The Guilt You Feel: That's a Business Model. Here's How to Break It

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Transcript

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We go. All right, well thank you for coming. Today we are gonna be talking about the business of making you feel guilty. This is something that I have been thinking about for a long time. Every time I scroll social media and I see new programs, new challenges, new, new, everything coming up on my feed, and I just see how targeted it is to people and it kind of frustrates me. And so I decided that I wanted to make a presentation about it. So that's exactly what we're going to do. Um, what we see in marketing and especially in fitness, is not random. It's actually very predictable. So this is not a giant conspiracy theory, like meant to freak you out. Um. I think that most people that are watching this are very intelligent and they know that marketing inherently is manipulative, manipulative. But that said, how we react to certain things is what keeps us repeating unhelpful patterns and keeps us stuck in the same loop. And so that's what I wanna expand on today and show you a different approach. So, going over what we're gonna be talking about, we're gonna look at three things. So first, the problem, how the fitness industry deliberately manufactures guilt and the psychology behind why it works on smart people. And I know I have some people in here with the psychology background, so this will be fun. We're gonna look at what's happening behind the scenes, and then we're gonna look at why traditional, uh, solutions fail. So, I wanna pause here for a second because I think we have a bias when it comes to looking at if something worked or not. We often look at something that works temporarily, and so we say, well, it worked, but I just didn't keep up with it. Or, life got busy and I couldn't, you know, keep doing the, the program or the diet or whatever it is. But the problem with that is we're always putting the onus back on ourselves. And so I wanna challenge that. So I wanna keep, I want you to keep that in mind. And then third, obviously we are going to look at what actually does work, because it would be super rude of me if I just told you everything that was evil and then just, uh, said, bye. Have a nice day. So we're gonna get to the, the full solution. I was gonna say, what a cliffhanger. Exactly. So this might sound familiar. Okay. You've bought a program, a workout program, any type of program really that felt exciting for two weeks, maybe even two months. Um, you've told yourself, I'm gonna start over on Monday. Uh, this one's really common, and I hear this all the time. Once life calms down or once x, y, and Z happens, once this qualifying thing happens, I'll be able to focus on this. Like once my kids go back to school once, um, my work schedule changes once it's summer. Once it's warmer, I'll focus on this. Um, maybe you thought that the next program is gonna finally be the one that clicks. You're like, oh, that actually sounds really good. That's gonna be the thing that works for me. Or, you've fallen out of a routine and you've wondered what's wrong with you. Or maybe you're even the type of person that you always complete the task, the challenge, whatever, but you end up in the cycle of burnout and or injury. And you're in this cycle of guilt to hope to delay back to recommitment. But the one thing in common is that it always comes down to you and you're always thinking, I just need to want it more. The time just wasn't right for me. Maybe this other thing will work better for me. What's wrong with me? And so we're gonna challenge that. So first I'm gonna tell you exactly how the industry manufactures guilt, because this is not a random trend, okay? There are psychological levers that they are pulling on every single time. So let's start with the broader issue, though, rotating body ideals. Throughout our lives, we've seen different types of body ideals come to the forefront. So whether that's, you know, heroin cheek, whether that's having a flat ass, whether that's having a giant ass, whether that's, um, not having hip dips, whether that's. Strong is the new skinny being muscular. Every few years we see different body ideals come into trend. And when those come into trend, that presents opportunity for companies, for coaches to create products around what is now ideal. And that leads to the overconsumption by us as consumers of this constantly being shoved in our faces of like, this is what I need to look like and this is how I'm going to get it. So that's one of the macro issues. And then the other one is this idea of women's empowerment that I think is interesting in the fitness industry. I think we overcorrected a little bit from women can't vote, they can't do anything. They have to stay at home and raise the children to, no, you can have a job, you can have a full career, you can have children, you can be married, you can have a six pack like. Hey, you get to do it all. And it went from you get to do it all to now, you should do it all. And wrapping it up and calling it women's power, when really we're just giving women more things that they need to be doing in order to be successful. So looking at those as the umbrella. Now we're gonna examine the four levers that are usually used when we come to manufacturing guil. So one is roll guilt. Um, this often shows up as mom guilt. Okay? Even busy moms can do this. Here are bite-sized workouts for moms. Number two, you see all the time, time urgency. So summer body get your wedding body, your vacation body. There's always some kind of body that you need to get for some specific event. Three is the identity threat. This is showing somebody like, Hey, this is what hard work and discipline looks like and this program is going to make you that person, like you're a hard worker and you're disciplined, and so you need to be doing this. And then four, implied failure. These are like New Year's challenges, your get back on tracks. Um, I wanna highlight two of these really quickly. So role guilt, because that one actually seems very innocuous, but it can actually be really harmful because it lowers the baseline around someone else's hardest version of life. So your bite-size workouts, your mom workouts, it's not your baseline, it's somebody else's. And I'll expand more on that later. And then the identity threat, this one is what most people who come into my world are dealing with because this is for like the hardos that don't have a problem getting started. Um. They are having a problem thinking they're not doing enough. And I would say that most people that come into my world are wired the same way, but they're just at a different point in their journey. So to give an example, I have a client, we'll call her Jessica. She came to me. She works full-time, she is married, she has two toddlers. She's also the breadwinner in her family. So the primary provider. And she very much felt like, how can I not even get these like YouTube workouts done? Like I feel like crap about myself. I'm exhausted