Closing The Gap Between Expectations And Results

Feeling behind already? You’re not alone—and you’re not broken. We unpack why January motivation often runs lower than expected and how that gap between big expectations and current reality fuels disappointment. Instead of doubling down on guilt or waiting for the perfect mood, we map out a grounded strategy that actually moves the needle: build from a solid nutrition base, define five blocking behaviors, and turn daily choices into momentum.

We start by reframing the problem: mood fluctuates, but discipline compounds. You’ll hear a clear breakdown of the “magic line” of weight loss where nutrition underpins activity, strength training, and cardio; without the base, nothing sticks. From there, we introduce a 60‑day focus that replaces vague resolutions with daily non‑negotiables—no scrolling between sets, track your food, hit your steps, add short cardio, and plan your meals. This is not an all‑or‑nothing dare; it’s a reset that tolerates human days and wins the week through consistency.

Cravings and impulse buying share the same trap: speed. We show how to stretch the micro‑pause between urge and action so you can choose your goal over your mood. You’ll learn a practical tactic for reshaping your inner dialogue: give your supportive voice authority and your sabotaging voice a costume you can’t take seriously. That mindset shift, paired with simple tools—journaling, scheduling, therapy, and pre‑planned meals—helps you stop negotiating with biscuits and start trusting your plan.

You don’t need perfect motivation to change. You need a short list of controllable actions, made real every day. If this resonates, follow the five‑things framework, share your list with us, and let’s build the next 60 days together. Subscribe, leave a review, and pass this to a friend who’s ready to close the gap.

Transcript

Expectations Versus Reality In January

SPEAKER_01 0:03

Good evening, good morning, good afternoon, when anyone is listening to this. So I want to make this real quick one today. It's not gonna be too long. Um, I know it's a different time from our normal call. So we spoke a lot about goals this year. We spoke a lot about the transition into from version one, version two. We spoke about how to plan, how to be ahead of the curve. Um, but this one thing, like as we go through this journey, like it's never it's never easy. Something will always pop up, some things will always kind of change, hormones change, mentality change, discipline changes. But I think what happens a lot in December, uh, December, January, not in December, I think what happens a lot in January is people's expectations of where they should be right now and their realities are in two

Why Motivation Feels Low Right Now

SPEAKER_01 1:00

different places. And when that happens, let's say you've got expectations up high and your reality comes in below. That space between your expectation and your reality normally means it translates to unhappiness, it translates to disappointment, it translates to fuck, I'm well away from where I should be. And that's normally because people set their expectations way too high in January. You know, we set goals in January for 12 months, three months, six months, nine months. Now, I'll be honest, it doesn't matter where you are right now in January, you can still get to your March goal. Because you could put the foot down double of what you've ever done in your entire life and dedicate your whole existence to getting to your goal, you could still get to your goal for March. So don't be disheartened with where you are right now. Don't be disheartened with what happened at the beginning of the year. Some of you got sick, some of you had shit sleep because your kids decided that they don't want to sleep any longer. Some of you had work that kind of kicked in that you thought was gonna be easy, but it wasn't. Your expectations were at a certain level, but when your reality kicked in, it felt so far away from your expectations. Now, here's where most people go wrong. With that gap from expectations to your reality, most people go, right, my reality is too far away from my expectations, so I'm gonna give up. Or I'm gonna just fucking write this month off, cause as much damage as possible. And like I've said before, you'll always come back to your goal. It will never go away, it'll always come back to it. So if we're never always gonna come back to it, what we need to do is go, we don't want to cause too much damage right now. Some of you might be in damage control, some of you might be in getting results but going at a really slow pace, and that's absolutely fine. But the motivation in January isn't actually higher than any of the month. Actually, I find I find it lower. I find my motivation is lower at the minute, and that's due to it being dark, cold. I get out of bed early and it's so dark. I get to the gym. I'm just like, oh, I'm tired at the minute. You know, work is heavy because the beginning of the year, targets for some people, pre-planning for some people in in work. So life gets in the way, and your motivation goes, This isn't really where I want to be. Just tick boxes, just do what you gotta do, just avoid eating crack foods. And what I'm gonna talk to you about right now is gonna help get over the motivation and turn this more into

