The #1 Thing Holding Your Coaching Business Back
If you’re a health and fitness coach, you’ve seen this happen before…
New client comes in and starts one of your programs. A week or two goes by and they start to see some change in their bodies, but quickly fall off the wagon once the momentum from starting dies down.
They start coming to you with “my life is so busy, I can’t make it to the gym regularly” or “I’m tired of eating chicken and rice every single day.” They slowly fall back into their old habits and practices, eventually deciding that because they can’t do the basics, they mine as well not do it at all
Before you know it your client is back to where they started with little to no progress made in your short stint.
This is the all or nothing mindset—it poisons progress.
It sabotages weight loss goals, sabotaging your goals too.
When we try to do everything perfectly in our business and set unrealistic goals, it won’t be long before we break and throw in the towel, just like a client.
Overcoming this mindset is easier than you think. It can be the railroad switch that points your business in a totally different direction. Here’s how you can crush the all or nothing mindset and start growing your coaching business into an empire.
How the All-or-Nothing Mindset kills coaches…
I am either a success or a failure. My website has to look impressive, unique, and professional or it won’t do my business any good. My Instagram has to look better than the other coaches’ or I’ll never catch a client’s attention. If I can’t be better than the competition out there, I’ll just be wasting my time trying to make this business work.
Sound familiar?
These are the whispers of the all-or-nothing mindset. It thinks in extremes, but our world doesn’t operate in extremes. It makes you think that the reason your business is struggling is because you can’t go full-out and be the best 100% of the time. It distracts us from the true cause of failed businesses—what we do after we make a mistake, lose a client, or host a no-show event.
When the all-or-nothing mindset controls the way you think and operate, it’s nearly impossible to continue going forward. It leaves you in a permanent state of paralysis.
Until now—here are the 5 steps to overcoming this mindset.
Before you dive in, take 5 minutes to watch our CEO, Amanda Nighbert, talk about crushing this mindset in her TEDx talk at Grand Canyon University.
5 moves to dominate the All-or-Nothing Mindset
1. Find Your Static Reference Point
Have you ever taken a yoga class and fallen over in the middle of a balance pose? Your instructor might have told you to give your brain a static reference point by focusing on a particular spot or object in the room. By keeping your eye locked on one point, you were far more stable and didn’t topple over the next time.
Keep your coaching business from toppling over by setting your eyes on a static future goal. Be realistic and specific with this goal, deciding on where you want your business to be in the next 6 months, year, or two years.
For example, if you want to have an online group program up and running in six months, how many people do you want to have signed up by that point? Are you going to also run a successful one-on-one coaching program? What would you cover there and how many clients can you take on?
Select a static future goal and set your eyes on it. Keep your business and its efforts moving straight toward this point, so that you don’t start drifting off-route.
2. Lay The Stepping Stones
While in the first move, you were looking at your business from a bird’s eye view, now it’s time to look at the details at ground level. Once you know where you’re headed, clarify exactly what steps you need to take in order to reach your goal.
If you want to run a profitable group program, start selecting your program’s main focus, the clients it will serve, and the content it will contain.
If you’re planning on starting a money-making one-on-one program, how long would it be, how much would you charge, and what clients could you serve?
Hoping to build an ongoing monthly program to keep current paying clients around for longer? What steps do you need to take in order to get this program up and running?
The more carefully you lay these stones, the stronger they’ll be when you start rolling your business forward. Spend time creating a clear path and make it a priority so that if you get distracted along the way, you can easily find your way back to the straight path and your ultimate goal.
3. Set Up Checkpoints
Friends or other coaches working in the industry can be a huge help as you work toward your business goals. Once you’ve established your goals and laid out your plan, create accountability with people who can support you.
Check-in with someone every week, two weeks, or month to make sure you’re still headed in the right direction. Offer the same support to your fellow coaches. This way, you can lay a foundation for a long-term business relationship that can benefit you both.
Keep yourself accountable by scheduling in time to check your progress each week. Mark off sixty minutes on your calendar to review your goals, plan your next steps, and redirect your work if it’s getting off track.
4. Take It In Stride
Every day isn’t going to give you a “breakthrough.” Somedays you just have to put your head down and grind it out. Some weeks will feel like you’re just spinning your wheels. But if you take mistakes in stride and keep moving forward, you’ll find that it gets easier the farther you go.
For example, when creating an online coaching program, you may want to focus more on activity and workouts than diet and macros, but your clients are asking nutrition questions more than workout questions. Go ahead and store your workout plan for another day—maybe in six months, your audience will start to take interest in it—and start working on that once you’ve cured their nutrition cravings.
Once you know your audience better, it’ll be much easier to create more programs that match their interests from now on.
5. Keep Trekking Forward
Nothing is easy out of the gate. We all know as coaches that we hit struggles, discouragement, and failures while we work on our businesses. How we react to these bumps in the road has everything to do with whether our businesses succeed or don’t.
To let the all-or-nothing mindset go, replace it with a better one that is compounded on consistency.
Commit to a persistent mindset.
The more you get in the habit of taking the next right step for your business, the easier it will become to let go of your old mindset and habits. Don’t give up on the hard days. They are part of the challenge and become easier the more consistent you are.
What to do when you start to feel overwhelmed…
Running a business is not simple or straightforward.
At times, it can feel like driving a car in a foreign country without a map. You wish the road was a straight shot with clear signs along the way, but the reality of running a coaching business is that we all feel a little lost at times and take wrong turns.
The all-or-nothing mindset would like you to believe that after a wrong turn, you should turn back and give up on the journey altogether. The persistent mindset tells you to keep moving forward, even when you hit a bump in the road.
While persistence is key to the success of your coaching business, an experienced guide to help you navigate would save you a lot of time and headache on your journey.
That’s where our SPRNG Methodology Series comes in. We layout the roadmap that will lead you to your business goals.
Our SPRNG app will be the guide that makes sure you get there. Schedule a free demo today, and see how having your own app will build your business to new heights.