the client. But you will not be able to do any of this without first building rapport and being an attentive listener.
The Client is The Driver
As a personal trainer, the ability to wear many hats is vital. What you see on social media or advertising in magazines is not reality. It’s easy to recognize when you’ve retained clients for five, six, or seven years. Critical mistake trainers make often is think they can “fix” clients and fall into the expert trap. The expert trap is a term coined by William R. Miller and Stephen Rollnick. It occurs when a professional gives the impression that he has all the solutions to his/her clients’ obstacles. It’s a misunderstanding that places the trainer on a pedestal, making it challenging to set a tone of partnership.
Your choice of phrases is key to developing rapport. Statements such as “You need to . . .” or “You should . . .” are not helpful and suggest that the trainer is the expert on what might work for the client. Although the trainer may have more knowledge of exercise and nutrition, the client knows what will work with their current lifestyle. Ninety-nine percent of the time, a client has tried one of the many fad diets and had some success. Unfortunately, these diets are not sustainable and end up making the client worse off. Find out what worked for the client while on a diet and focus on that. People know what healthy foods are for the most part, but need guidance and support to incorporate them into their lifestyle, consistently. Setting goals is a good start.
Types of Goals
Having an objective is essential; it gives you direction and purpose. With the right kind of goals, both you and your client will feel inspired to act immediately. I first learned of the different types of goals while completing both Precision Nutrition’s (PN) level one and two certifications five years ago. Learning and implementing their systems and philosophy, has improved my ability to coach nutrition and help clients with goal setting, drastically.
Helping a client set the appropriate goal can be a challenging task. You must first understand WHY the goal is important to your client. It has to be a goal motivated by intrinsic factors, not external. If a client mentions wanting to lose weight for a spouse, doctor, or an event, there’s a ninety-nine percent chance the results will not stick. But if losing weight is driven by lacking energy to participate in leisure activities, then you have a goal motivated by internal reasoning. No one likes to feel disconnected.
Once the why is understood, the trainer and client have to select a goal that’s appropriate for the client based on their available time, energy, and willingness. All goals consist of an outcome and behavior(s). An outcome goal is pointless without appropriate behaviors. For example, a client wants to gain five pounds of muscle (the outcome). You guys high five and move on without discussing the actions (behaviors) necessary to accomplish the goal. Well, your chances of success are slim to none. Outcomes are not controllable; they are just evidence and information. There’s no right or wrong result, either. In the end, outcomes give you valuable feedback about whether your ideas and methods (behaviors) work.
To keep you engaged, I’ll only mention the names of the other type of goals. Besides, if you master setting outcome and behavior goals with clients, you’ll be able to offer a service most of the personal trainers in this industry lack. PN teaches you the different types of goals to implement with clients. They include- avoid vs. approach goals, performance vs. mastery, and coach-centered vs. client-centered goals. For long-term success with clients, setting behavior, approach, mastery, and client-centered goals is preferable. These types of goals emphasize hard work, growth, and day-to-day progress- the significance of the process. They help clients with being proactive instead of reactive, and they set the client up for long-term success and understanding necessary for their health. Focus on the process, not the product.
More on goal setting here.
Trainers Have A Responsibility
To put things into perspective, clients see their trainer more often than they see their doctor. Yet, the standards for trainers remain unbelievably low. Trainers have an opportunity to impact and change many lives weekly. There’s no feeling like supporting a client overcome obstacles that have affected their quality of life in the past. So I’ll leave you with this question, why aren’t personal trainers held to a higher standard?
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