Shift From Motivation To Discipline

SPEAKER_01 3:40

discipline and things that you can tangibly change. But don't expect your motivation to be at an all-time high. If it is at an all-time high, great, ride it, ride it out, you know. But if you can't lose weight in December because your motivation is low, it doesn't change in January. Just because the month title changes, doesn't mean your whole existence goes, all right, now I'm Mr. Motivated for a month. It doesn't happen. Like if you're not motivated in December, if you're not motivated in November, October, July, August, it doesn't magically happen. You have to sometimes you have to spark that motivation. Sometimes you've got to find it by ticking a few boxes so you get a little bit of resort and you go, oh, okay, I've got a bit of a result. Let me move forward. And then we go a bit, you know, a bit closer to my goal. And then by chipping away bit by bit, all of a sudden you go, oh, I'm gonna dress size down. And now you're super motivated because you really realize it's working. But in the beginning, for the first three weeks, it's like I'm just getting rid of the Christmas weight. So how motivation can how motivating can that be when it's like I'm just getting rid of some weight that I put on over December? It's annoying. So it pisses you off, and that pissed off mentality goes, Well, I'm gonna throw this out the window. But for who? You know, you might be pissed off that you put a bit of weight on in December, but you know, by being angry and causing more damage by eating more cake and more alcohol, is just causing more damage to yourself. So we really got to change that mindset of reality, expectations. I get rid of all expectations and I deal with the reality. Where is my reality at right now? And what the hell do I need to do to get close to my goal? Because every single one of you, no matter where you are right now, no matter how you're feeling, when you do get close to your goal, or when you do get to your goal, you will never regret the decisions you've made right now, and you'll feel 10 times better than you do right now. There's no one that's ever got to their goal, and I spoke to them and said, How are you feeling? And they go, I feel worse than I did when I was started this. Does that happen? You know, people say that money can't make you happy. No, it can't make you happy, but it can make life a hell of a lot fucking more comfortable. Getting fit and healthy won't necessarily make it happen, but it's gonna make life feel a hell of a lot better, you know. I promise you, getting to your goal is is gonna change a lot for you. So we know it's needed, we know it's wanted, we know things are gonna be better there, but we now need to stop doing the things that are in the middle, that are getting in our way. Excuses are real, and what I mean by excuses is everyone has excuses. The famous saying, excuses are like bomb holes. We've all got hope. Yeah, that's what excuses are like. We've all got them. My daughter's not sleeping in the minute. I'm thinking about launching another business. I've got another baby on the way. I'm planning this. All these things that are like in my head, all these excuses that potentially could be there, it's like they are actual my actual reality. They are excuses. But I've either got to find a way around it or I've got to let them excuse consume me and go, I can't get to this goal right now. Some of you might be work, some of you might be sickness, some of you might be kids, some of you might be partners, some of you might have, you know, family issues. They all happen.

The Nutrition Base And Real Excuses

SPEAKER_01 7:15

But I shared a pyramid recently on my social media about the pyramid of weight loss, and the the base was nutrition. Up from the base was activity, up from the activity was strength training, cardio, and then extras at the top. Above nutrition, there was a magic line. And anything above the nutrition line meant it did nothing without that base level. I truly believe that base level at the bottom, that nutrition underneath the magic line, can be done in any excuse. Now, some of you would have gone, it won't be done in my excuse, but I can guarantee right now it can be done in any excuse. And the reason I know that is because if you didn't eat, you would die because you would die of starvation. So food is something that we have to factor in through any period of our life. No matter what's going on, we will still need food. So that means, you know, unless we're in a war zone where choice is just not there, we still have a choice with what food we eat. There might be a work conference. There might be a wedding every now and again, but it's not that one work conference, it's not that one wedding that's getting in your way. It's when you're sitting at home on your sofa and you're too tired to cook a nice meal and you're telling yourself that it's been a hard day and you had the choice of eating healthy, but you didn't eat healthy. They're the times where it's going wrong. So knowing that nutrition is the base of all of this, we can control it throughout. You know, every restaurant has a menu, every shop has different choices, every delivery has options. It's we we live in this world of just like so much choice. So we know we can find different choices. Even if we have to suffer a little bit, even if the healthy option is like, oh my god, that sounds horrendous. Okay, but these are the cards we've been given right now because even eating that right now might feel like shit, but actually going forward, it's gonna benefit me. So here's a little exercise. I've just actually post this on my Instagram, but I think I'll do a bit more of a deeper dive in it for for you guys.

