4 Strategies to Help Your Clients Achieve and Sustain Behavior Change

4 Strategies to Help Your Clients Achieve and Sustain Behavior Change

awareness behavior change brain science breaking habits change coaching growth mindset mindset coach personal development psychology Jul 01, 2022

Do you ever lead a zoom meeting with no agenda?⁣

I do this every week during the Health Mindset Certificate Coaching program and every month in the alumni group, and we have the best conversations!

Coaches share their tough client cases during these zoom meetings, and I provide guidance and teaching.⁣

Eventually, HMCC grads are able to share client success stories with the group based on what they’ve learned throughout the program. 

In a recent call, Evelyn, one of the HMCC grads, shared a story about a client who used to be afraid to come into her office because she thought Evelyn would act like the food police and judge her. Now, this client feels empowered, like she can make the food choices she wants and is becoming the person she wants to be. 

It can be challenging to help clients who struggle in this way, so let’s talk about some specific strategies that Evelyn used to help her client (and you can use them with your clients!).

 

Strategy 1: Discrepancy Identification

 

This client struggled between who she thinks she is and who she wants to be⁣, which is a very common discrepancy that creates discomfort and makes it difficult to change. 

However, clients don't always realize this discrepancy exists⁣, and we can't just tell our clients that that is the case⁣.

Instead, Evelyn guided her client to recognize this via reflective listening skills she learned in HMCC. With that guidance, Evelyn’s client was able to see the discrepancy for herself and make the necessary changes to become the person she wants to be. 

This change, of course, didn’t happen overnight. It’s something Evelyn and her client had to work on because behavior change and habit building can ⁣take some time.

 

Strategy 2: ⁣Awareness Building

You can't change what you don't know needs changing.⁣

Evelyn helped her client cultivate awareness around triggers⁣ using questions she got from HMCC.

These questions allowed her client to better understand herself and helped Evelyn be a better coach⁣. Once they figured out what the triggers were, they were able to address them by creating if-then plans.

 

Strategy 3: Revealing Core Beliefs

In HMCC, we touch on Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and how to leverage coaching strategies from it⁣.

Evelyn helped her client break negative thought patterns and discover her core beliefs about food.⁣

Discovering a client’s core beliefs is such an important step when it comes to making mindset shifts and long-term change⁣s.

Coaches can help their clients by identifying their core beliefs to change them so the client stops self-sabotaging and regains control of their actions and emotions.

 

Strategy 4: Understanding Neuroplasticity

"I feel like a broken record," said every coach ever⁣.

Behavior change takes time (and brain change does too—aka neuroplasticity), and that might mean you need to chat with your clients about the same thing more than once.

Evelyn knew this and was patient with her client, and, ultimately, patience is a super underrated coaching strategy.

There’s a reason that I’m always talking about things like cultivating a growth mindset on Instagram, this blog, and inside HMCC. It’s because repetition is necessary for people to remember what you’re saying. ⁣

Coaches, check your mindset⁣.

Just because you need to share information more than once doesn't make your clients incompetent⁣. In fact, repetition is a tool.

You can create new pathways in your brain, but effort and repetition are required.⁣

 

Improve Your Coaching Practice

These are four major lessons from just ONE client⁣.

It's so cool to see the HMCC coaches build confidence and positively impact so many lives.⁣

The coaches who join the Health Mindset Coaching Certification benefit from more client adherence, retention, and success without pulling their hair out in the process.

You can also learn how to apply these evidence-based methods to your coaching practice by joining the next round of the Health Mindset Coaching Certification. In this 13-week program, I’ll teach you how to apply research and science to your coaching so you feel more confident in your abilities to help clients with psychological aspects of health and fitness.

If you’re constantly struggling with non-adherent clients and feel unable to help those with self-sabotaging behaviors, all-or-nothing thinking, or mindset barriers, HMCC is for you!

Click here to join the waitlist for the next round of the Health Mindset Coaching Certification, and you’ll receive five FREE primer lessons that you can immediately implement in your coaching practice. 



See my original Instagram post here.

 

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IG: @coachkaseyjo @kjocoaching

Hi, I'm Kasey!

I coach, mentor, write, and teach with one main focus: Build strong bodies and healthy lifestyles, starting with your mindset.

 

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