all the time. I can't do anything. And so when we started to work together, we saw what it could and should look like for her when we removed that role. Guilt, that mom guilt. And I actually, I knew her from um. Growing up. So I actually started to train her in a similar way to I that I would a high school athlete because I knew that she had been a high school athlete. I know that she really loved that time in her life. I also just think that's the superior form of training, not high school athlete, but training as an athlete in general. And that really hit her sweet spot. And she was like very fired up. Like, I love this. But that quickly morphed into, well, I should be doing more than one or two days a week, even though that was her capacity at that time. And so that's generally the second part of the journey, and that's another version of that identity that needs to sort of be held before we come full circle with people. So in the industry, they are not selling you fitness, they're selling you emotional triggers. So once again, here are examples that we all know and love, but this time I'm going to show you how they are tied to guilt tactic. Because it is hiding in plain sight. So with our time urgency, that's often you're seeing eight weeks to a summer body. Summer is coming, you better hurry, okay? Because if you don't, you're gonna be behind the bite-size workouts for moms. Even moms have 10 minutes to spare, right? And if you don't like, how could you not? It's 10 minutes, 75 hard. Um, I'm a certified 75 hard hater. So if you're not familiar with what 75 hard is, it's basically like a list of rules over 75 days that you complete like, I don't know, two workouts a day. You read like 15 pages of nonfiction. You stick to a diet, I think like no alcohol. Um, you probably walk like 10,000 steps in the snow. It's very extreme. Because it preys on that identity, threat of like, this is what real discipline looks like. And anything less than that means that you're soft. And like I said, a lot of the women that come into MySpace are very high up in their careers. They're very hard workers, very high effort people. And so they do not wanna be perceived as soft. So actually most women that come to me have done a version 75 hard. And then lastly, the implied failure, which is New year, get back on track. Like, you clearly screwed up the last 12 months, so I'm gonna fix you. Right. Wow. I never saw any of those as like, yeah. As that's just so eyeopening. Oh my gosh. You just see it as like a, a thing that, a normal thing to help people. Right. Like, I'm gonna help you. But yeah, to see these like under layers. Yeah. Never, never saw it before. Oh my god. So the really interesting and kind of terrifying part is that the industry actually doesn't want you to feel totally hopeless. They want you to feel just responsible enough because they know through research that there is a sweet spot where people buy. Okay, so small to moderate guilt. If we can manufacture a small to moderate guilt, that works just enough to be useful, high shame backfires. Like if I'm standing here and I'm like, you're a piece of shit, like you ruined everything. Why are you like this? They know that doesn't work. It needs to be just enough in order to pull that guilt lever and get you to buy. So this is exactly how they do it. Step one is responsibility. You fell off okay? You are directly at fault. There is nobody else to blame. And they usually say this in a little bit of a nicer way. Um, sometimes there's even an external lever, like things got crazy, like life is hectic and you fell off, but it's still, you still circles back to you. Step two is the controllability. Well, you know what to do, you can change it, right? Like you're a strong, independent woman. Like you can absolutely change your circumstances. Um, you might just be choosing not to, but like you can, you can. Step three is the identity. So now they're showing you this is who you actually are and this is who you should be. Like are you that girl? Are you that person that can level up? And then four is when they slide in with the reparable behavior. Like, well, lucky for you. I'm gonna show you how to fix that. Get back on track, join my six week challenge. And there's an interesting theory, self discrepancy theory. So. When people feel a gap between their actual self and their ideal or aught self, they can experience guilt and shame and are motivated to reduce that discomfort. So if you can make somebody like their failing their aught self just enough, like that discipline self, that lean self, that consistent self, well now you've created the emotional discomfort that makes these fixed products feel really urgent. So you have primed this person to buy and or if you're the consumer, you have been primed to buy. Wow. So it's just, it is literally just straight up marketing. Like they, they know what they're doing. They're trying to make you feel bad about yourself. And like you said, just enough. Just enough like, yeah, you're right. It is my fault. I can do this. Like, let's go. This is who I am, this is who I wanna be. And even showing it as like a, as like a next level, like you're gonna level up. So it's not even like. It's implying that you're not at the level that you should be at. Yeah. Oh, it's so dirty. I know. So, so I like to call it the guilt funnel. Um, every campaign uses these four steps pretty much every time. And once you see this, you cannot unsee it. So step one is triggering the standard. I'm gonna use my favorite New Year's example. So December, like we in the fitness industry know, like January is like, you know, shooting fish in feral sometimes, like it can be if you utilize these tactics. Um, I do not, but you know, like the summer is a dead zone. But generally you see in December, or even like January one to like, Hey, the New Year's approaching, like, are you gonna be the same as before? Are you ready to like, are you ready to take it to the next level? New year, new you. Okay, step two of the funnel is to highlight the failure. And that usually looks like a version of like, you overdid it during the holidays, like travel, you know, um, kids outta school, lots of desserts, parties drinking. So now you're, you have that seed planted in your head of like, well, you know what? I actually, I did overdo it during the holidays. Three. Now the controllability comes in, Hey, but this is your year. Like, you just have to prioritize it. No excuses. Like 2027 is gonna be your year. And then four, offer the repair. Lucky for you. My, uh, my New Year's reset is starting and I have 12 spots available. Like, are you gonna grab one? So next time you're scrolling Instagram, I encourage you, especially around this time of the year and approaching summer summer's, like another hot buzz for the summer body. To see if you see that this funnel in the messaging. Are you feeling personally victimized? Yeah. I'm like, literally, I'm thinking about so many different things. Like, yeah, like you said, it's like, yeah, summer's coming. You gotta get ready. Like you've been, you know, it's been cold, it's