The ABC Method for Clients Who Won't Follow Through | EP 108

Why tweaking the plan again isn't going to fix your client's follow-through

Dr. Kasey Jo Orvidas breaks down why endlessly tweaking a client's plan doesn't actually fix their lack of follow-through, and why reaching for the "uncoachable client" label is often more about coach relief than reality. She walks through the ABCs of motivation from self-determination theory, autonomy, belongingness, and competence, and shows how identifying which need isn't being met changes the entire conversation.

In this episode, she covers:

• Why labeling a client "uncoachable" gives coaches short-term relief but doesn't solve anything long term
• Why perpetually adjusting the plan treats the symptom instead of the root cause
• The ABCs of motivation: autonomy, belongingness, and competence, and how to spot which one is missing
• A better question to ask than "why won't they just do it?"
• Her brand new Client Follow-Through Formula Boot Camp

If you've ever changed a client's plan five different ways and still can't figure out why they're not following through, this episode is for you.

Tune into the episode to learn how to diagnose what's actually driving inconsistency instead of just changing the plan again.

Sign up for the Client Follow Through Formula Boot Camp

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Transcript

0:00

You saying, 'Why won't they just do it?' is the problem in and of itself. Hello my friends, and welcome back to not another Mindset show. I'm your host, Dr. Casey Joe. My goal with this podcast is to take the science of mindset and behavior change and distill it down into actionable takeaways for you. Together we're gonna unpack research around motivations, self-sabotage, willpower, and so much more, and we're going to take all of that and translate it into strategies you can immediately apply to your health. Fitness, relationships, business, marketing clients, all of the things. But just to be clear, it's not all serious and sciencey around here. We're gonna have a ton of fun too, and I'm so excited to share all of this with you. All right, let's go ahead and get into the episode. Hello, and welcome back to Not Another Mindset Show. Today, we're gonna talk about the thing that most coaches try to do to solve a problem with their clients and why it doesn't actually work. And I really wanted to go a certain direction with this episode, but actually decided that I'm gonna go into one of those directions on an entirely different episode, because it really does deserve its own episode, and that's the idea of, like, what to do with an uncoachable client. So stay tuned. That will be released. I'm quite literally batch recording episodes, so I promise you it will be released within the next few weeks maximum. So something that comes up a lot when I am working with my students inside the Health Mindset Coaching Certification, when I am getting DMs from you guys on Instagram, in the question submission form, which you can find in every single show note of every single episode. Well, at least 99% of them, you will find a question submission form. So when I do a Q&A episode, you can ask me a question about your clients, about your coaching, about your own mindset, or just about me. If you wanna get to know me, you can put that in there, too. But what comes up so frequently is coaches saying, like, "I have made all of these changes based on what my client says. Like, I am learning from you, Casey, and I understand that I need to hear my clients and understand where they're coming from and not make assumptions and not jump to conclusions, but they're saying all of these things, and so I changed the plan based on those things, and it's still not working. They're still not following through. They're still struggling to stick to the plan." So the reality is Changing the plan is it going to help your clients actually follow through. Sometimes, sometimes, not making, like, a blanket statement here. Sometimes that can help because it might just be that they do need a little bit more flexibility or things to be structured a different way. Maybe they need a three-day training split instead of a five-day training split, and now suddenly things are so much easier. That can actually for sure be true. But if you have a client who will not follow through no matter what you do, no matter what changes you make to the plan, and you're starting to think, "Maybe it's just the client. Maybe they're just not coachable. Maybe they're just not ready." Again, I am doing an entire episode on how to work with uncoachable clients. But we reach for this uncoachable label or this idea that it can't be me as the coach at this point, 'cause I've tried everything, because it's a relief. It's a relief. And it's okay. It's okay. It's okay if it feels like a relief for you to be like, "This is on the client and it's not on me." That is a very, very normal human brain response, that in order to get rid of the discomfort that I am feeling of this person not sticking to the plan and therefore not seeing results and making progress, that I don't have to let that fall on me and my coaching. Honestly, like, yes, we want there to be responsibility taken from the client, uh, but I would argue most of the time most coaches aren't taking enough responsibility themselves and are too quick to put the blame and all of the responsibility off on the client. So labeling in the way that your, your client is just uncoachable or pushing the responsibility off to your client, it's a relief. It helps you in the moment.

