How Gym Owners Can Actually Retain Members This January: A Behaviour Science View with Myzone’s Dr Heather McKee

Every January, gyms see the same trend. A surge of motivated joiners followed by a sharp drop-off only weeks later. In this episode, Krissy Vann speaks with Myzone’s Dr Heather McKee, a leading behaviour change specialist, to examine what behaviour science reveals about the January member retention problem and what gym owners can do differently.

Dr McKee breaks down where gyms lose the most members in the first 30 to 60 days, the early behavioural signals that predict disengagement, and how data or wearable feedback loops can help operators intervene before a member drifts. The conversation explores why belonging drives long-term adherence, how micro-communities can anchor new members, and what a behaviour-enabled environment looks like for operators focused on stronger member retention.

As gym owners shape their 2026 strategies, Dr McKee highlights the single behaviour-first initiative with the greatest potential to reduce the annual January drop-off and strengthen long-term retention.

A practical conversation for gyms and operators committed to improving member retention and driving lasting engagement.

#fitnessbusiness #gymowners #podcast 

Transcript

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treat the first two months as an extension of the sales process instead of selling a membership we're selling a habit and what we need to do is we need to be there for our members we need to guide our members through the early weeks be it digitally be it in person that's up to you as an operator this is all things fitness and wellness uniting industry thought leaders and fitfluencers on the mission to inspire innovation and encourage people to live a life fit and well every January operators see the same pattern a surge of motivated joiners followed by a steep decline just weeks later it happens year after year and it raises an important question from a behavior science perspective what does this annual trend reveal about how the industry is approaching early engagement and retention on this episode I'm joined by Doctor Heather Mckee a leading behavior change specialist now working with Myzone we unpack what is actually happening in those first 30 to 60 days where the biggest gaps appear and why so many new members begin to drift long before operators notice the signs Doctor Mckee outlines the earliest behavioral indicators of disengagement and how the right data or wearable feedback loops can help teams intervene sooner before we get to it be sure to hit like and subscribe we have new podcast episodes weekly featuring industry thought leaders and influencers I'm your host Chrissy Van and this is ATF W this is an interview that I put into motion we were talking ahead of this a couple of months ago and it's came to reality at the perfect time I have Doctor Mckee joining me from my zone and we're gonna be talking all about the member behavior and the science behind it and the reason why I say the time is now for this conversation is because we know we're heading into those January gym rushes and operators face the same challenge time and time again gyms get packed and member retention unfortunately is the age old problem which is why we've all been kind of seeing the same 20% in our doors for years over years so first of all thank you so much for making the time and joining us all the way from Ireland thank you Christina delighted to be here and delighted to talk about this because this is possibly one of my favourite topics to talk about and I know you know it's top of mind for all operators all decision makers right now so delighted to dive in I know I loved when I sent the prep questions and you were like this is my favorite topic and it's one you can't go to a conference without it coming up and we know that operators see that surgeon signups then a steep decline so obviously we could look at the member and say behaviorally there's certain things that are going on with them that cause this behavior but let's flip the script here on the operator what does this annual pattern reveal about the underlying issue and how the industry is approaching retention the industry as a whole tends to capitalize on what we call behavioral science the fresh start effect you know so that spike that we get in the New Year you know and people sign up they're full of hope they see it as a fresh start they see you know they visualize their future self you know moving exercising being part of this community and then without the right habits scaffolding it kind of collapses over time and so what this reveals is the industry kind of relies on short lived extrinsic motivation so it relies on that hype that news kind of hustle rather than actually cultivating sustainable habits and those kind of over reliance on those extrinsic goals it basically undermines long term adherence and so while it might get people in the door in January it also means that more people are gonna be leaving by February March etcetera and so I think ultimately we wanna move away from those extrinsic goals like guilt like just doing it because it's New Year just doing it because someone else is doing it and more focus more on actually supporting our members you know for a lifelong relationship and journey with well being with movement I know that we're gonna get granular on this through the conversation but exactly that the first 30 to 60 days that drop off is occurring so what do you see as the biggest gaps that cause these new members to drift I mean you're kind of highlighting there that we're basically capitalizing on the wrong goals but how can operators better protect that early stage revenue yeah great question I think I think