In this episode of Build It Beautiful, we dive deep into the power of clarity. Learn how to define your vision, set clear goals, and communicate effectively to inspire and motivate your team. Discover practical strategies to eliminate confusion, boost productivity, and achieve remarkable results. Whether you’re a seasoned leader or just starting your journey, this episode will provide you with the tools and insights you need to lead with clarity and confidence.
When we have clarity, we know what we want, why we want it, and how to achieve it. We are able to make informed decisions and take action with purpose.
Clarity acts as a guiding light, illuminating the path towards joyful living. It empowers us to make informed choices, prioritize our actions, and navigate life with purpose.
Visual (line from two points) — Realistic Line (crazy between two points)
Activities
Get Outside the Box (5 Mins)
Write down as many goals as possible
Circle only three you’d like to focus on
Future Backtrack
Put yourself in the future when you have accomplished this goal
Ask yourself what you did to reach this goal
Write down all the things you did
Keep asking yourself until you get to the simple daily things you did to reach the goal
This will create a timeline and course for you to follow
The Gap and the Gain – Measure the Gains – Fence Posts
How do you know you are on your way? Counting fence posts. I can’t wait to share this tool with you.
The mission of the Women’s Wellness Summit is to amplify women’s voices, impact, and influence through the 8 dimensions of wellness: physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, social, environmental, financial, and occupational.
This Summit brings women, of all seasons of life, together to explore new outlets for their wellness journey.
Whether with a coach or a trainer or having no accountability at all, how many times have you “set a goal,” only to not reach it and then feel disappointed in yourself?
This has happened to most of us, even me as a coach, and the problem with goal achievement isn’t usually that we “failed” or “didn’t work hard enough” — it’s that our goals weren’t clear and descriptive enough to offer us an effective road map to the end result.
using the right coach can help you reach your goals this year
The goals that you set should be a helpful way for you to nail down exactly what you want to achieve and how to get there. Your goals should offer you ways to monitor your progress along the way. In this article, I’ll coach you exactly how to set yourself up for success.
Outcome-Based Goals
When most people set goals, they choose an outcome they’d like to reach. Outcome-based goals focus on the end-result, and are often number-oriented. These types of goals are very familiar to us, and they’re easy to identify. Losing twenty pounds, squatting your bodyweight, doing five chin-ups are all outcome-based goals.
Unfortunately, outcome-based goals sole focus is on the result, and these goals often leave out the most important details and step-by-step instructions. The most common experience in attempting to achieve an outcome-based goal includes:
Getting frustrated when it’s difficult to make progress toward your goal.
Feeling like you just have to “work harder” when you fail to reach your goal.
Starting to believe something is wrong with you when you work harder and still don’t reach your goal, and feeling overwhelmed with the process.
The good news is, you’re not a failure and there’s nothing wrong with you. Rather, your outcome-based goal has failed you and it needs some revamping. Here’s why.
Outcome-based goals don’t leave you 100% in control of achieving them.
The things you can do are to create the conditions and behaviors that make your outcome more likely. For example, if you have a goal of squatting your bodyweight, but you do random workouts and don’t have a training program that includes squatting or other exercises that might help you increase the amount of weight you can squat, part of your road map to goal achievement is missing.
Using a training program that is progressive, includes squatting as a main exercise, and that you do a few times each week consistently over a period of months will make it more likely for you to achieve your goal of squatting your bodyweight.
Outcome-based goals might be unrealistic or lead to feelings of overwhelm.
Sometimes outcome-based goals can feel really far away and although the end result is something you really want to reach, the process of getting there might seem insurmountable, especially if your road map isn’t clear.
For example, let’s say you’ve never exercised with consistency before and are really hoping to get in shape by starting to train and by changing the way you eat. Overhauling your life might include making sweeping changes to the way you exercise, shop and prepare your food, plan your daily, weekly, and monthly schedules, and how you prioritize your rest, recovery, and self-care.
This requires making a ton of changes, some of which probably aren’t realistic or sustainable if you’re just getting started, which feeds feelings of overwhelm. These feelings of overwhelm might actually be a barrier to even getting started.