getting warmer out. Like, go ahead, come on, it's the summer. It's you, you're gonna get yourself back. You're like, yeah, actually I am. Like, let's go. Yeah. Good news here. I'm, oh, dang it, Alicia, I feel like I, you just gave me the red pill and now I'm never gonna, well, I'll leave you with this for a second. A program that solves your problem is a one-time sale, but a program that makes you blame yourself, makes you a customer for life. All right. These programs are not failing despite the design. In fact, they're working exactly as they're designed, linear, structured, clear endpoint. We love a process, right? Like that's not a flaw in us, that's human cognition. But they often create these measurable checkpoints for you to fall short of like the 75 hard because life does not exist in a vacuum. And then assign blame to willpower rather than the design of the program itself. And then leave you primed for the next purchase. Or they create quick success that's not sustainable. So it's like think like a whole 30, for example. Um, if you've never done Whole 30, that's like a version of the, it's the paleo diet where you basically like eat, like your ancestors, remove anything processed. And often people lose weight doing this because it's really hard to eat food like that. Um, so you get the quick success. It's not sustainable'cause you're not gonna continue to eat like that. And then, you know, you go back to your normal life and slowly, like you bring back in other foods and maybe a little bit of the weight comes back on, well then they're there to remind you like, Hey, my process was once a solution and that keeps you in it. Or worst case for them. But best case for the industry is you try the thing you miss, you feel bad about it, and then you're primed to buy the next thing. So I actually stopped selling one-off templates or programs for this very reason because it felt not, not because I was trying to be an evil genius or anything, but I just very much pride myself on coaching the entire woman in front of me. And so when I'm just giving a four week program or eight week program like that doesn't account for any of the context of her life. And so it's, it's really hard for me to feel good about that when I. Don't have a hand in the coaching aspect of if she succeeds or not. Yeah. And I can't help her make the adjustments. Wow, dude. And that says so much about you and your character and who you are. The fact that like, yeah, you wanna see people succeed and continue to be successful because it's like, yeah, you could be like a snake oil salesman. Like, yeah, here's this gimmick, here's this one. It'll work for a little bit, but it won't. Whereas like, you actually wanna see people succeed throughout their life. Like that's a big difference. That's awesome. That is my goal. So we're gonna circle back to our, uh, our favorites here. And so we're gonna break down, like I already told you how they got you in. So now here's how they keep you coming back. So let's take a deep, deeper look here. So eight weeks to summer shred, the end point here is completely arbitrary and the timeline is aggressive, right? Okay. So you're gonna lose weight in eight weeks. Like, where did we come up with eight weeks? There's no scientific research or data that says like eight weeks is the magic number. More so they probably figured that's just digestible enough to keep you doing it, to get you in the door. So most people are gonna hit a rough time around week four or five. Um, that's actually very common. I actually prepare for that in my own business. When I start with a new client, um, I expect a lull in that initial motivation around week, usually three, four or five. And I have tools that I can use to work around that. But in just an eight week shred, there's no flex. So you fall off and the clock keeps running and now you're behind on a schedule that was never realistic to begin with. And do you blame the eight week timeline or do you blame week for you that fell off track? Now hopefully you're blaming the eight week timeline, but there was a point in time where you were like, no, it's just, that's my fault. So I. Next 1 75 hard. So this is all or nothing by design, right? Miss one element on day, whatever, 74 and you start back at day one. That's how the program is written. The program literally resets your progress counter when you are just like being a human being, living your life like you're sick, okay? You're vomiting on the toilet'cause you have food poisoning. Sorry, you're starting over. That doesn't count. The guilt is not a side effect here. It's literally the stated mechanism called mental toughness. And it's really just a guarantee that people continue to fail and come back and you'll see people, you'll see friends on Facebook post like I'm doing 75 hard and then like, almost like a point of pride. They're like, oh, like I, you know, I ate a cheeseburger on day 66. I'm starting back at one. Or like, I forgot to read my book. I'm starting back at day one and it's like this weird kind of like badge of honor. But like, I'm, I, I, I don't, because I don't like to give unsolicited advice, but I'm like, I want to encourage those people to zoom out and ask themselves like what they're actually accomplishing. Mm-hmm. Um, bite size workouts for moms. So this will go a little deeper into this one here. So the format implies that the barrier is time, so that when you miss it, the only explanation is that you did not make time and they made it very small, and that's hard to rationalize. So the guilt doesn't become about the workout. It now becomes about what type of mother you are, what type of woman you are, that you can't even prioritize something this small. And it's such an interesting commentary on the women's empowerment aspect because I think there's also an implied fragility here. Like, Hey moms, this is what you get. Like this is what you get. This is the best you can do. You need to meet this standard, these five minute workouts, these 10 minute workouts, because if you can't do that, like what else is there? You know, when that's not usually the issue. Usually the issue with mothers is that they're not being met where they are and their capacity is not being honored on a day-to-day basis. And then finally at the new year, new you, we've talked about this one, so I'll keep it brief. Um, this one launches when your habits are at their most disrupted, right? Holiday eating, travel, guilt, lack of routine. Your guilt is now at its peak because you're already out of your, like equilibrium for most people. So it sets a resolution style standard, and you're already emotionally primed to break it. So by February, you're not just off the program, you've now confirmed to the story to yourself that you cannot stick to things. Wow. Yeah. When in actuality you just can't stick to it.'cause like you are already dysregulated and like all over the place with your habits and things like that. Yeah. And it's very normal in December for things to get a little loosey goosey. Like we do have more parties, we do, um, tend to enjoy more desserts, more