there's a lack of like an onboarding structure or have a building journey like I work a lot with um different apps and you know there's so much emphasis on the on boarding because we know from the research that actually that kind of first 90 days is so key in terms of the relationship that we build with the individual and also the skills that we help them build I think you know operators and and and gyms in general they're looking far focusing far too much on willpower rather than on developing skill power so you know developing that individual skill intrinsic motivation their habit building skills their accountability skills and understanding what confidence mean in in an exercise or movement journey understanding what reflection how important reflection is understanding experimentation is important and all and most importantly finding enjoyment in movement and and so I think like some of the biggest gaps are that lack of kind of that focus on that journey at the start that the goal setting isn't based on enjoyment identity or intrinsic motivation there tends to be a lack of early accountability or reinforcement so we need a lot of trainer contact you know or gym contact or accountability contact early on and one thing that I noticed Christy that often isn't talked about is misaligned intensity so when people join you know a gym for the first time let's say like a classic gym that's I got machines it's got a weight through you know they go up to the gym floor and they scan the floor and they're like right what's the hardest most difficult thing that I could do OK the Stairmaster the assault bike and they go to these things because they think if it's the hardest to do you know it's the most beneficial long term but actually what we know from the research is this really interesting a researcher called Eki Kakus and he's done a lot of research on intensity and if the intensity feels too hard or isn't stage match or competence match to the individual so they don't feel confident in their ability to be actually able to execute at that intensity it means that they're much more likely to drop out essentially and but so many members don't know this either so they go in thinking oh I need to just push hard and do the hit class straight away I need to get on the assault bike I need to just feel the burn and actually educating and helping members understand that actually there are different levels of intensity and movement and just because it's hard doesn't mean it's good and actually it's about finding that intensity match that works for you I was only just reading it last week in a magazine so um my zone and did a study with the university of Leeds and they showed that actually this intensity match is so so important and actually by making the effort visible people were more likely to engage and have stronger motivation and interesting greater happiness and what was really interesting about study for me was that it was these new exercises so when they could see that their intensity was at the right level for them where they could adapt their intensity for the right level for them they felt much stronger they felt much more motivated and ultimately they felt more happy um so I think we need to really focus on preventing this kind of wandering newbie syndrome when people first uh join and you know kind of support them with the scaffold the guidance the early winds help them understand what intensity works for them help them understand how to connect with others and and just focus more on the understanding that you know someone doesn't just join a gym in January and then it sticks that's like 2% of the population the majority of us need that scaffold we need that support and we need that in order to be able to come back time and time again obviously trainer support as you say in those touch points are so important and it makes sense generally when we feel accountable to someone it really helps fuel us to actually get there but I like that you highlighted in that study when people could see it and their results so talk to me a little bit about the connection when it comes to wearables and where that comes into the equation because obviously our touch points now aren't just the person welcoming you into the gym and the trainer on the gym floor but a lot of facilities are able to build out an ecosystem where you know the members are wearing the data on their own wrist or different devices yeah I I think it's again it's another part of the scaffolding it shouldn't be the one thing that we solely rely on but it can be such a compliment to members and again one thing we have to be conscious of is that we're not introducing too many new things at once to members if they're a new member you know we want to get them engaged with the activities they enjoy at the right intensity first and then start bringing them in to new and interesting things once they feel like they've got enough confidence with that and because you know what we talk about a lot and at my zone is that there's a huge thing in the fitness community at the moment which is data overwhelm and you know and and I I I say within the fitness community but actually beyond it because you know I've spent many many years in university studying all sorts of sport science exercise psychology health psychology and I still feel like I needed to green statistics to understand half of my wearable data you know but if I struggle you know how do I expect my mum to be able to actually understand what her HRV means what contributed towards it you know what that poor sleep score actually will result in or has she overtrained or undertrained and so I think that we have to understand that data comes with caveats that we have to help people get feel competent at the data and again and