Outcome-based goals don’t necessarily address the root cause for wanting change, which makes it hard to identify concrete steps that align with your value. Many of us assume that achieving a particular outcome will lead to increased happiness and satisfaction, which is often not the case. Just because you reach a goal you’ve set for yourself doesn’t mean you’ll feel satisfied with the results, especially if you haven’t figured out exactly why you wanted to make that change in the first place.
For example, some women want to change their body composition by losing a significant amount of body fat. When some women do achieve their goal, they still feel unsatisfied if their body doesn’t look or feel the way they expected it to.
They might feel shame because they were chasing a “look” that they thought would bring about a certain feeling or emotional state. They assumed that being leaner would make them happier. What they didn’t do was figure out exactly why they wanted to be leaner in the first place.
All of this seems frustrating, right? So what’s the solution? Set behavior-based goals that lead you toward a desired outcome.
Behavior-Based Goals
Behavior-based goals are a stronger alternative to outcome-based goals, and provide you with a roadmap of actions you can take that lead you toward the results you’re chasing. These types of goals put you in the driver’s seat and more in control of the process of reaching your goal. In fact, the entire focus of behavior-based goals is the process itself. This is how I coach.
By digging into exactly what you want to achieve (your outcome) and why it’s important to you, it’ll be easier to identify the steps that make goal achievement more likely.
If you know why something’s important to you, you should be able to evaluate what you’re willing (or not willing to do) to get there. This puts you in control of your actions and behaviors and gives you a systematic way of achieving your goal. The process of goal achievement should feel less overwhelming and more satisfying because you’re becoming the person who “does the things” to reach your goal.
This approach typically allows you to have a more positive mindset along the way because you’re consistently racking up small “wins” when you take each small step toward your goal. All of these things lead you to experiencing more success.
Big Rocks vs. Small Rocks
When looking to identify behavior-based goals, we suggest that you focus first on what we consider the “big rocks,” which form the foundation of a healthy lifestyle. Big rocks include getting adequate restorative sleep, drinking enough water, managing stress, eating nourishing food, moving meaningfully, and doing these things consistently. The idea is that if you can’t consistently practice these habits, then the “small rocks” (such as choosing to add cream to your coffee or not) won’t impact your ability to get results as much as the “big rocks” will.
On a side note, you want to make sure you aren’t loading your jar with too many big rocks or nothing will fit— make sure you aren’t spread too thin with too many behavior to dos. Also, as your coach I remind you that there will always be more rocks than can fit in your jar, so choosing wisely which rocks you want is important.
So, how do you set a behavior-based goal?
1. Identify Your Outcome Goal
Determine the long-range thing you’d like to achieve, and think about why it’s important to you. How do you think you’ll feel by achieving it? Does it align with the resources (time, energy, money, etc.) that you have available, and with your values and priorities? If so, move on to step two.
2. Assess What You’re Doing
Next, do an assessment of what you’re doing currently that is moving you toward that outcome. List things that might be challenging for you along the way, as well as the areas you are confident in making changes. Where are the opportunities you can make small, realistic changes that move you toward your goal?
3. Choose Next Steps
Create realistic, actionable behavior-based goals that lead to your outcome. Each of these little steps acts as a rung on the ladder that leads to your goal. Each step might seem small, but all together they take you closer to where you want to go.
4. Prioritize
Rank your confidence based on the frequency you’ll need to take each action and the resources you have. Prioritize the actions you’ll take first, and remember to make small changes one at a time.
5. Track Your Progress
Choose a method for tracking your behavior-based goals in order to monitor your progress. This may be a simple check mark in a notebook, or you may choose something like an app to keep track of your changes.
6. Start With The First Behavior-Based Goal
Start tracking one behavior-based goal. On a confidence scale of 1 to 10 you should feel like you are at a 9 or 10 out of 10 that you can complete that behavior. Track for two weeks and then evaluate for consistency. If you completed that behavior 80 percent of the time over the previous two weeks, choose a new action to start tracking.