beverages. We might not exercise as much because we're traveling, so we might normally be at, you know, an 80 out of a hundred. And during holidays we're at like a 50 or a 60. Well, now New Year's, Natalie comes in and she wants you to be at a hundred out of a hundred instead of just slowly working you back up to your baseline. Yeah. And so you're primed to not succeed. Wow. You're stuck in the cycle again and that next thing you know, you're ready to buy a summer shred. Yeah. Well, I feel like the problem with all of these is that like they're, they're not like, like you said, they're not meeting people where they're at. Right. It's not, you know, learning about their day-to-day capacity. It's just like, like you said, it's like all or nothing. If you don't get it, you fail. Come back next time. Yeah. You know, try harder next time kind of thing. And I'm gonna actually touch on that a little bit later, so I'm glad you brought that up. Okay. Okay. Now I want to say that this is where things get tricky because there are very innocuous things in her daily existence that can keep us in the same cycle. It's not all just like an evil machine. So I'm gonna tell you a story about Brittany, who was another client of mine. Brittany had hired a personal trainer at a local gym. This was a couple years ago. She paid good money at her gym. She didn't obviously know anything about the trainer, but you assume the gym does their due diligence when they hire, which unfortunately a lot of them do not. Um, that's neither here nor there. But I will say these numbers are just based on like market research. I did not ask Brittany for the exact numbers that she spent at her gym, but it's around this ballpark. Okay? So she was going three times a week for one hour sessions, we'll say, at about$75 a session. That's actually on the lower end, but even so that comes out to$900 a month plus your gym membership. So you're already looking at probably a thousand dollars a month here or more. She felt great when she was there, but she obviously wasn't always making it because when you're working with a personal trainer in the gym, you're on their schedule. Um, and oftentimes things come up. You have kids, you have to cancel sessions. It happens. So even if she was making it three times a week every week though, that is three hours of the week. So three hours out of 168, which is less than 2% of your entire week. Okay. So that is, you know, a thousand dollars a month for 2% of your week. On top of that, you're generally like she's chatting with her coach, asking him probably like what supplements he recommends and they talk between sets. They have a, a relationship when she's at the gym, but not outside of that. And a year goes by and by this time Brittany has spent probably around$11,000, if not more, just on personal training plus whatever else on supplements. She has unused sessions because you know, of things getting canceled and those do get pushed forward, but they're still unused at this point. And things are different. Like I said, she was enjoying her time in the gym, but were they$11,000 different, is the question? Was her progress$11,000 different? She had gained some strength, improved health markers. She even lost a little bit of weight. She enjoyed the gym, but there were some things that hadn't changed, and she eventually ended up moving and stopped going to this personal trainer. And she had gotten to the point when she came to me where she hadn't been working out at all for like almost a year. And the things that I hadn't changed were she was still burning herself out on, you know, burning herself on both ends every single day. She still had guilt when she missed a workout, she kept swearing that she would start again, that she would work out, and she didn't. She was still mindlessly snacking midday when she was tired and she was tired all the time. She still didn't see herself as an athlete, just like a middle aged lady who was trying to not be outta shape. And those were her words, not mine. And she also now had a weird foot pain that wouldn't go away. So that was one more thing she had to deal with. Geez. She was still hyper fixated on what she looked like in the mirror. Um, and when she came to me and I asked her about, you know, well, like, what were your numbers for X, Y, Z exercise, she had no idea how much she had been lifting. She thought she had gotten stronger, but like she didn't have anything measurable. So now she was 11 plus thousand dollars in the hole. She was no longer working out and the most she had to show for it was this guilt that she wasn't showing up for herself in the way that she knew that she could. Meanwhile, the gym had$11,000 of her money. And so when she came to me, she was convinced like she just needed to do better and she was feeling really defeated. And so. I'm highlighting this because there's a difference between personal responsibility and a system that's not set up to fully support you. And this isn't to like shit on gyms or whatever, like a lot of'em do create wonderful communities and do a really good thing. But like I said, it only works when you're there. And something that only works for when you're there often doesn't meet people where they're at enough for them to make meaningful lasting progress. Yeah. And so this is kind of more broadly, this is not Brittany specifically, but this is just about all of these things at the end of the day, like the real cost is not money, it is all of these other things trust in yourself. So you've suddenly outsourced your natural instincts to rules, to trends, to experts, and made investments that didn't pay off. And now you're wondering, can't do I make good decision. Your relationship with your body. You still don't see yourself as an athlete. You're still fixated on what you see in the mirror. So now you're just someone who's trying not to fall further behind. It costs you your instincts. You stop listening and trusting to what your body actually tells you because you feel like someone else always knows better.'cause there's always somebody on the internet who's there to say that they know better what you should be doing with your body. Um, your relationship with food, this is a big one. I see this one all the time. Years of diet rules layered on top of each other. So now food feels like something that most women feel like they have to monitor rather than something that they get to enjoy. And that one's really sad and it takes a long time to rebuild. Um, time, obviously hours in the gym, plans that didn't stick. Energy spent on guilt and set of progress. And then finally your confidence. And not just in your looks, but in your ability to, to build something that actually lasts. That's a lot. And somebody that has spent money on all of these things has, that has been cost, all of these things. That's not someone who needs another challenge or another quick fix that's somebody that needs to be held and heard. So in the first month of her and I working together, she actually said, this is so much better than personal training. Like, I thought this was just gonna be