I know obviously I'm huge bias here but I what I really like about my zone is it just makes it really simple and it's like this is the most meaningful data for you it's in real time it's in the workout it's like you're seeing you're you know it's your race your pace it's you against you and so we can have a Marathon runner next to you and a complete beginner the other side of you and it doesn't matter because you know the person that you're measured against is yourself and that can help you feel like I'm getting the most out of this because I'm hitting the right intensity for me at the right time helping users understand how they can use their data to their advantage is really really important I think asking them how they currently use it and what they want to get out of it and but I've been really streamlined with you know if we're using data if we're using wearables and understanding you know what is the most important metric for that member at the stage that they're at right now and this is where I think often you know digital health movement miss the trick that it's really important to include context so for example you know I have a 15 month old baby and so you know while sleep you know I would say I I have so much reverence for sleep and you know my sleep hygiene is as good as it can be it isn't necessarily smart for me to be chasing a sleep goal especially maybe early in my um motherhood journey and so you know what is more important that is then is what's within my control and so that's where often people go wrong when it comes to actually looking at data they need to look at what is data is most meaningful for them at the stage that they're at right now not what is hardest what's most difficult what everyone else is doing but actually what's most meaningful for them and I think and you know in the gym community as operators and decision makers we need to help guide people to what that could be for them and and then having things like my zone where you don't even have to think about it it shows up for you in the moment it's there it helps you feel part of the group it helps you know that you're getting the most out of your workout and takes away all that cognitive overload in terms of data and actually turns it into something that is real time and meaningful and actually helps you enjoy the movement more which ultimately is what it's all about there's so many different things I wanna dive into from that but the first thing is just on what you ended there in regards to the fact that real time feedback so talk to me cause obviously I'm sure there's been plenty of studies but behaviorally what does that feedback loop do for a gym goer if they're actually able to see their progress in real time in that workout in that moment yeah I do you know what it is it's progress is the fuel that keeps the motivation fire burning and the thing that why people kind of like I I'm gonna take a step back and go back to what we talked about first before I kind of fully answer your question which I promise you I'll get back to you but when New Year's comes around you know we throw everything in the kitchen sink at our habits you know we think okay we're gonna go to the gym every day we're gonna cut down on sugar we're gonna give up alcohol LA LA LA and the more we add in the more we lead to goal dilution so it makes us less effective at what we're trying to ultimately achieve and the thing is we can only make real progress at one thing at a time and and you know once you get confident at that we can add more things in and and at the start we make a lot of progress and that's why people stay engaged maybe for those first few weeks because they're seeing the progress they're feeding the progress but what happens then after those kind of first 90 days and what we see um certainly in the digital health world um is that you know people tend to drop off at eight to 12 weeks in a lot of apps and a lot of wearables and that's because the progress isn't like you know sky high anymore and I always think about it like you know you've got motivation here and you've got habit here and motivation starts out high and goes down but habit starts at low and we want to increase it over time and that's why we want to have those habit building structures because habits are formed through something called context dependent repetition do the same thing in the same circumstance the times it becomes a habit and so once motivation dips we want habit to take over and we want the queues to be there we want the rewards to be there and I think having that real time feedback is a real time reward but it's also a real time visual of progress and regardless of where you are in your fitness journey you can actually see the progress in that moment you can see how you're doing well and that is so so important to keep engagement going especially when we get to those tricky dips where maybe we don't feel like we're getting that kind of physical feedback so we're not like you know breathing maybe as heavy as we did before you know like those are indicators sometimes that we're getting fitter we're breathing less heavy or we're sweating less or whatever else but once we kind of get past that how do we know that we're continuing to progress and that's often a challenge then for people to feel motivated especially in the weight loss community you know we often see when people hit a plateau they think all I'm doing all the things what am I meant to do now and ultimately what you're meant to do now is you know find the things that you love that don't feel like a chore and keep going with those things and but you know we're addicted to progress we wanna feel like we're progressing and so if we can find a way to make that progress tangible to make it real time