If you didn’t reach 80 percent consistency with that behavior, do a check-in to assess whether it was really realistic for you. If it’s something you’d like to continue monitoring for a while longer, go for it. If it was originally unrealistic, scale it down to something you can definitely do.
Coaches’ Corner
As a coach or trainer, my clients come to me with their goals. It’s my job to help them translate outcome-based goals into actionable behavior-based goals.
I coach them to:
Figure out why that goal is meaningful or important to them.
Identify whether that goal aligns with their priorities and values.
Clarify and refine concrete and manageable actions they can take.
Manage their time by guiding where to place their energy.
As a coach, the process for taking a goal from outcome to behaviors looks like this.
As a coach, I will assess my client’s current training, nutrition, rest and recovery strategies. I’ll take a look at their lifestyle, work schedule, leisure activities, commitments, and weekly schedule. We discuss what they might be ready to change, as well as the barriers they might encounter.
Then we set behavior-based goals based on their outcome goals, and keep in mind that the actions they take to move them toward their outcome have a lot to do with “big rocks” and less to do with “small rocks.” Big rocks include getting adequate restorative sleep, drinking enough water, managing stress, eating nourishing food, moving meaningfully, and doing these things consistently. Big rocks move the dial, while small rocks are very small, nuanced actions that won’t make much difference in goal achievement unless the big rocks are in place.
As a coach and trainer we will start with small changes my client can confidently make first. I help them create routines to make these actions more likely. I stay involved throughout the process of goal achievement and evaluate their progress and help them through stalls in progress, over roadblocks, and problem-solving when they arefeeling challenged.
I help you through behaviors to get in the best shape of your life—for good.
With adagio FIT Training and Coaching, you’ll get the support, accountability, and expert education to eat and exercise in a sustainable way — without restrictive diets or spending your life in the gym.
Whether your health and fitness goals are to…
Get stronger
Gain muscle
Lose body fat
Improve your pull-ups
Have a safe and healthy pregnancy
Return to exercise safely postpartum
Heal your relationship with food
Balance your hormones/disorders
Increase your confidence
… or anything else, we’ll help you achieve them. You can experience life-changing results while eating and exercising in a way that actually fits into your life — instead of controlling it.
You’ll learn how to:
Improve your nutrition without giving up the foods you love
Exercise safely and effectively so you’re getting maximum results from your workouts without burning yourself out
Increase your confidence, love the way your body looks, feels, and performs — and enjoy your life more than you ever thought possible
And you’ll become the happiest, fittest, strongest version of yourself, one step at a time.
Interested in learning more? Join in a free, no-obligation consultation with Clarissa, our Female Personal Trainer and Nutrition Coach by clicking below.
It’s almost the end of the year, so within the next couple of weeks most of us will be making our resolutions for next year. Even as a personal trainer and health coach I make them too!
making personal goals with a coach
As of this month I’ve been coaching for seven years.
At the studios, the studios are usually packed every January first with people with New Year’s resolutions. Then, by the middle to the end of January the studio dies down to back to normal numbers with a few new faces continuing on, but lots gone.
What happens during those first 2 or 3 weeks of January?
Why is it so hard to stick to our New Year’s resolutions especially with fitness?
It is estimated that over 95% of us fail at our New Year’s resolutions. By fail I mean, failing = giving up.
Here are the top 5 reasons why we fail at our fitness resolutions.
1. Overwhelm: we overload ourselves with too many resolutions. We have fitness goals, nutrition goals, financial goals, relationship goals, we have goals for our spouse and even for our kids. We simply can’t handle that many serious goals.
Studies show that when we try to take on more than one life-changing goal at a time our success rate is near nil. We simply don’t have the necessary will power and energy to focus on more than one at a time.
Fortunately, willpower is like a muscle, it gets stronger as we use it But it also is finite. Overload it and you’ll run out too fast as well.
Solution: simplify and commit to one big goal. Once that goal becomes a habit and it doesn’t take so much energy and will power to complete, then you can start working on a different resolution.