Find Your Five Blocking Behaviors

SPEAKER_01 9:30

Where we at right now, we've done this work, where we want to be, we've done that work. Your goals, let's work on Q1, the Q1 goals. Where do we need to be before March, end of March? And where are we right now? We know the timeline, we know what where we want to be. I want you to list five things that you're currently doing that are getting in the way of you getting to that goal. I can tell you my five things right now. I'm not doing my cardio. This is true reality for me. I'm not doing my cardio. I am not doing all my steps, I'm doing very minimal steps. My excuse is I'm very busy with work right now. I am doing a lot of deep work within my business. I'm looking for a house. Just excuses. I've got a walking pad right here. I can get it done. I could look at houses while I'm walking. They're excuses. So I'm not doing my cardio, I'm not doing my um walking. I've got to a point where I've convinced myself that I can eat healthy right now without tracking every day because I know enough about nutrition that I should be falling in for a roundabout where my calories are. And bear in mind this is coming from someone that's got two decades of experience. I still don't know how many calories I'm eating. But I've convinced myself I have. So I know that's bullshit. I could call my own bullshit there. I I you know, I've been days I do track, but there's days I've gone, I've eaten the same as I did yesterday. And I'm like, I did put, I did maybe put an extra slice of toast. Um, I'm not training hard enough. My gym sessions are just they're just not hard enough at all. I am training to a good level, but I'm not training hard enough at all. I'm I'm spending too much time on my social media in the gym, and I'm sitting there in between sets, scrolling, and sometimes I scroll in turns to four or five minutes. So the intensity of my sessions um is not there. And I think lastly, I'm not preparing my week. I'm not structuring my week enough to be ahead of the curve. I'm doing all the other stuff, weighing myself, doing my check-ins. I am avoiding sugar, I am not, I'm not drinking, I probably have one beer every two weeks. Um, I'm not eating any junk food or anything like that. So I am fulfilling some stuff and I'm not putting on weight, but I'm not getting to my goal because of these five things that I'm basically doing. So the challenge is from now until the end of the March, them five things, they're my five things. You don't copy me, but you can if you want. I want you to avoid them five things at all costs. I'll take the challenge, I'm with you. We can do

Commit To Daily Non‑Negotiables

SPEAKER_01 12:20

it from the first of February, or we can do it from tomorrow. Whatever you want. Brother Float should burn it. Let's start off tomorrow. Why not? I'm not gonna scroll on Instagram when I'm in the gym. I'm gonna try and take the intensity up. I'm gonna get 8,000 steps in a day no matter what, because it's a bonus excuse. Sometimes I might fail, sometimes not. I need to track my food. I need to start doing my cardio before, 10 minutes after, 10 minutes before, and I need to start planning my meals. Then five things need to happen. No excuse. It doesn't matter whatever happens, I need to try and fulfill them five things. There may be some days that I can't do it. This is not a kind of challenge where, oh, I couldn't do it tomorrow, so I've gave up. It's not that. It's on a daily basis. I wake up and I know the five things that I've been doing that have been holding me back, that have been keeping me away from my goal. And then five things I have to say to myself, I'm not doing these. This isn't a sustainable approach. This is a red alert, I need to quit doing these five things because they're not serving me approach. Yeah. Yes, I might not get my steps in 8,000 for the rest of my life, but if I set a good habit over the next 60 days, I've got a, you know, I stand a good chance of having a good habit of not using my social media in the gym, getting my steps in, getting my cardio, tracking my food, and um planning my meals. After 60 days, if them habits stay, I'm flipping laughing. You know, some of you might have to cut sugar to cut alcohol, which might not be as sustainable, but I promise you, after 60 days from cutting sugar from cooking alcohol, you'll go, wow, I feel better. Maybe I need to start thinking about my choices with alcohol. Some of you might be ordering too many takeaways. Some of you might be giving into temptation with chocolate. Find your five things and say to yourself, you know, but to the end of March, I'm really gonna do it. Now, there's gonna be times when, let's say you've tried to give up sugar, someone puts a bag of Montesis in front of you at work or a bag of chocolate hoblops, and you're gonna go, one of my five things was not to eat this shit at work. I want to eat this shit at work. I think I'm really am gonna have a biscuit. Maybe I just have one, maybe I just have things. In that moment, you need to, that voice that you're starting to slowly negotiate with yourself, you need to say from your other voice, hey, shut the fuck up. Because I'm trying to get to my goal. I really want to get to my goal. I know that because there's times when I'm naked, there's times when I'm in the gym mirrors, there's times when I'm with my partner, I'm not feeling confident in my body, and I want to change that. And this hobnob or this Malteseer back here ain't serving me at all anymore. So please, whoever