rewarding then it's just gonna reinforce that habit loop and actually make it much more likely that person's gonna continue to show up I love that line we are addicted to progress and it makes so much sense too because of the external reinforcement to drive us to feel like we're not progressing and constantly have to be in a state of achieving when you think of what social media is influencing most yeah consumers right it's kind of always showing us where we lack and where we stack up and unfortunately it it does have positive connotations obviously in a sense it could be a motivator and a driver and then on the flip side it can be a negative where you're constantly feeling like I have to achieve I have to achieve and if you're not seeing those results as you say and you have that plateau moment it's kind of easy for people to give up but the other element that you had said in your comment before was about this data overwhelm and it does make so much sense that users you get a cool new wearable for Christmas and yay it can do this it can do that but what does that actually mean for me I feel like operators are in a similar situation right now where we're becoming more and more rich in data and knowing more about member behavior and there's been many conversations this year about tech stacks and AI and different tools that can predict if a member is going to turn but what are the actual earliest behavioral signals that a member is beginning to disengage and how can operators detect those signals when they have the right data yeah a great question and I think this this really feeds into you know what we're trying to do um in terms of motivational technology so um we're trying to look at what motivates people and engages them more than you know all of these like you say extrinsic metrics that might be less meaningful for people um and I I think key things are you know intensity and and frequency so um if someone shows up and they're showing up in you know like let's say they come a lot of times like early in January you know those are kind of you know red flags for that people and so what we need to really know from that individual is when are they most likely to go to the gym and and what I mean by that is like how does it work in terms of their greater life setup so what we know from the research is friction is really really important to build habits but also to stop us engaging in in in helpful habits too and so we need to know things like and I know that you're like you're probably thinking how does this relate to motivation how does this relate to the key metrics that we should be looking at the proximity that someone has to their gym to their studio to their place of movement has a outside impact on their frequency of engagement and it is so so important to really understand you know is this actually gonna be someone that's gonna show up is it difficult for them to get to here do they do it as part of their commute do they do it as part of that is actually a really important metric to really understand and know another thing is you know one thing that I'd always wanna know is um from members is why are they here in the first place you know what's motivated them to come here that really taps into intrinsic motivation and helps us understand if members are aligned with extrinsic or intrinsic and and you know members can start at an extrinsically motivated they might be there for weight loss reasons for long term health reasons um but actually then that's that gives us a flag to say OK well these are members that we really need to talk with these are members that maybe really need to experiment um with different type of movements and different types of ways to engage with movements in order for them to understand what intrinsically motivates them because those members that are kind of showing up for those extrinsic reasons are much more likely to pick the wrong intensity to do the more punishing classes to think that they have to come at a certain frequency otherwise they don't engage at all so I think it's really really important to actually tap into that as well one thing that's really important as well is competence and again I'd love to ask members what's the first thing you plan to do when you arrive you know new members and and that kind of reveals where they're at in terms of their competency in terms of their exercise history in terms of actually their understanding of what's important to them and then at my zone in A1 thing that we're measuring um is all of the key needs that fuel this uh long term motivation and it's a theory called self determination theory and basically when people are more self determined they have more intrinsic motivation they're doing it for them so they understand what contribution getting active staying active makes to their life and so what we're really interested in is those three basic needs that fuel any individual's motivation so those needs are autonomy so feeling like you've got ownership or choice competence so feeling like you're understanding of what you're doing and you're feeling like you're progressing and then relatedness so feeling like that you're understood by vital others and and that you're connected to others you're part of something bigger than yourself and so I feel like even if operators just measured those three elements they get a huge insight into who's gonna stay and who's gonna drop out and because these are the things that fuel long term engagement and there's over 40 years of research looking at you know how do we enhance these and when these needs are met it's much more likely that these people are going to come back time time time again and so I really feel like you know for so long we focus on those outcome measures and now we need to go