But let me ask you this question: 5:01

Does it help you long-term? Does saying- the reason why this client can't stick to things and the reason they're not making progress is on them, does it actually make you feel better in the long term or does it just make you feel good in that one check-in that you do with them? And then maybe temporarily in the next check-in, and then maybe temporarily in the next check-in. But now they're not even checking in anymore, and now they're wanting to get out of their coaching contract early. Are you still feeling good there and then? I- or you just stop hearing from them entirely and you're perfectly okay with continuing to take their monthly investment for coaching and pocket the cash even though they're not seeing success in the way that you would like them to? Does it… Do you still feel good then? I'm, I, I want you to know I'm not trying to attack you here. I'm just a- trying to help you realize that a lot of the time, whether it is this situation or other situations, we do things to relieve discomfort in the moment that does not actually lead to long-term discomfort relief or actually solves anything. I've said this before so many times, and it's usually in the per- from the perspective that we're talking about clients, that people do things or don't do things for one of two reasons, and it is to eliminate discomfort or to solve a problem. And here's the thing, my friend. As a coach, you also do those things. So in this case, it feels a little bit like I'm labeling this client as uncoachable, or I'm assuming that at this point the responsibility is on them simply because it gives you discomfort relief and/or it's solving the problem of this person's not making progress. So the problem resolution, in quotes here, is that it's, it's just on them. So that kind of solves the problem. It doesn't really solve the problem, but it feels like it kinda solves the problem in the moment. Okay, okay, I'm, I, I'm done, I'm done giving you shit, okay? And I need you to know that that's, that's not the point here. It's just to make you realize that there might be other things going on. And as much as we are getting into our client's mindset, we also need to be paying attention to our own. And that is actually something that comes up so often for my students who go through the Health Mindset Coaching Certification, that they were there, they enrolled in the program, they wanted to become a Health Mindset Certified coach so that they could better support their clients, better support their business, help their clients more, get more client referrals, get better client retention, all of the great things that come with that. And then they say, "I didn't realize how much this was gonna help me with my own mindset or my other relationships in my life," because all of this stuff applies to you, too. So when we just assume that the client has to take responsibility at this point 'cause you've exhausted all of your own resources, you're kinda just, like, quietly blaming the client's character And that's where it really does go wrong, because you're assuming that this person is the way that they are, and now we're talking about your mindset about them, and maybe even your mindset about their mindset. But you're leading the charge. You're the role model here. You're, you're the coach. and So how you coach, how you think, your beliefs, your mindset, is going to impact what happens to your client, and that is something that you should not take lightly, okay? Don't take it lightly. Okay, so instead of just maybe immediately labeling, because I'm gonna go ahead and guess, if you're sitting here listening to me, and you're consuming my content, some of you are my students. Hi, hello, I love you. And you've learned from me before. You've listened to how many episodes at this point? You're here because you are one of those good coaches out there. You are, and there's, uh, there's s- not many of us at this point. And in fact, I, I do fear, maybe this is my own fixed mindset, but I do fear that it's getting worse, that there are more and more coaches who are getting so frustrated and giving up, and also just with the state of what it's like to try to sign a client, especially if you're an online coach. It ain't as easy as it was in, like, 2021, okay? So there's just, like, a lot of pressure, and there's a lot of things going on, and it's, mm. What I would hate is that between the pressure of where the industry is at and then frustration with your clients, that you're like, "I am really actually falling out of love with coaching, and I don't know if this is even something that I wanna do anymore." And it's probably, like, a- again, like, a, a culmination of all of these different variables at play. But again, if you're here, you don't want to give up on those clients. The ones that are struggling to stick to the plan. You've tried a bunch of things. You don't wanna just say, "Okay, well, that's your own problem. I did everything that I can," and just move on. That's not why you're here. You're not listening to this episode. You literally would not be here if you were that type of person. But what you might do instead, you may not give up, but you may just perpetually try to change the plan. A smaller goal, a different schedule, simpler steps, and then you change it again, and again, and again, and again, and again. Plan tweaking feels like you are coaching the problem It really does. And, and sometimes it does help. Sometimes it is the answer. Making adjustments can work. Said this before. But the signal that you need to pay attention to, and if you're doing someone else, come back to me for this one, okay? Pay attention to what I'm about to say. If you've adjusted the plan, you've done this already, and the same stalling pattern continues to show up as you continue to adjust it, like this has happened now many adjustments, continued plan stalling The plan is not the problem And that should not, like, come to you as, like, a revelation, right? Like, okay, yeah, Casey, I guess that makes sense. If I've been continuing to try to change the plan and it keeps not working, and then I change the plan more and then it keeps not working, yeah, you're right, it probably is not the plan, right? The lack of follow-through and consistency is