This week’s guest is Coach Stevo. Coach Stevo has been under the mentorship of Dan John for the past couple of years, but before that he received his Masters Degree in health psychology. I met Steve at the recent Perform Better Summit in Long Beach and knew after only talking to him for a couple of...
This week a coach I’m working with got a message from a client of his that was rather disturbing and he asked for my help. “Going through a divorce. I haven't been as engaged, but I intend to be from now on.” Every coach will deal with this at some point, and it doesn't even have to be this...
“Every relationship you will ever be in will fail,” begins the advice of Dan Savage, “until one doesn’t.” I have a lot of different ways to try to communicate complicated ideas simply, but one of the most effective ones I’ve found so far is to reframe my clients’ questions using the sage wisdom of...
Coaches love tools. We have our "teach the squat" cues, our "fix the squat" correctives, and our "nice squat!" congratulations high-five. But what about when the client leaves? What tools do you have for the other 167 hours? One of my favorite tools for promoting behavior change is a simple...
This excellent article is one of what I hope to be a series of perspectives from clients, potential clients, athletes, and regular folks about their experiences with their bodies, behavior, and mindset around health and fitness. Andrea Ellen is a force of nature and I want to thank her publicly for...
Modeling relationships between self-determination, past behaviour, and habit strength (Gardner & Lally, 2013) Clients hire coaches because they want to make progress on their health and fitness goals. At the same time, they have limited willpower and motivation. Given this constraint, how can...
I went climbing for the first time three weeks ago. And like most people who start, I started off doing something called “top-roping”, which is a way to climb the face of a mountain without using most of the tools. So of course I got curious and asked, “How do all those other tools work?” If you...
As a Fitness Professional, we accept that most of our coaching is client centered. We hope to develop a trusting relationship with the individual so as to build the foundation for change. We provide a program, training, nutrition coaching and our own support all with the goal of helping the client...
Many of us in helping professions are familiar with the legal term, “scope of practice,” but there is more to the idea of scope than covering your ass against lawsuits. Scope means “the extent of the area or subject matter that something deals with or to which it is relevant,” but it also means,...
Yesterday, a friend of mine sent me a link to Wrzesniewski et al. (2014). I was excited to see what might be the largest longitudinal study on motivation to date, but as I read further, I began to notice some problems. In the 1970s, two brilliant psychology researchers noticed something pretty neat...
Trigger Warning: This article has some hurtful words that people called me as a kid. If words hurt you, maybe you should skip this article. I played baseball as a kid. Ok, I technically played baseball. I wore a uniform and people threw balls at me while I was holding a bat. I hated it. I hated the...
A lot of really awesome people have signed up for Motivate: A One Day Health and Behavior Change Summit that we are hosting in Salt Lake City on 9/27. How awesome? Last week, a few of those people got so excited about the possibilities of this Unconference and wrote an eBook. In a week. This...
Dan John should go down in the annals of strength training history for many things, but chief among them is the line, “the goal is to keep the goal the goal.” I am very lucky to have a clear and concise mentor because when I look out into the world of coaching, it’s obvious that Dan’s focus is more...
If there is one problem that leads more people to ruin than anything else, it’s that we think we’re pretty smart. It’s a problem so pervasive in social science that it has a name. The Dunning-Kruger Effect is an identified cognitive bias that people who do not know a lot about a topic tend to think...
Matt McGunagle is one of the many awesome people attending Motivate: A One Day Health and Behavior Change Summit. Sign up if you don't want to miss out on awesome conversations about psychology, health, fitness, and technology on 9/27 in Salt Lake City! It’s sad to say this, but the tech community...
Originally posted on Hello Healthy, the MyFitnessPal blog Did you know: gyms are at their highest capacity in March, not January? Why? Because, no matter how ambitious we get with our New Year’s resolutions, it takes the weather getting warm and the thought of wearing that bikini or a pair of...
Your new, overweight, sedentary client wants to run a marathon. “I’ve already signed up! It’s 6 months away so I’m really motivated!” Some time in the next 6 months your client is going to fail, but that doesn’t mean you can’t prevent a massacre that might turn her away from a healthy lifestyle...
Originally posted on Hello Healthy, the MyFitnessPal blog You’re home on a Saturday. You’re hungry. Your kids are hungry. So you go to the pantry to make a healthy snack and the only thing you have is a box of stale Lucky Charms and soon-to-expire milk. It takes a series of less-than-stellar...
The road to hell is paved with good intentions. People often intend to partake in physical activity. Yet, just as often, they find themselves frustrated at their failure to act on these intentions. Why is it that people remain inactive despite forming intentions to be active? A study by Conroy et...
One of the most powerful words when people are talking about motivation is the word, “should.” “Should” usually means “if I don’t I’ll feel guilty” and is a hallmark in Self-Determination Theory research of what is referred to as introjected motivation. Introjected motivation is internal, but...