like a cheap version. And I'm like, no baby. The work that I do is not teaching you more or giving you more. It's helping women trust themselves again. And that's why I am not selling you like an eight week program or a 12 week program because you're gonna be with me all of the time, not just in the 40 minutes that you're doing your workout. Um, so that was like kind of a, a mind blowing revelation for her, for her. Well, yeah, I mean, it's so different, like, you know, being someone who's had personal trainers and stuff before compared to, I've never worked with like a one-on-one coach before. Yeah. But like, just knowing that experience, like everything that you've listed is like, so true. And like, I've bought online programs before and like yeah. Like you get to a point where you like, don't stick with it and you start feeling bad about yourself and then you start seeing more on Instagram as you're scrolling and you're like, well maybe if I try this one it'll be better. Maybe if I do this one it'll stick this time. Yeah. It's so, and I, you know, I, I write all this, or I say all this because I did all of this. Like, I went through all of this. I used to, growing up I had a very healthy relationship with food, with my body. Um, I was not raised by parents who controlled what I ate or made me feel bad about how I looked or anything. I was very fortunate in that respect regard. But I even still fell into these traps. And I like to joke that I like gave myself an eating disorder, which is probably not funny. But, um, you know, it's interesting that somebody who could come from a place of like being a very normal eater and feel like I had to meet this standard that was manufactured. And next thing I know I'm doing these diets and I'm cutting out carbs and I'm like training on empty and I'm counting calories and I'm obsessed with my Fitness Pal. And I completely eroded my trust in myself and overrode my net body's natural instincts. Um, and it took a long time to like come back from that. Yeah. And it's just like, and that's somebody who came from a, a, a healthy place and a lot of people don't have that. So it's unfortunate they're. Yeah. Yeah. Gosh, that's incredible.'cause like you said, it's like, so I have a different background. Like I came from a very, like, you need to diet. You can't eat this. Right? You can eat that kind of thing. And so it's just like, it's amazing though, how like both of us both had that same experience of like, okay, well if I cut this out, if I've, if I work out more, all that different things. And it's just like, again, it's a standard set by athletics. It's a standard set by, you know, the beauty and, you know, celebrity world kind of thing. It shows that anyone is sub susceptible to it. Yeah. It's incredible. Ugh. It's incredibly influential in a bad way. Yeah, exactly. So I think now we should probably get to the part where I tell you how to do some things that can be helpful. Um, you've probably, as you've shared, recognized yourself in some of these stories. And so now I wanna address some common patterns that I see with my own clients and walk you through how you can start making changes today. So this exercise is actually something I recently took my client, um, Jessica through, well, I did it for her, but we, we went through it together. A lot of, a lot of people think that their problem is consistency. So whether you're placing the blame on yourself or external factors, like one thing remains consistent, right? Or certain rather, you feel like you aren't consistent and that feels frustrating. But the real problem is that you only know how to operate at one level. And my high achievers in the room are gonna absolutely recognize this. You have one version of what your fitness looks like, which is the full plan, the perfect effort, the ideal week. So when life does not match that you don't have anything to fall back on. And this can actually work with any program, what we're gonna do. So any program that you buy, you download, et cetera. You can even write your own program and then do this exercise. The issue is that most people create the program based on the goal, but they don't know how to deviate when life happens. So what I had Jessica do was build three versions of her week. Well, again, because I wrote her program, I built them for her, but it was collaborative. So my steps are a little bit out of order here, but we're gonna make it work anyways. So basically the three versions of your week, actually first we're gonna go through, we're gonna start with step two. So I always have somebody write down their personal goals. And so that might be I want to, you know, improve my cardio. I want to run a 10 k, I wanna do a pull up, I wanna lose 10 pounds. I have them write down whatever that goal is, and usually more than one, they usually have two or three. And then I want you to sit down and I want you to determine why that goal is important to you. Okay? So after you do that, then you are going to determine how aligned that goal is to the person that you identify as. So for example, I say all of the time that I want to improve my mobility, and I'm like, I should, I need to, there's a yoga class at my gym on Fridays. I need to go to that because I, I really want to improve my mobility. But when I sit there and I think, well, why is this important to me? My answer is usually, well, I see other people doing things on the internet and I'm clearly really inflexible or immobile compared to them, and I just, I feel like I should be doing this. So now I'm gonna ask myself, does that align with who I identify as? And the answer is absolutely not. Because one, I don't identify as somebody who compares themselves to other people. And two, I know myself and I thrive in intensity. Like I want to get my heart rate up. I wanna be pouring sweat, I want my muscles to be burning. I don't wanna go to yoga. So is that an aligned goal for me? No. It's, that doesn't mean that yoga is bad, it just means that's not gonna be my A one goal. That's gonna be a nice to have. And that's important. Yeah. Because once you determine your goal, then you get to identify the type of workout that most closely aligns with your objective. Okay? And this is how we build out our three versions of the week. So the three versions of the week version one is your anchor. This is like your minimum baseline. Like my week is a hell fire. That's version one. Version two is a normal week. This is your build, okay? This is just like my general expected normal week. Version three is your push week. This is your high capacity week. This is when you can add something extra, and this looks different for every single person. So knowing that, building out our anchor, we're going to say, okay, so this is my goal. What is the workout that most closely aligns with that goal? So if I wanna run a 10 K, it's probably a running workout, right? If I wanna lose weight, it's probably a combination of cardio and weight training. So now you know what your priority number one is within the week. Okay? So that's the version of the week where if everything else