Negotiating With Cravings And Impulse

SPEAKER_01 15:10

put it there could piss off as well, but please, to this that voice, no, it's not happening. And that's how harsh it's got to be. Because if you start to negotiate with that voice, oh, I said I weren't gonna have it, just have one. Oh, what? You think one Louis said that you could, you know, if you make a mistake, it's okay to get back on it tomorrow.

SPEAKER_00 15:30

Oh, do you think I can handle one? Yeah, of course you can handle one. You're negotiating with yourself. Who's gonna win? Yourself. They know your fucking, they know your weak points. They know you, they know you have they know the chicks in the armor. They're gonna be like, come on, you can, you can, of course you can have one.

SPEAKER_01 15:45

You have that one, next thing you do, you've got your pockets filled with chocolate hob knobs because you couldn't have one. You've stuffed them all in your mouth, and then you go to that voice. You said I could have one. And the voice goes, I know nothing. I learned, hey, I'm out of it. Leave you on your own with hobnob crumbs all around your mouth. You see what I'm getting at? This happens a lot in people's lives. Had a hard day, went to a restaurant, said I was gonna be healthy, ended up having a burger and chips. So I told myself that I deserved it. And then after the restaurant, you're walking out thinking, Did I actually deserve that? And the other voice says, No, you didn't. Set me up. You know, don't and I'm not gonna pretend I'm the only crazy person that's got two voices in my head. But you have to redesign who that voice is, you know. I did a lot of work on this when I was doing a lot of self-doubt with my therapist. Um, yes, I'm in therapy. I had a lot of self-doubt around business and my worth and what I wanted to achieve because I came from a place with not much. So when I started to get a few bits and bobs, that I didn't think I deserved it. And I you know, I never really bought myself anything. And I had this other voice that used to talk shit to me and tell me that you know it was all gonna go away and you know, what you weren't gonna be able to sustain this lifestyle. I had to redesign that whole voice and call it a whole name and dress them up in different outfits. And so I couldn't take him seriously anymore because it wasn't serving me. And then I had to just take the other voice that was serving me, that was going, you know what, Louie, it's gonna be all right. You know what, Louie, you are gonna make some of yourself. You know what, Louie, you deserve to be successful. I had to start listening to that voice more, and I had to show that voice more respect and listen to it in a in a more respectful way. And the other voice I had to dress up in my head as like, I don't know, they were homeless, broke, massively overweight, smell whatever. Because it's like, I won't listen to advice of this person, so why am I doing it in my own head? And that's kind of what you've got to do with with them, them voices, because them conversations you are having with that voice, they are crazy. So you may as well dress that person up. And if you can understand that who you need to be listening to in them moments, who you need to be saying, and it's that voice saying, don't have the biscuit. Because there's a moment, Livore, there's a short pause, a short decision. And what you need to do is start to lengthen that a little bit more, start to create a bit more space there and sit in it for a little bit more and go, right? Are we doing this? Is this happening? Is it one of my five things? Am I really gonna go down this road? Spend more time there. Because if you can spend more time there, it'll give you more distance away from the action that you're gonna do, and then you're gonna be in a much better place to succeed. Very much like consumerism. Like, you know, some people have like bad shopping addictions where they see an advert and an advert pops up and they go, Oh my god, I need that. Click, click, click, buy, Apple Pay. Why do you think