2. Lack of a plan: When one creates a resolution without a plan they lack direction and step to get there. Just like those with fitness goals going into a gym for their first time; walking around not knowing what to do next. There was no order or direction to their workout. The workout was purely left to chance.
The cardio deck, however, is always packed. This happens for a couple of reasons. One, it’s the default form of exercise especially for those that don’t feel comfortable lifting weights. And, I get it. It’s a lot easier figuring out how to set up the treadmill than designing a strength training workout and figuring out lifting technique.
And, reason number two, many people still falsely believe cardio to be the best form of exercise for fat loss despite dozens of studies pointing out how ineffective it is and that it is often counterproductive (people can actually get fatter from doing cardio). I see this in the studios a lot when women who have worked out for months complain that their body hasn’t changed even though they are working out so hard doing all these cardio classes.
Solution: hire a trainer to set you up on a program, or at the worst find a program online that targets the same goal you have and then watch some YouTube videos to learn technique.
3. Unrealistic expectations: We live in an extremely fast paced world. We can cue up any movie or TV show and watch it at any time. We can literally order anything in the world and have it shipped to us “next day “. We’re impatient, we want our perfect body and we want it yesterday.
Setting unrealistic goals is a dead end road. Instead of a goal being motivating, the goal becomes demoralizing and shame full. Week in and week out we beat ourselves up because we’re not hitting our numbers. So, of course, after a few weeks of that we’re gonna throw in the towel.
Solution: Hire a trainer. With their experience they can guide you to realistic expectations. Also, when setting a goal ask yourself how confident are you that you can accomplish it. If you’re not 90-100% confident that you can do it then modify it to the point that you are at least 90% confident.
Another part of being realistic is to expect plateaus. Nobody gets consistent progress week in and week out. There will be setbacks. Accept this fact and the road accomplishing your new year’s resolution will be a lot more enjoyable.
4. Skipping the goal setting process: “If you fail to plan, plan to fail.”
When talking to my clients about goals we talk about 3 types of goals: outcome goals, behavioral goals and purpose goals. When we first meet we will talk about these three types of goals.
At bare minimum you need to decide “what” it is that you’re trying to accomplish and then commit it to paper.
A goal gives you direction and writing it down helps hold you accountable while motivating you at the same time.
“An arrow without a target always hits its mark.” If you have vague goals your results will be vague as well.
So.. get super specific with your goals and review them daily.
Solution: carve out 20 minutes to visualize your goals and commit them in detail to paper. Then, review them daily. Remember to keep them simple and break them down #1 and #2 from above.
5. No accountability: Personal accountability is an oxymoron. By definition, you can not hold yourself accountable. There has to be a second person involved, a second person to which you report. Otherwise, it’s human nature to slack.
Accountability is the number one thing new clients ask me to do for them. It is usually why they hire me as their trainer or coach.
They want me to make sure they make it to their workouts and follow through with their nutrition goals.
Even without a trainer, studies have shown that just having a workout buddy can make a positive difference on consistency with your fitness goals.
Solution: hire a trainer to hold you accountable or at the very least find a buddy to hit the gym with and report to each other on your nutrition.
I teach my clients to make things effortless. Then they don’t have to think about winning, it is already set up for them. So for you, almost all of these five mistakes can be resolved by enlisting the help of a trainer or coach.
I believe this is a life lesson that crosses over to all aspects of life.
If you want to improve your golf swing, hire a golf pro.
If you want to get out of debt and prepare for retirement, hire a financial planner.
If you want to start a new business, hire a business coach.
The point is you don’t have to recreate the wheel with your fitness. An experienced trainer has “been there, done that” and they can get you to your goal in the shortest time possible.
Speaking of hiring a personal trainer or coach, I’d love to be yours.
It fixes all of the above mistakes and you’ll create the lifestyle that you envision for a healthy, happy life.
You will get world class training, nutrition coaching and accountability. And right now, I am offering a discounted rate going into the new year.
Follow this link to learn more. But hurry because my training and coaching spots fill in so fast.
One of my favorite summer events is taking a boat out to the middle of a lake, turning it off, and just sunning on the back bench. I love the feeling of the boat gently rocking in the waves, the hot, sun-warmed vinyl from beneath my body, and the intensity of the Utah sun beating down from above.