goes to shit, you know that you're going to prioritize that one thing. Now, this looks different for everybody depending on what your baseline is. So somebody like me, I'm generally. Training six or seven days a week. Um, my version of busy is different than a lot of my clients' versions of busy because I work for myself and I don't have children, so I have a lot more flexibility in my schedule. So I know when a week absolutely goes to shit. I can still get probably three workouts in. So I'm going to have three workouts in my anchor week. Now my client, Jessica, when her week goes to shit, she can get one workout in so she's going to have one. Um, and even within those, so say your goal is to run well, you'll probably have different versions of running workouts. So you might have a higher intensity one and a lower intensity. And ideally we're always going to go toward the higher intensity'cause that's going to give us the most bang for our buck when we have to trim the fat.'cause life gets chaotic, but you also still have to account for your capacity. So there are times when the week's going to shit and you have nothing left in you. But you do still wanna get a workout in. And it's okay then to choose that lower intensity. But these are all just giving parameters. Um, now if you're somebody who, your priority number one is cardio and strength, but you can only do one workout when your week goes to shit, that's when I encourage a hybrid workout. So it's par, partial strength, partial cardio, or like a good circuit. And then from there we're gonna trickle down in importance in intensity. So with more days than we create our build, we add our supplementals, so our cardio to support our resistance training or vice versa, our more moderate intensities. And then on a full week, a full push week, high capacity, we get our recovery and we get our nice to halves, our lower intensity, like our steady state, maybe our vanity work, we wanna do some like biceps and triceps, nabs, all of that stuff. Um, but what's important. To note here is sometimes people think like, well, if my week is really stressful, then why am I only doing a high intensity workout when my week is already higher intensity? And it's because yes, stress is the same and it is perceived by the body the same. But if we can, we want to have that highest possible stress stimulus and give ourselves time to recover physically, even though our nervous system might not quite process that way. But like I said, there are times when you do need to pivot just based on your capacity, and that's why you need to have check-ins with yourself or your coach to those lower intensity workouts. Hmm. Um, so yeah, you can pretty much take any type of program and build out three versions based on how you know things can get chaotic in your own life. That way when it does happen, you're not sitting there being like, well, what should I do? Or I'm behind. You know that you're meeting the expectation for your capacity that week, and that might look like one workout. And so that's not, I missed five workouts, that's, I actually did exactly what I was supposed to based on the circumstances of my life. Yeah. Oh, that's awesome. So when I start with like any client, I will give them, well, I'll label their workouts so they know they have their anchor workouts, their most high priority workouts or build workouts, which are their priority too. And then their, um, their, um, recovery workouts, which are their priority three. Um, because real recovery is generally sleep, nutrition, et cetera. Um, but yes, we can also have recovery workouts, so they know that upfront. So my second pattern of person that I see this is for the version of human that is already doing it, but feels like an engine that keeps buttering out. Um, this is the person that's measuring the wrong things. And I will actually probably do a whole presentation at some point on what I think are valuable things to measure. Hint, it's not calories, um, or generally you're alright, but we're gonna start here. So, you know that strategy without alignment or does not work pretty much anywhere, okay? And oftentimes we're sitting here and we're measuring strategy. So we're measuring whether we completed the workout, whether we followed the plan, whether we sit on track instead of actually measuring, okay, well what did this week demand of me? Where did I put my energy? Was it a match? Did my training match that? Like, or was it a mismatch? Did my week. Demand a hundred percent of me, but I was trying to put my like toward my work, but I was trying to put all of that toward working out, toward doing this, toward doing everything. And it was just a giant mismatch. Like that's when we have a problem. And beyond that energy mismatch, like you have to figure out what is aligned to you. So I always say like, I could give you the best program in the world, but if you hate it, then it's not the best program in the world. If you actively dread every exercise, not because it's hard, because you don't enjoy it, like that's an alignment problem. The cool thing about fitness is there's 10,000 ways to skin a cat and you get to find yours. You don't have to be told what it is. So these are the questions that I want you to start asking yourself when it comes to your training. So one, what is the quality within each workout? How are you measuring your effort? We do all have weeks where we just check a box like that happens sometimes. If it's happening all the time, then you need to identify why. So is it a knowledge issue? For example, in weight training, you should be pushing to two to four reps shy of failure on every set of every exercise in order to stimulate adaptation. Now if you're sitting there being like, what the hell are you talking about? Well, that's a knowledge issue and we learned something. But if you're sitting here being like, yeah, I knew that and I just kind of haven't been doing it, okay, well that's something worth measuring. And I do that too. I'll go through phases and I'm like, I've been lifting the same weight for six months. Maybe it's time to bump it up. You also need to be assessing your energy. Like are you forcing workouts at 3:00 AM fasted and you feel like dog crap? Like, then let's not do that. Let's find a different way. Um, I have people come to me like that. They're like, well, I'm gonna workout at four o'clock in the morning, and I'm like, okay. Do you like working out at four o'clock in the morning? And they're like, Nope. And I'm like, okay. Well, they're like, I just feel like that's the only time. And I'm like, okay, I get that. But if we force that four days a week, that's gonna get really old really fast. So generally then with like that type of client, I'm like, let's have one or two 4:00 AM workouts because that's manageable. Because you know, you get five or six days where you're not having to wake up at the crack of dawn, like there's reprieve on the other end, and then we'll push one of'em to a weekend or a night. Um, we need different, like mental stimuli when things are, are difficult and then you just need to like have