back and we look at need to look at the process because goals are just a snapshot in time you know they're only a one time event but ultimately what we need to understand is the processes and how to get actually people excited how to make them frictionless and actually ultimately how to nourish our members in a way that actually they will gain that intrinsic motivation they'll fall in love with movement they'll fall in love with the studio or the gym and they'll make a part of them you know and ultimately those are the people that will stick with it for life well and when it comes to need nourishment I think one of the elements that we've heard talked about more and more cause let's face it the ads before and not even you don't even have to go that far back but the ads for joining a gym even five years ago 10 years ago if we start to get to when I was in high school and the types of ads it was all I mean shockingly shaming your audience into the doors kind of vibe and luckily we've expanded our knowledge over yes physical health and what we need to do but mental health being a huge driver but even more so the conversation started to really shift and center around our social wellness and you know you and I were talking before we hopped on here I live in the city of Vancouver one of the most common conversations is our lack of third spaces you also have a population when it comes to Gen z's which we know are our largest sector that's walking in the gym doors well a lot of Gen Z is moving away from alcohol therefore not going out to bars and not going out to the clubs so there's tremendous opportunity but I'm just curious from a behavior standpoint how important is it to generate kind of these micro communities in your gym doors and that sense of belonging for a member how important is creating a sense of belonging in your gym doors and how can operators effectively capitalize and do that for their members yeah that's such a great flag it I would say it's vital um ultimately it's like like I described their relatedness as one of the needs like you know when we've all seen it and you know when we went through Covid we need to feel in community with others now the way that that shows up doesn't always have to be in the same way for each individual and but when we feel like we're part of something when we feel like we belong then we engage time and time again the key here is helping people at all levels of fitness feel like they belong because for so long as you've rightly flagged you know that we focus on the fittest fit and one of the main barriers that people don't engage you know in the gym community in the studio community is because they don't feel like people like them go um and and especially those harder to reach people the people that we really wanna engage in movement um maybe they've got have a you know a less positive exercise history maybe they've had a less positive you know body image history all of these things we really wanna make and help people feel like they belong and so I think it's really really important that operators don't just look at their fittest fit and don't just reward their fittest fit members actually look at those people all along and the spectrum of fitness and actually adapt for those individuals as well and because you know and what does that look like it might look like offering kind of an experimentation week where people can try on a class for 10 minutes at a time or try on and different equipment or you know they might wanna work with uh you know one of your kind of reengage members and that's actually kind of similar to them and or they might wanna work with a trainer that just feels really relatable and but there's this thing in and exercise psychology called vicarious experience if we can see others that we recognize are similar to us actually achieving a goal it makes it much more likely that we'll want to take part and because we feel like we're part of something and I think that's why it's something I love about my zone is it kind of democratizes fitness like I said you know you can be in a spin class let's say and you can have someone that goes like five times a week next to you and someone who goes once a week next to you it doesn't matter because you're all competing against yourselves and so it helps you feel like you're part of the tribe regardless of where your fitness is at but I think it's often something that's ignored by by gyms and and and a great way to do this and you know um a lot of kind of clubs offer like free smoothies as a reward or you know these different kind of extrinsic rewards um which like long term aren't gonna engage someone in movement but actually by offering it like kind of at the end of a movement session or by the at the end of a class and that offers members a kind of new way of thinking of oh we finish a we finish a class and actually we kind of go here together we go as a group and it's something we've seen in our studies with and people with long term chronic conditions so I I ran this piece of work where we looked at people with lung conditions and all over the UK and we you know one of the most important things if you've got a long term and lung condition is to keep moving but it's the most terrifying thing because you can't breathe properly and and one of the best ways to keep people engaged in their movement practices was to offer tea and coffees at the end of a session because it's those that people that made friends those people that felt like they were part of something those people that were able to connect with others and not just see them as you know that intimidating fit guy or a girl or whoever they they came up against actually those are the people that stayed engaged because they felt like there was a part of a