After coaching over 300 people, you start to see patterns. Not in the results — those vary enormously. But in the people who get results versus the people who don't. And the differentiating factor is almost never what you'd expect.
It's not motivation. Motivated people fail all the time. It's not knowledge — some of the most informed clients I've worked with are also the most stuck. It's not even time. The busiest people I've coached have often made the most progress.
THE ONE THING THAT PREDICTS RESULTS
"The people who change are the ones who have stopped negotiating with themselves."
The men who transform their health have made a decision — not a resolution, not a goal, not a plan — a decision. There's a quality of finality to it. They're not trying something to see if it works. They've decided it's going to work and they're figuring out how. That internal shift changes everything about how they approach obstacles, setbacks, and the inevitable hard days.
WHAT THE STRUGGLING CLIENTS HAVE IN COMMON
The clients who struggle are almost always still negotiating. They're asking 'can I have this?' instead of 'do I want this more than I want the result?'. They're looking for the version of the plan that requires the least change. They want to know the minimum effective dose before they've committed to taking any dose at all.
This is not a character flaw. It's a sign that they haven't yet made the decision. And you can't coach someone into making a decision. You can only show them what's possible and wait.
The practical question
- Are you trying to get healthy, or have you decided to get healthy? The language difference is small. The behavioural difference is enormous.
- When you face a hard choice — the biscuits, the late night, the skipped workout — are you negotiating, or are you executing a decision you already made?
- What would change about your behaviour tomorrow if you treated your health as non-negotiable rather than aspirational?
The plan matters less than you think. The decision matters more than almost anything else. Get that right and the rest is just execution.