There are many reasons a guy will reach out to a Life Coach for Men, but the top two reasons in my experience are accountability and motivation. Let’s look first at accountability. We’ll start by assuming that there’s something you want, some goal you’d like to achieve. A common goal is to get into better physical shape. Other common goals are: get a new job; move into an advanced role; make more money; start a business; buy a house; find a life-partner; fix an existing relationship; get more social experience; work on closeted personal hang-ups, and so on.
Let’s use the fitness goal as an example, since it’s pretty rudimentary. First you establish an end-goal: what do you want when this is all done? What body type? What performance level? Once you have an idea, then you find a program which trains you to achieve this goal over a reasonable period of time. Maybe you want to drop 30 pounds. Maybe you want to add 20 pounds of lean mass. Maybe you want to run a marathon, or an ultra-marathon. Each goal requires specific protocols.
Next you need to put your training and diet schedule on your calendar and COMMIT to seeing the plan through day by day, week by week, month by month. You use your coach for accountability. The way Man-UP! Life Coaching (MULC) works, we meet once per week and check in (throughout the week we communicate on our Discord server).
So let’s say your goal was to lift heavy four times last week, and do cardio twice. Also, you committed to keeping your daily caloric intake around 1800 kcals, and to keep it relatively clean (ie: “dirty keto”). You come to session, aaaand…. it didn’t happen. You lifted one time, did zero cardio, and did a bunch of late-night snacking. As a guy, that’s a terrible feeling. Boooo. Bad dog. The guilt, shame, anger, and frustration can be debilitating. And that’s where the coaching session is clutch.
The good news is, you only fell off for a week. When we meet, we can discuss what happened. Why the ball got dropped. But more importantly, we can reset. Worst case scenario, you have another off week. Without this accountability, weeks become months, months become years. And of course, bad diets get worse, and fewer workouts turn into no workouts. So it’s good to have someone to answer to frequently, who is taking you at your word that you’ll keep your promises to yourself, and help you get back on track when you backslide.
Now for the MOTIVATION piece. WHY did you backslide? What happened back there, bro? We met, you made a plan, you put it on the calendar, and yet when you damn well knew it was time to man-up and do your job…. you pooped the bed. WHY?
I’ll tell you why. You may or may not believe me, but it’s the truth. You failed because you do not yet understand the importance of self-validation. Instead, you are running what I call a “shit-script”; attacking yourself over and over, all day long, every minute, every second, playing scenes and soundbites in your head that judge you rather than building you up. As I mentioned in an earlier blog (Breaking the Bad-Dad Cycle), you are improperly fathering your inner-child.
As a Life Coach for Men, the secret ingredient we offer each and every client who joins our community — an ingredient which is decidedly absent in clinical therapy, by design — is brotherly love. The love you show a brother is the love he learns first to accept for himself, and then to pay forward in kind to his brothers in need. This is how we motivate. Through validation, unwavering support, and unconditional love. And for a client, learning to turn this scripting around is a process. It takes time. And it takes work. But if you’re willing to grind it out, the ROI is exceptional. Something to consider.
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