community and so you know I think helping cultivate a community that's beyond just nourishing those super fit um individuals is really really important and where a lot of kind of operators miss a beat yeah my brain instantly goes to a couple of I mean one personal story I think of my grandfather he never was a gym goer he wasn't a large guy but ran into heart troubles when he was older and he ended up joining by doctor's orders this thing called Happy Hearts at the time which was an exercise group but it changed his whole life because they would go and then have the coffee after made a whole community of friends as he was nearing 80 he had all these new faces in his life and the byproduct of that he loved going it was the best thing in his day my mom pickleball her gateway drug into the gym she's in her 60s first time she's ever gone religiously to a gym and to your point once she had community that built in other pickleball goers picklers like I need to learn my terminology before I go for Christmas cause she has a mean serve and I only play on occasion however it's through them like I love what you said about that the modeling of other people it's other women her age but they do different classes and so even though she had never dipped her toe they then became the ones that were her entrance into that door and my mom now goes five days a week from a zero ever adhered to anything like I love that woman she's done amazing things in her life but that was a habit that was her whole life she never ever was able to build and then I look at a program that we have here in British Columbia um it's a live well exercise clinic and same thing it's different patients that have had a medical it could be lung it could be heart what have you but it's become this community group on top of it and it's just interesting as you say it I'm like maybe we have a lot to learn over how we treat our elders in that type of facility in that type of situation and translate it because at the end of the day the core is we all want sense of belonging we all want community and we're in a time in the world I think we're more starved for that in than ever unless you're an ultra extrovert that's pounding the pavement we spend most of the days locked in these gosh I need to clean my phone screen hahaha it's clearly I'm guilty but I'm like it is so true so I just I really appreciate what you highlighted there but you know there's a lot of talk about investing in new tools for operators or different amenities that enhance the member experience but a lot of them have little impact on behavior so what are the most common misplaced investments that don't move the needle on retention like is there a direction that you see a lot of operators invest in that may be better spent if they want to have members stick to their goals and ultimately continue paying their dues yeah great question gosh um I think well we just discussed one there you know like a lot of operators you know invest in juice bars but they don't utilize them in a way that they can be a social tool and you know tagging you know having a class that actually you know like a phrase that and we hear well a lot in the fitness community in London is a berries and brunch you know people go for a berries boot camp and they go for a brunch and I just think that is just a wonderful way of kind of packaging the two things together and if we can get more classes more sessions in the gym that are kind of tagged on so that it doesn't become a heavy lift on the individual or on the member because a lot of these social bits you know a lot of it is reliant on the memory to actually have the motivation to actually go and do the things whereas actually if we can take that away and actually use the facilities that we have you know most operators will have a facility or a place where people can have a tea or a coffee and or juice or even just a water like it just a small space where there is allowance for time for people to chat time for people to connect and it's so interesting cause even um we've seen this time and time again in behavioral research studies so there's a really interesting study where they have this train and they have on the train they have a quiet cart and they have a chatty cart and and they ask people before they go on like you know which what cart would they prefer and but they still put a lot of people in the chatty cart even though they prefer the quiet cart and they measure their well being and despite the fact that they wanted to be in quiet those that were actually in the chatty carts tend to have a spike in their well being even if it's just a small conversation that they've had with someone else it lifts them and so providing these kind of micro opportunities doesn't require you know necessarily a fancy fancy tech or fancy equipment it it requires just been able to kind of gather around in some space you know I've you've seen you see a lot in yoga retreats you know they offer a hot drink at the end and it's just a lovely way to kind of debrief with everyone when they they bake that into the time that's available that doesn't necessarily need to cost you more and you know people don't you know again it's the frequent flyers the people that are really engaged are the people that are gonna care about fancy equipment or the new upgrades but if we're trying to attract those people that actually go less often or new members it's often you know those community leaders that actually are much more likely to engage them and that doesn't necessarily need to require more money I would say as well you know getting people to wear to use wearables that don't really have you know that real time impact or you know they can't read or understand the data if they don't have that kind of coaching