you, is is the program aligned to you? Like, have you been doing the same program for four years and you're sick of it, but you're still doing the same thing? All of these things are more important to focus on than whether you did or did not. And if you focus on these things. They play a pretty big role into whether you did or did not. So, um, start asking yourself what the actual barrier is instead of, did I do the thing or did I not do the thing because not doing the thing. We need to figure out why. Yeah. And that's so interesting.'cause I feel like that's the only question I ask myself is like, at the end of the week I'm like, okay, did I get my workouts in or did I not? And then it's just a simple yes or no, and then I feel like shit because I'm normally saying, no, I didn't. Yeah. And then asking these questions is having more compassion for yourself and it's understanding like, okay, how can I step myself up for success moving forward? Exactly. Ah, good questions, Alicia. Thank you. Okay, so. High effort does not equal high outcome, and that is gonna be challenging for some people to read. Um, available effort always equals the best possible outcome. So if you've tried harder and you've been disciplined and you've been consistent, your effort's not the problem and consistency's not the problem, then what actually is? So I want you to imagine if your effort was applied correctly 100% of the time. And what I want to show you is what happens when you stop treating your body like a science equation and you start building something that actually accounts for all of you. So this is far beyond how much do you weigh and how much do you want to weigh, or how much do you lift, and how much do you want to lift? Because that's the easy part, right? Like in any coach that's like, I can figure out how to, you know, make you lose 10 pounds if you do everything. I say like, that's not hard. That's not the hard part, right? Yeah. I do want to pause on something though, because there is one very important thing to consider. Um, most coaches aren't evil. The problem is most programs assume a healed starting point, and most people do not have one. So most programs, even all those ones I went through the eight week shred, the 75 hard, they do actually work. If you're starting from a clean slate, if your relationship with food is solid, if you don't have body image issues, if your identity isn't tied up and whether you can do this or not, but most of you are not starting there. Many coaches genuinely care and they do get real results, and they're not consciously exploiting anyone. However, they may be operating inside of a model and using language that was designed by the industry to exploit your unhealed psychology, so they might not think twice about the connotation of a summer body. They just know that saying it brings more people into their world. Now, of course, the system itself, the one that I've been talking about, the one we're opting out of that absolutely counts on you having an unseal, unhealed psychology. Um, the model requires it. A woman with a fully healed relationship with her body does not buy a summer s shred period. She does not feel that urgency. The guilt does not work on her, and she is not a reliable customer. Okay. Lastly, a lot of coaches feel like it's not in their scope or their job to address anything mental. They're not a therapist. They're just here to help you lose 10 pounds or get he or get stronger. And while yes, it is negligent to practice outside of our scope, it is also negligent for me to not be able to refer out when I need to. Mm-hmm. And in order for me to do that. I have to know the person in front of me, right? Yeah. Yeah. It is within my scope, absolutely. To see a person as a human and not just a body, and to create a safe space for clients and to not do harm. And I'm gonna say that last part again. It is my duty to not do harm. And that is very important to me, bro. You feel, I feel that when you say that, like, yeah, it just, it shows how much you care and how passionate you are about helping people reach their goals, be successful, and not just be, you know, a one-time client that you send like a money maker. Yeah, exactly. Not a moneymaker. Yeah, yeah. Like, like you said, like that human interaction, that connection that you get when the person's sitting in front of you. Exactly. And so part of the, and so what we have to do. What I do is I look at the whole person because if the problem is an effort and it's not discipline, the only way this works is if we build something that actually accounts for all of you. And I don't mean your workout equipment and your body weight, although like, you know, those can be factors, but I mean your identity, your energy, all of these things I listed on this slide. So these are seven systems that I've determined through over a decade of working with women that need to be assessed in order for any meaningful and lasting change to occur, because none of them operate in isolation. So first is identity. How do you see yourself? Do you see yourself as an athlete still? Do you see yourself as a middle-aged person trying not to fall behind? Like I need to know how you view yourself, your energy management. I need to know what's going on in your life, what your capacity is, what all of the stressors in your life are. And teach you how we can wave intensities to match that, how we can compound stressors and how we can give you true periods of recovery. Social support. What is your partner like? What are your, what's your friend group like? Are you the only person in your life that cares about your health and fitness? Like sometimes that's the case and that can be very isolating and it's important for me to have that knowledge goal setting. Most people come to me, come to me and they like don't have goals, or they're very loose or arbitrary. It's just like, I wanna get in shape, I wanna lose weight. We want to find goals and we want not just like those longer term outcome goals, but we want process goals along the way so that we are hitting milestones, mindset all of the time. I see people with all or nothing mindset or all or nothing thinking self-sabotaging, black and white thinking very binary. And so that. Plays into literally everything else and often go through different versions of mindset that need to be held and healed. And then lastly, your environment. Um, it's funny to me, the amount of times I'll have people be like, I have this really nice gym membership that I don't use. And I'm like, okay, well let's do home workouts. And they're like, I have this really nice gym membership. And I'm like, but you just told me you don't use it, so let's lower the barrier. Let's get you into a routine at home. And then next thing I know, they're like, huh, I actually, that gym's like an hour away. There's one around the corner from my house. And I'm like, there it is. Yeah. So it's like all of these things we don't think about because we see, oh, this really nice gym opened, it's gonna motivate me to get there. And it's like, no, it's not like it's going to for like a