Photo by Ahmed Zayan
Can you relate to this peaceful feeling?
Unfortunately, this moment of peace always has an ending.
I remember at a lake here in Utah we had stopped the boat. After resting for a while I sat up only to find our boat was mere feet from a rocky shoreline. From past experiences (*cough cough*), I knew the boat, being that close to the shore, was in a red zone. It was going to be a huge risk to start the motor and the propeller without a rock mangling it and therefore hindering our ability to get to the dock. We were in a bad place.
It took a lot of effort and teamwork to get the boat away from the rocks, start it up on a prayer, and head away from danger.
I’ve thought about this experience a lot and have really built a beautiful analogy from it relating to whole health that I want to offer you today.
As humans, we are wired for the desire to find and accrue peace. Those moments of weightless peace on the boat? Yeah, we seek that out constantly. Effortlessness that comes easy. Haven’t you heard so many people say, “it seems so easy for ‘so and so’ to lose weight,” or, “stay constant,” or, “be able to eat anything they want and not gain weight.”
So we are searching for those moments where we can turn off the boat and relax in the Sun so to speak, but if we do that we tend to slowly drift towards red zones. For example, if I don’t track the foods that I eat I have a tendency to just take one bite or just one more piece of chocolate and the next thing I know after a couple days or weeks, I have lost complete control of my healthy eating. Same thing goes with missing exercise or your journal and meditation for the day.
The effort it takes to get away from that red zone is a lot and usually cannot be completed without members of a team in your boat. Now I’ll come back to your team in a second but I want to point that out. In your help red zones what does it take to get out of that zone? In my example it could be that I go through my kitchen and throw out everything that could cause me to overeat; or it could look like menu planning for the week and then putting that into an app.
Once you pull away enough from that Red Zone you can turn on the motor and really make some progress ( this might look like those first initial 5 lb that you lose or the ability to work out 5 days or 6 days in a week). The next question would be where are you headed next? That new destination is just like when we make goals.
When We choose to make goals we choose to move into the neighborhood of success and failure. Success and failure live next to each other. How does this relate to our boat?
It seems to me that when I have been on a boat heading for a destination it never fails that there’s some sort of friction that comes upon me. It’s to be expected. That friction could look like waves, other boats, wind, rocks, not quite knowing where we’re going, or even disagreement within my boat. But it is bound to happen.
When you make a goal you Essentially turn on the motor of your boat and head towards that goal. Those obstacles and frictions that come up will come up because you are trying to go somewhere. They make you work harder than just floating with the motor off. Sometimes you might lose sight of your goal. But if you are headed in the right direction with the right behaviors you will resurface so to speak and find her goal again.
Ironically enough when I’m talking to my clients I find that when we set a goal we tend to expect that it will be effortless or it is effortless while we turn our boat around and get it started in the first 10-15 ft but then after that it becomes harder.
But it is the friction actually allows us to make progress. If our boat was in the air in the prop was going at full speed you wouldn’t go anywhere. We need that water we need those waves in order to get us movement.
Now onto the next idea that I wanted to come back 2 was about the crew in your boat. Who do you want in your boat? Who will get you or help get you to your destination safely, more efficiently? either out of their previous experience or their skill set to help you man the boat. we want a good team on our side..
Two weeks ago when I talked to my client about this exact analogy I asked her who she wanted in her boat. She talked about her husband who supported her unconditionally in her goals. She talked about having me as her coach in the boat. And then she also talked about a woman who is a friend that she looks up to. So it wasn’t necessarily somebody who had skills but it was somebody she aspired to be like and be friends with; who could give her courage when the waters got rough.
In your boat it could look like a doctor, it could look like a therapist, family, friends, colleagues, boss, a lady down the street, somebody who always has your back, or somebody who can help you think rationally as well.
We could continue to find parallels with this analogy, so if you discover one for yourself, consider sharing it below. However, to come full circle with the final points of this analogy…
We tend to go easy and want to turn off our boats, but when we do we drift without control into Red zones.