layer that again is a wasted opportunity as well because they need to enhance their ability to stick with their movement not distract from it like I said you know if we add too many goals in it takes away from the focal goal and so we need that tech with feedback we need to have that instant feedback to understand our progress or we need that tech with a social layer that's kind of what enhances that behaviour change engine you know what we've seen in my zone is that you know people with four or more social interactions on the app they're much more likely to have higher so what we call my zone effort points so they're much more likely to engage in more movement and stay engaged in movement for for longer so we need to actually be really careful with our tech and make sure that it's giving them right type of feedback that doesn't distract but actually enhances and what we're doing so I would say don't waste your money on fancy equipment and if we're trying to attract new members or retain those large group of our community that might not be as frequent and as others let's focus on the social side let's focus on actually providing that structure providing layers of feedback providing opportunities one thing the gyms could really do with investing is actually more people on the floor to talk to the members to make them feel like they're part of the community to help them out even just ask them you know what they watched last night was their favourite show on Netflix like it's stupid things but actually having someone there that someone can chat to just creates that community feel helps with that sense of belonging and makes it much more likely that that person will come back time and again what seems like the most obvious basic touch point also can be the thing that we get distracted from at the end of the day you're also offering customer service and a customer experience in order to maintain that relationship but it it kind of you know if all of a sudden their first interaction when they walk in your gym is your front desk and they're texting so and so on the phone or things like that I'm like that's where you actually can all of a sudden create an instant disconnect you highlighted some of them there but to round off our conversation if you were advising a leadership team setting its 2026 strategy what single behavior first initiative would have the strongest effect on reducing the annual drop off it's gonna be hard for me to be things as you can tell it's a podcast you're allowed to let it breathe so yeah I think we need to treat the first two months as an extension of the sales process instead of selling a membership we're selling a habit and what we need to do is we need to be there for our members we need to guide our members through the early be it digitally be it in person that's up to you as an operator but ultimately I would encourage in person and digital and where it enhances and doesn't take away from the focal goal but we need to be there we need to help them understand what intensity works for them what movements they enjoy the most we need to help them feel super competent we need to help them understand other people that are like them that actually you know are engaged we need to provide social opportunities for them to engage with others from the gym it's like we need to treat it like making a new friend rather than it just being a solely a business interaction um because ultimately you know the people that you meet at the gym and or the studio if you show up year after year like they're your friends for life and so why not approach it um from the point of view of creating that relationship let's celebrate you know early wins small wins let's not focus necessarily on intensity above everything else it's actually about finding out for that member what works for them if we could you know I'm I'm really greedy now my Christmas list is my wish list for 2026 is really long but if we could encourage just experimentation and actually and reflection those two things are gonna have a huge impact on the member because they don't feel like then they have to do things perfectly all the time they feel like they're actually there's options to find what works for them and that might be in terms of what class they go to what equipment they use but also might be in terms of what time of day they go to the gym and you know is it the morning is it the afternoon is it after work is it on the weekends you know experimenting with all of that because one of the biggest things that throws people off is we have such a perfectionist mindset about health about well being about movement and so if we can kind of help them normalize failure is a normal part of this whole journey and actually the way to overcome failure is to experiment reflect and find the movement type the movement intensity and the time of day that works best for you that's way more habit forming ultimately it'll be a behavior first initiative that's much more focused on you know habit formation building that structure that scaffold that someone needs in those kind of first 90 days in those first two months so I would hope that people would have great success in creating you know movers for life oh Doctor Heather Mckee I'm so glad that we got connected thank you so much for joining me on ATF W hi Chrissy thank you thank you so much for your questions they really made me think and yeah there's a lot in there that people can gain from adding behavioural science into their workplace you've just listened to the All Things Fitness and wellness podcast hosted by Chrissy Van be sure to hit like and subscribe we have new podcast episodes weekly featuring industry insiders and influencers together we're on a mission for everyone to live a life fit and well