week. Yeah, that's it though. And then it's not. So all of these things are things. That I take into account. And then layered into that is your relationship with food. And this is a really important piece because if we ignore it, then everything else breaks. Um, you can lose weight on a meal plan. Like I said, if I give you a meal plan, though without addressing why you've been dieting for the last 15 years, what your relationship with your weight actually is, what your belief that your body is worth actually is, then those results will not last. Because we didn't build anything on an aligned foundation. All we did was just put fresh paint over old cracks. Um, so there's three types of people that usually come into my world and mostly the last two, but they all require very different approaches. So type A, like this person doesn't know what, they have a knowledge issue. They don't know what protein is, they don't know what a calorie is like they're, they're just living life. This person generally has a healed psychology. Yeah. But they just need more knowledge. This is the easiest person to work with that is. Probably less than 1% of the population at this point. Person B has dieted on and off for the last 12, 20, whatever years. And then person C and these two often overlap is the woman who could write an entire book on nutrition. She knows everything, but she can't make changes in her own body. And all three of these people have to be treated very differently with their approaches. Otherwise we could end up making things worse. Um, rarely in today's world, like I said, is knowledge the issue. It's usually the person who's been a chronic dieter or the person that has a ton of knowledge, but they just don't know how to apply it. Interesting. So I'm gonna tell you, take a little opportunity to tell you about my coaching. Nice. Because we've talked about when something breaks. Just because life changes generally someone profits from that and it's rarely you. And everything I showed you earlier in this presentation was built on pressure, urgency, inadequacy, and that is the mechanism that is the driving force. What I do in my own coaching, what I built removes that entirely. I built a system that challenges that there is no urgency, there is no fixed timeline, there are no binary outcomes. This is not a program. This is literally like your whole ass life. So what I do with every single one of the women that come into my world is we start with a full seven system assessment going over those systems I talked about earlier, because most programs assume a healed starting point. I do not. Instead of guessing and then blaming yourself when things don't work, I identify exactly what's driving your results and what is getting in the way. On top of that, I do a weekly data review. So every week I'm looking at real data in the context of outcomes. Rather than just the outcomes themselves. So while your goal may be to get stronger or lose weight, if I am only looking at if your weight went down or your strength numbers went up, I am missing so much informed data that's telling me why those things happen. So instead of focusing on binary outcomes, um, and those bigger outcomes, and me measuring data across multiple data points generally from your smart device, um, from your check-ins to see where energy might be mismatched and any unhelpful patterns that might be worth interrupting. Number three, custom programming. I talk about how every person is different. Everyone's an individual. Your program updates weekly because your life isn't static, and this way your effort is always going where it actually produces a return. So holidays, work trips, injuries, all of that gets accounted for weekly. Nothing is ever assumed on my end and everything is informed. Feedback. I always give direct workout feedback so that you're not just doing work, you're improving from it. Um, I'm able to sit, see, oh, look, Chelsea's been lifting 20 pounds on the gobble squat for a year and a half. Oh God, let's challenge that. No, but, but oftentimes, uh, people do just, they get comfortable and they don't even think about it. And so I can also see with my other data, like, I'm like, I know this is a high stress day. I know this person's having, um, I'm looking, okay. Her resting heart rate is usually 42, and today it's 52. Okay, so that makes sense that our numbers are going to trend down a little bit. Um, the person might not realize that. So that's where I come in to say like, Hey. I noticed that you were lifting your normal weight, like, how did that feel? And they're like, wow, I felt like crap. And I'm like, well, I also noticed that your resting heart rate was quite a bit higher. Seems like your system is maybe needing a little bit of recovery, so don't be afraid to back off a little bit when that happens. And then messaging access. So I, my clients have access to me Monday through Sunday because the moments that matter in their lives don't happen on a schedule. And what we build together goes far beyond the 30 to 60 minutes that they're in the gym, and therefore they deserve access outside of those hours as well. So most importantly, I do not want my clients to default to old patterns in moments of uncertainty because they don't have access to me. So I create a space so that that does not happen. I also do monthly zoom calls that are 60 minutes with a report. So I run high level quantitative and qualitative statistical analysis so you can actually see your progress and we can make strategic decisions moving forward. We review those together and this is where you see the bigger picture so that your progress is measured and real, and not just emotional. It's not just a, oftentimes I'll get on calls with clients and they'll say, I didn't, I don't feel like I did. I feel this way. And like, our feelings are liars. Um, so I can show them quite literally what actually happened. That keeps them in the game instead of getting frustrated and sputtering out or pivoting to something different. And then finally, I have been fortunate enough to bring on a support team recently. So you are supported by a full performance team, uh, including two division, one athletic trainers and a certified mental performance consultant. So you are not coordinating multiple practitioners from different sources. Everything is housed in one place so that mind, body, and recovery are at the forefront all of the time, as it should be. Dang, that's awesome. And that is the modern athlete method, which I just recently, um, developed. Well, I, I guess I re reworked it into something that I'm very proud of because a program that makes you blame yourself keeps you stuck in the loop. And this is designed to end that you are a high caliber person and now you have a health infrastructure that matches that. So if this is speaking to you and you're feeling like, heck yeah, this is what I need because I'm tired of everything that I have been doing, I will be sending out a link to book a call. Um, I'll be taking calls for the next few weeks and I am only taking five women because we do work so closely together.