really more like a symptom. And, and just, like, honestly with, like, the issue of so much of, like, Western medicine, which we do not need to get into right now, is just Band-Aid approaches and treating the symptom rather than really trying to identify what the root cause is. Like, what is causing all of these symptoms? Instead of just saying, like, "Here's a pill for the symptom." That's kinda kinda like what we're doing when we're just perpetually changing the plan. You're treating the symptom, but you're not actually getting to the underlying root cause. So, like, f- for example, when you do change the plan and that works for a little bit, but then it stops working again, this is also a very clear indication that it was like a Band-Aid, and the Band-Aids are eventually gonna fall off and still reveal the underlying problem. But maybe not reveal it, just let you know that there's still, there's still a problem. The Band-Aid was not enough. So by changing the plan, you're basically just treating the symptom, not the underlying cause. So lack of follow-through, consistency issues- They're coming up because what's actually driving it is not going to be adjusted, is not going to be fixed by changing the plan. A plan that your client agreed to, for example, it won't hold if the motivation underneath it all, not just the plan, but, like, the goal that they have for themselves, if the motivation is feeling more controlled rather than autonomous, or if a basic need like autonomy, belongingness, and competence, which we're gonna get into in this episode, isn't being met, if you change the plan, but the motivation still stays the same, and the need still is left unmet, changing the plan may work for a second, m- or it may not work at all is what I'm getting at here. Okay, so questions that coaches ask me, and I, I wrote this one down: I don't understand why clients just won't follow through I've done… Like, I will literally, guys, sometimes get these paragraphs of messages of, like,"Here's all the things I've tried. Why won't they do it?" And I'm like,"You saying, 'Why won't they just do it?' is the problem in and of itself." It is, it is, it is. Because there's no useful answer to, like, why won't this person do it? Like, that's the truth. It's just frustration that you're feeling with a fat question mark at the end of it. And there's a lot of better questions to be asking when it comes to client follow-through. So something specific I do wanna leave you with here, since I'm just, like, running around on this, like, same thing. Here I am hitting my microphone again for the 700th time. Instead of asking, "Why is this person not doing what they're supposed to be doing? Why is this person not following through?" ask yourself,"What need is not being met?" This is an entirely different question, and it is a much better question. So when I say need, I'm referring to basic psychological needs that we have as humans. This comes from the, one of the longest standing theories in behavior change research from self-determination theory. I talk about them as the ABCs. We have autonomy, belongingness, and competence. So autonomy, do they feel in control of this? Or are they doing it for something or f- for someone else? Or are you maybe accidentally removing their autonomy by just telling them what to do and making them think that you know better than they know about what's going to work for them? Which, yes, I know they hired you to learn these things and to get these things from you, but it still can be not autonomy supportive, which, again, this is gonna go into the, that future episode that I was talking about, so, like, see you in a few weeks on that. Belongingness, do they feel supportive? Do they feel like your coaching is supportive? Do they feel supported in their life, or do they feel alone? Because that is a big reason why someone might not follow through. If they don't feel like they belong at the gym, if they don't feel like they belong amongst your client community, that they are like, "I'm not fit enough yet. I don't feel this way yet. I'm not as excited about these things yet." Or in their social circle, that everyone else is doing the exact opposite of these changes that they want to make in their life. They don't feel like they belong there either. That's going to play a big role in follow through. Or competence, man. Yeah. They don't actually think that they can do this. They don't actually think that they can change. They don't actually think that they can develop the skill set to make this, like, a long-term thing. Then what's the point? If I'm sitting here and, like, trying to learn a new skill or a new behavior or stick to something new, and in the back of my mind I'm like, "Yeah, I don't really know if I can do that, though. I could do it maybe for, like, 30 days, but then after that, probably not," I'd probably really struggle to find the value and the utility in being consistent in that right now, because literally, what's the point if it's not going to stick around? Okay. This, the ABCs, autonomy, belongingness, competence, is a really big part of client motivation that I teach inside the Health Mindset Coaching Certification, and honestly, right now, like, without even going through HMCC, you can use this as an assessment tool. And I would really, really, really, really, really encourage you, next time you wanna be like, "I don't understand why this person just can't do the thing. Why are you the way that you are?" To notice when you think that in yourself, and then go, "Okay, what's a more useful question? Oh, right. Dr. Casey Joe told me about this on an episode." What need is not being met? Do they not feel autonomous? Do they not feel like they belong? Do they not feel competent? And it's possible more than one is at play here, but that immediately will get you going in a more effective direction than just asking, like, "Why will this person not listen to me?" So you can use that as an assessment to understand what is actually going on, why they're actually not following through. And when you recognize what that is, and you work with them on that thing instead, then you're not using the Band-Aid approach to just treat the symptom, to just change the plan in order to help them be more consistent. You're actually getting to the