You’re busy. Like real busy. When do you have time to make a plan to lose weight, start working out again, go back to school, or just add something that brings you joy?
If you were to depict your life in a picture it might be you with any number of obligations whirling around your head, all of which you are responsible for taking care of.
And you do take care of them. You know you have to step up for your family, for your career, for your life.
But the amount of energy it takes to stay on top of all that life throws at us leaves us with very little left over. And it is the energy that is left over that we use to repair and rebuild ourselves.
What they don’t tell you is that there is no guarantee that you’ll ever find the peace and quiet you need to really dig in on yourself. Life does not actually stop to give you space to grow and change.
So how on earth can we get anything done when our list of responsibilities is already overflowing?
Table of Contents
THE FRAMEWORK
Below is the framework we use in our programs to help coach our clients towards their goals. Whether they are hoping to lose weight, change their body composition, become more confident, achieve a specific performance goal, or just look and feel better, the framework is the same.
And we work specifically with busy humans who may not have lots of free time to focus on themselves. Life goes fast and it is not until the end that we realize how worth it it is to pay more attention to what your needs really are. You deserve to know things can be better. You can be better. You can be stronger. You can be happier!
Each step below has a purpose as well as a quick to do, something you are able to do immediately.
Use these notes as a jumping off point and please let me know how your journey is going. Yes, I would love to work with you but you absolutely are able to start making changes on your own. You tell me what you need from there.
I. Establish Your Starting Point aka Do An Audit
Step 1 is simply giving ourselves the information we need to understand where we are at in this moment.
This is important because our thoughts on where we are at are not always accurate. We tell ourselves stories because that is how we survive in this world mentally and emotionally.
But sometimes those stories will veer from the truth in order to protect us or to bring us comfort during times of distress. This is useful when the world is literally crumbling down around us but when we cling to these false narratives in moments we need to grow we may find ourselves staying put.
When we say we only eat out twice a week, but its really 4-5x, or when we think we only have a few glasses of wine but its really a few glasses a few times per week, these things add up. We are not bad people for these habits, but we are going to drive ourselves crazy if we are wondering why we are not losing weight.
Purpose: Gain an accurate perspective of what you are actually up against and what change you are hoping to make
Common: People often skip this step
Quick To Do: Write down everything you eat and drink today. Complete this for 3-5 days in a row to establish a baseline of information from which to build your new approach.
II. Develop Your Plan of Attack
Step 2 is the inverse of Step 1. Instead of looking to the past to see the habits and decisions we make more often than not, we now are planning those habits and decisions as we would like them to be going forward. Do not get overly enthusiastic here. Small changes are the focus.
Yes, I too hope I wake up and only crave the foods that leave me with the perfect mind, body, and soul, but for now I am focusing on getting all of my protein in each day and going from there.
Purpose: To design a realistic and effective strategy based on your newly identified Starting Point
Common: Two approaches, developing a plan and never executing OR skipping this and going right to executing “spontaneously”
Quick To Do: Looking over your food choices from the last 3-5 days, is there an action step that has made itself obvious? Eat out less? Fewer sodas? Add at least one vegetable to each day of eating? Pick one thing and add it to your plan for tomorrow.
III. Execute
At some point it comes time to jump. Life will never make everything perfect for you. The world will not stop moving. Your kids will not stop being busy. Your partner will not stop having their own responsibilities. You just have to go. Do the thing! You deserve to start!
Purpose: Give yourself the green light to operate based on your new plan
Common: Starting here without the two steps before
Quick to Do: Take a change you have identified in step 1 and planned into your day in step 2 and execute! No matter how small you will build momentum and confidence from just adding something productive to your day.
IV. Remember Your Why
You know you need to lose weight. And you likely are aware of the pain or discomfort you feel as a result of carrying that extra weight around with you. But even if we are very aware that we are not where we want to be, it is still important to be as specific as possible about WHY we are seeking change.
Most people are able to start a transformation like this lots of energy and commitment. But all too often we see a big drop off around weeks 2 and 3, even among those who have seen positive changes. Maybe even more often with people who have seen positive changes already.
Why is that? Because things are not exciting anymore. Or we get bored. Or, more specifically, we tell ourselves that we have conquered it and now we are bored instead of admitting we fear that we will not be able to stick it out as long as we need to.
When someone does not really know WHY they are doing something they have a much harder time continuing on once its not fun anymore.
Your WHY can be something like “because being overweight has made life more uncomfortable than it should be,” but it also can be “because I am an active person and an active person makes food choices based on supporting my active lifestyle.”
The Why of why you started and/or the Why of who you are becoming both work well here.
- Purpose: To avoid boredom and stagnation once the excitement of the new adventure wears off
- Common: Not realizing why its so hard to continue after things are going well for a week or two.
- Quick to Do: Establish your Why and revisit often so that it is always top of mind when you are thinking about this current project
V. Remeasure your Starting Point
Who you are today is not who you were 5 years ago. And the same goes for you while you are on this journey. Yes, change often requires the adoption of new behaviors of choices that we repeat over a long period of time, but we also are able to change our area of focus as we gain more experience and demonstrate more consistency.
A beginner may focus on cutting out soda and adding a vegetable to each day of eating. And yes, less soda and more vegetables would serve us well for forever, but someone who spends 2-3 weeks doing that well will benefit from renewing or refining their goals based on their new routine.
Purpose: To evaluate our new starting point along the path of our journey so you are able to refine the steps you are taking as you continue to make progress
Common: Not continuing to evolve as you take on and adapt to the new challenges you’ve selected.
Quick to Do: Set a reminder for two weeks from today to revisit you Starting Point. How can you build on what you were able to do well? And how can you try again on anything that may have slipped more than you would have liked?
Using this framework you are able to get moving on your own personal journey. Small steps lead to big changes so do not overwhelm yourself at the start. Find something small that is within your control and go from there. I look forward to hearing about your success!
For those of you who would be interested in having a coach going alongside you instead of going alone, I would love to help. You are able to schedule a time to talk through the link below. I’d be very excited to walk alongside you while you make these meaningful changes.