Behavior Science for Coaches: Habit Formation-1

Dr. J here to start us off.

Welcome to our series on Behavior Science and how coaches can use some of these tools to improve client results, enhance retention, and stand out from the competition.

I want to start with habit formation, what it is and what it's not.

As coaches, we are typically working with a client on adding new habits and eliminating non-productive habits to reach their goals. If, for example, a client is looking to lose weight, you might encourage the establishment of the new habit of getting regular movement in daily while eliminating the habit of eating after 7pm.

What we see often with the above scenario is the client is excited to make the change and may even be successful at those behavior changes… for a while. Relying on enthusiasm and restraint, they are able to navigate a few days or even weeks before they default back to their old ways. If they decide to dust themselves off to get back on the horse, they are encouraged to refocus their efforts on those same healthier habits..well, habits is a strong word here.

The reality is that neither one was a “habit.” The effort to implement them was a short term behavior change. They don’t qualify as habits because a few realities were not addressed.

• Habits are learned and developed through repetition, so you can not decide to have new habits overnight.
• Habits are simply behaviors that are automatic.
• If you have to think about a behavior or decide if you want to do it, it's not a habit.
• We do not have to be very intentional in doing them, they are built into our routines and our lifestyle.
• Habits are not contingent on willpower, motivation or discipline. Any New Year's resolution can highlight that.
• Habits are not universally formed in 14 days, 21 days, 30 days.

New habit formation is primarily determined by the following:

• The amount of effort expended, especially as compared to the competing old habit. Sitting on the couch is a lot less effort than putting on the tennis shoes and taking the dog for a walk or driving to the gym.
• The strength of the cues to engage in the behavior. If your clients build their workouts into their schedule at a regular time, or have the leash right inside the door when they get home, they are more likely to follow through. Think about how strong the cue is when there are fresh baked goods around, as opposed to when you steam broccoli.
• The complexity of the behavior. Grabbing a poptart on the way out the door in the morning is a lot less complex than getting out the blender, chopping up fruit and veggies, making the smoothie, and cleaning up afterwards, not to mention the additional endeavor of grocery shopping. The less complex the behavior, the easier the habit can be adopted
• The magnitude of the reward of the new behavior.The greater the reward, the faster you develop the habit. High fat, high carb foods are often quite delicious and send our brains some feel-good hormones pretty quickly. If easily accessible, eating these foods regularly can become automated often times a lot faster than automatically reaching for lean protein and veggies.
• The maturity of the habit to be replaced. Learning a client's personal history, much like understanding their previous training, is very relevant to good habit coaching. If your client spent the first 40 years of their life eating primarily high fat prepackaged food, new habit formation is going to take much longer than a behavior that has only been in play for the last 2 years.

You can quickly see that depending on the combination of variables, the range is pretty significant. You and your clients should understand and expect that. That does not mean you can not have early and consistent wins that build long term habits and results.

You and your clients can be highly successful in creating healthy habits by targeting your efforts in the following ways:

• Start with the easiest. Understand a little bit about their routine and make a simple easy swap or adjustment.
• Target small changes. Habits are built gradually, both good ones and not so healthy ones. The person who drives through the donut shop each day to get coffee and a pastry, may have started that habit by just driving through to get some coffee, someone at work told them about the amazing new holiday donut, they added it once and, well, then it was twice and…
• A strong cue is important. For something simple like adding collagen to the coffee, take the collagen out of the cabinet and put it next to the coffee maker. Putting it in an obvious place right next to the coffee pot will dramatically increase adoption.
• Make sure there is something pleasurable associated with it. If your client likes coffee and gets it right after they put two scoops of collagen in, perfect. You have paired an existing pleasure with a new small change.

Scott here to close the loop.

How I used to approach habit building, and how I approach it now.

Early in my career as a coach, I confused simple for easy. Eating less and moving more is simple but not easy, especially if it's not part of your lifestyle. I thought that if I modeled healthier habits, then everyone would do them too. What I didn't realize until I was a more mature coach is that many of our clients have different priorities than we do.

As coaches, how we look, how we workout, how we eat is part of our brand. We walk the walk and that lifestyle is inherently part of our identity and a priority for us.

Our clients, on the other hand, are executives, managers, doctors, lawyers, mothers, and fathers. That is their identity and priority.

Therefore, the approach we have to take as coaches is one that makes it simple and effective. The approach should represent small sustainable changes that build over time. At the Healthy Behavior Institute, it is called the MED approach (you can read about that HERE. The reason we as coaches need to have this approach is that this is the best way to form long term habits.

As Dr. J mentioned, new or modified habits are not willed into place, nor do they happen overnight. We need to make sure we set up clients to understand that. We will have much better success if we can ask for a habit change with the best effort-to-reward ratio possible. Yes, we love the gym and we love working out, but we are the weird ones. Remember that most of society doesn't embrace the same mindset as you and me. So when we're calculating the best effort-to-reward ratio, we must set it from the client's perspective, not our own.

One of our main goals as a coach is to help guide our clients to healthy habit formation. If we give extreme approaches, if we don't line up the changes with the client's lifestyle, and if we don't match the replacement behaviors to their root causes of their unhealthy behaviors, read more about that HERE, then we are not setting up our clients for success.

Slow and steady wins the race. I've been doing this for almost 20 years now and nobody makes it to a point where they can simply stop. Fitness is a forever pursuit. We need to help our clients understand that truth and set up their journey like that from day 1.

Learn more about how Dr. J changed my training philosophy HERE.

In our next installment of this series we will dive further into specific strategies and examples of how to build better habits with your clients (even yourself), while simultaneously making the process enjoyable.

You can learn more about behavior coaching and how this can improve your income and impact at healthybehaviorinstitute.com.

About Janine Stichter & Scott Schutte

Scott Schutte is a personal trainer, weight loss behavior coach, gym owner, and fitness educator. He has successfully guided thousands of people on their fitness journey. His education and experience have led him to work with many clients and educate other fitness professionals on how to be successful coaches with an emphasis on behavior change.

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Dr. Janine Stichter has been in the field of behavior change for over 20 years as a researcher, author, educator and practitioner. She understands the importance of behavior science for client success. Her career has focused on understanding the why behind behavior and identifying clear practices that are practical and result in sustained change.

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Most recently they co-founded the Healthy Behavior Institute, an educational platform for fitness professionals and gym owners that specialize in behavior modification. Their educational materials provide professionals with a clear system to add an additional service for better client results and increased revenue.