root cause that is causing the lack of follow-through symptoms. Are you with me? Are you with me? Are you picking this up? Because coaches get this wrong so, so, so often. Changing the plan just treats the symptom. That's, that's what you're doing, and if you're not getting to the root cause, then you're just gonna keep trying to treat the symptoms over and over and over again, and it's going to be exhausting for both of you. Okay. The science of why people follow through, the motivation piece under everything, this isn't part of your standard training certifications for nutrition and fitness, so you are not to blame, okay? We can blame the coaching education industry for this. So it makes sense to me that most coaches are like, "Well, I'm just gonna keep tweaking things and changing the plan and trying to do things differently and tell them to do things differently, and that's gonna do it." Of course you do that, because you were not taught to do anything differently. So if you would like to spend some more time on this, if you're like, " I really wanna get into this, like this sounds interesting to me. It sounds like the direction I wanna go with my coaching. I'm really starting to get burnt out on this, just like these clients that say they're gonna do the thing and then they don't, and then I have to change it, and then they still don't do it," and you're just like running in circles together, and you wanna figure out the real reason what's going on If you really wanna start coaching at a deeper level, like, I don't know, beyond what ChatGPT and AI can do, because unfortunately, a lot of coaches are up against that these days. If you can't do something different, uh, than what AI can do, I'm not gonna, like, scare you about, like, losing our job or anything, but, like, this real human part in being able to understand the underlying mechanisms of how humans work from a motivation perspective and follow-through perspective and behavior change and psychology, like, that is what is going to allow you to continue to stand out If if you want to join me, I have something brand new, brand new coming out, and I would like to formally invite you to it. It's a boot camp. I've never ran a boot camp before, but I promise it's not gonna be like, "Oh my God, she doesn't know what she's doing." I've been teaching, I've been mentoring for like many, many years. Like, even prior to owning my business, I was teaching Psychology 101 students at NC State. So never done before. I'm super excited. This is the Client Follow-Through Formula, Client Follow-Through Formula Boot Camp. It's a behavior change coaching boot camp, and I would really, really love for you to be there. The link is in the show notes. We are gonna spend three full days together. I have… Ugh, I can't give too much away How much do I wanna give away? Mm. The, this, the formula that I have for you really is like a step-by-step process that you can use in your coaching immediately. Like, you're gonna leave every single day of the bootcamp with something you can take into your client check-ins, uh, the next day. And in just three days. I hope I'm not, like, making this sound like I'm overselling it. I promise you I'm not. For those of you who have been to even my free experiences before, you've gone through, like, lead magnets that I've had, you've been a student of mine before in any capacity, I know how to show up, okay? I'm gonna, I'm gonna provide a lot of value for you, and I've been spending a lot of time figuring out how I can give you the most value to make sure that these three days don't just give you something that you can do with your next client and then be done, but actually literally will change the way that you think about every client going forward and how you coach going forward forever. I know that's a big promise, but I am fully ready to deliver on that promise. So link is in the show notes. I hope that this helped you start to just think differently. I really love this analogy of, like, the symptom versus the root cause, because it, I, I really think that this is at, like, the core of so much coaching frustration for coaches who are falling out of love with coaching. They're starting to consider getting out of coaching. It's like the reality is that this is, this is why, because you're trying to help your clients by treating the quote-unquote symptom of their lack of consistency and not sticking to the plan and all of this stuff by changing the plan, when the reality is you're, you're kinda missing the forest for the trees, you know? So we're gonna get into that, and I'm really excited, and I really hope to see you there. But otherwise, thank you for being here. And I have more kind of, like, on this topic, like I said. I promise. I will, I will follow through on that, and you'll see that in some coming episodes. But I appreciate you, seriously. You're the reason I get to be here in the first place and talk about the things that I love to talk about so much and make an impact in the way that I would like to. So that's all, and I will see you next week And that's a wrap for today's episode of Not another Mindset show. If you enjoyed today's episode, don't forget to hit that subscribe button so you get notified of the next one. Because if you're anything like me, if the episodes aren't popping up for you automatically, you'll keep forgetting to come back to the show even if you really, really enjoyed it. So go ahead and hit that subscribe button and make it super easy for you and of course. If you wanna see more episodes just like this one, I'd love for you to let me know by leaving a review. I know, I know it's super annoying to do, but the few seconds that it takes means the world to me and also ensures that I can keep providing free education and value to you. And just to sweeten the deal, I am going to be picking a random reviewer every single month to receive a free workshop or product from me. If you're looking for more free resources or just wanna connect, hang out, chat a little bit, come find me on Instagram. I'm Coach Casey, Joe over there. That is where I hang out the most in the land of social media. Alright, my friends, that is all I have for you this time. I so appreciate you being here and love to see you prioritizing your growth. I'll see you next time.