Redesign The Inner Voice

SPEAKER_01 18:40

Apple Pay is so easy? Pick by Apple Pay. Oh, oh my god, I've just bought a bloody 500-pound wallet that I didn't need. Do you know how many times that happens to me? I bought a goua shar the day for some ad I seen, I think 40 quid. It's awful when it arrived. But I didn't spend enough time in it. If I'd have clicked off that ad and gone looked at another bloody reel and spoke to my wife and said, Do you know what's about gouachars? And she'd have gone, yeah, but you should get a nice one. I'd have spent more time in the decision. I wouldn't have bought them things, but I acted on impulse. And this is a lot of our decisions around nutrition, around not going to the gym, around not getting my steps in. It's just impulse and bad habits, and going into that, and we've got to start putting a bit more space between them decisions. So little recap motivation is low. And it is for across the board, you say you're not on your own. But discipline can be changed by actions. Where are you right now? Where do we want to be at the end of March? We can then do this again for the end of July, whether June, July, whatever the Q2 is. What are the five things that you're doing right now that are holding you back? You're doing, yeah, not anyone else, you're doing. It's your doing, it's your life, it's your decisions. You know, my friends asked me for a glass of wine, it's my friend's problem, it's not, it's your problem for saying yes. What are the things that you are doing that are stopping you, which is crazy because you're the only person that's in the way of your goal, that are stopping you get to that place, and whatever excuses that you have, and however kind you want to be in them moments, I'm being kind to myself. No, stop that, stop that chat. What's kind to yourself and what is doing something for your soul, feeding my soul, a lot of people say, is getting to your goal, is getting to the true identity of who you want to be. That's kind to the soul. That's being kind to yourself. Being kind to yourself is not eating bad foods and then bit feeling shit after. That's not kind. Your body didn't need it. A lot of people say that as well. I needed it. I felt like my body needed it, it was craving it. It's not that's not your body, that's your mind. Um, so get them five things because it will really, really, really help. If you want to send them to me, if you want to go back and forth, if you want any kind of help like navigating it, if I could tell somebody five things to be honest, it will just and just have them so like ingrained. I'd have a post-it note on the top of my computer. You know what? I'm actually doing

Build Space Between Urge And Action

SPEAKER_01 21:20

post-it note for myself. I've got a whiteboard there, I might even put it on my phone. I need five things I'm doing that's just getting in my way. Because sometimes we can go, we can get confused. Why am I not getting there? Why am I what do I keep doing? Why do I keep messing up? Well, now we're gonna we're gonna outline these things. And listen, guys, some of you will not do this. Some of you will just go listen to this call and go, that sounded quite cool, and not do it at all. The people that do the stuff that I advise, the people that do the things like the goals, checking in, all these things. There's a reason why some people get amazing results. And it's because they listen to some of the tasks and they do the majority of them. Because some of these tasks they come from mindset changes. And you know, a lot of people think that coaching is macros and nutrition. It is to a certain degree, but I'm honest with you, AI could probably do that quicker than I can do that now. Like they can change your macros quicker than me. But what it can't do is tap into the mindset, and it's the mindset stuff that you really need to do more of. These little actions, these little thought processes, these little, you know, things of like redoing different versions of yourself, like talking to yourself in a different tone, all those little things of what get people to a successful level, not just in fitness, but in life in general. There are things that people do that you'll speak to when you speak to like a lot of successful people and you'll say, Oh, what'd you do? And they'll say, Oh, I journal and I do therapy and I do X, Y, and Z, and they do all these little things. I've heard that before. You hear them in some self-help books, but there were certain things that can help unlock your mind and help like reject like what's going on that get you to the next level. But don't stay at that level that you're at. Look at other people, do the things that someone's told you to do as well, going, oh, maybe it wouldn't work for me. I'm not the kind of person it works, it wouldn't work for me. Um, I don't really like that kind of stuff. It's the same people that say that they don't like meditation. Or meditation is not for me. It's like it's not for you because you haven't learned how to do it yet. I struggle with meditation because I'm really ADHD, but like there's times where I've spent time in it and I've got through and I've got, oh, that's why people do meditation. You know, there's a reason for all these little things, and you might feel like it's not for you, but it's spend more time in it and see if you can find some success in it because then you realize maybe it is for me, and maybe I'm closing

Mindset Tools That Sustain Change

SPEAKER_01 24:00

myself off to the tools, and that's what these are the tools to get around certain problems.