When we make goals we essentially are turning on the motor of our boat and we will need friction in order to make progress.
The crew inside your boat will make or break your ability to reach your mile marker goal
So my question to you today is: What areas of your health are you floating with the motor off and, unbeknownst to you, heading for a red zone?
As a personal trainer, nutrition coach, and behavioral help coach I get in the boat with you. I help you have awareness of where you are on the lake and, As you make help goals, help you know how to navigate the friction will be ahead. We work together to be able to man your boat.
If this is something that has sparked some thoughtfulness in you, consider sharing it with a friend or family member and consider setting up a free consultation with me to see if we will be the right crew together to reach your new destination. I’d be honored to work with you.
The podcast is all how to plan in order to create and intentional, well lived life. Granted a lot of experiences and adventures come from unplanned circumstances, but what we can control and plan for will lead us to a life well lived, happiness, accomplishment, and freedom within our circumstances. Yes, when you plan out your time well, you will have the freedom to pursue and do more.
We are taking a top down approach looking at the following –
Personal life mission statements
Yearly Goals
Monthly Goals
Weekly Goals
and how to plan out and pursue all of the above while living with your “fixed” to dos.
If you fail to plan, plan to fail.
After you listen, leave us some feedback right below here in our show notes! We’d love to start a conversation. Also, I mentioned in the podcast about a FREE mini session… those sign ups are in the link below! We coach in relation to nutrition, exercise, and mental health. This is a great way to “date” your coach to see if you will be a great fit.
I’m back and feeling fabulously ready to take on a new season of podcasts! I have a lot of amazing things planned for you this fall and am bursting at the seams to share it. So without further ado, your first fall podcast – behavior change.
“Nothing changes if nothing changes”
We are chatting about 6 factors that play into changing our behavior – like social, environmental, and mental factors. All of them super important but number 6 is the best one and it can make all the difference in your journey.
If you are wanting to change but can’t seem to get it to stick, these factors could be why that goal just isn’t happening or that routine is just slipping away.
After you listen, leave us some feedback right below here in our show notes! We’d love to start a conversation. Also, I mentioned in the podcast about a free mini session… those sign ups are in the link below!
This podcast introduces a four part series about the six dimensions of wellness. Most people think that healthy is when they have no signs or symptoms of disease. However, someone with no signs or symptoms of disease may not feel happy and enjoy living to its fullest. Sound familiar? You may be healthy but still have to drag yourself out of bed because you just don’t know what you’re doing in life – feel a numbness. Therefore we need to get to a place that we are growing and educating ourselves to reach a high level of wellness and zest for living because we feel empowered and motivated. This discussion teaches how to get a base line for where you are today in the six dimensions of wellness and then goes over how to make goals for those six areas to move up the spectrum and into optimal living.
The six areas of wellness we will focus on are – physical, occupational, intellectual, spiritual, emotional, and spiritual. In the next three podcasts we will discuss each area more in depth to help you figure out which one(s) may need some work so you can move from disease into a fullness of living.
Click here to get a copy of the PDF we use in this podcast :::Healthy Living Handout so you can follow along and make your own goals! Listen below in our player or subscribe by searing for adagiofit.com/podcasts.
If you would like help making your goals or figuring out ways to reach those goals, I’d love to be of help. You can either start a conversation below in the comments (I LOVE comments) or you can book a FREE mini session by clicking the button below! I’d love to help you out! Bring your questions and we’ll figure out the answers together.
This podcast introduces a four part series about the six dimensions of wellness. Most people think that healthy is when they have no signs or symptoms of disease. However, someone with no signs or symptoms of disease may not feel happy and enjoy living to its fullest. Sound familiar? You may be healthy but still have to drag yourself out of bed because you just don’t know what you’re doing in life – feel a numbness. Therefore we need to get to a place that we are growing and educating ourselves to reach a high level of wellness and zest for living because we feel empowered and motivated. This discussion teaches how to get a base line for where you are today in the six dimensions of wellness and then goes over how to make goals for those six areas to move up the spectrum and into optimal living.