“I Don’t Need a Coach”

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I've heard some version of that plenty of times.

And sometimes, the person saying it is absolutely right.

Not everyone needs a coach.

But when I hear that from someone who has also spent the last six months, year, or even longer telling me they're stuck, I start to wonder about something else.

Who's actually saying they don't need help?

Is it confidence?

Or is it ego?

Insecurity?

A reluctance to be vulnerable?

Maybe it's simply the belief that if you're capable enough, disciplined enough, or knowledgeable enough, you should be able to figure this out on your own.

But if something in your life hasn't been working for quite some time, and you've simultaneously decided that you need to be the only person allowed to solve it, eventually you have to ask yourself why.

You may be perfectly capable of figuring it out yourself.

But capability isn't really the question.

The question is whether doing it alone is still serving you.

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You Can't Always See the Problem When You're Standing Inside It

I've been training for about 13 years.

I've spent an enormous amount of time learning about hypertrophy, nutrition, programming, and recovery.

I coach other people on these things.

And I still have coaches.

Why?

Because knowledge doesn't make me unbiased.

I can think I train hard.

I can think my technique is good.

I can think my programming makes sense.

But there's a difference between believing those things and having someone without my biases look at what I'm actually doing.

I've experienced this firsthand.

Before having someone else handle my programming, I thought I had a pretty good understanding of the amount of training I needed.

Then another set of eyes came in.

My programming changed. My training volume changed dramatically. The way I approached my training changed.

And I've benefited tremendously from it.

I didn't suddenly become less knowledgeable because someone else saw something I didn't.

I gained another perspective.

That's one of the most valuable things coaching can provide:

Calibration.

You think you train hard until you train with someone who actually trains hard.

You think you're consistent until someone looks at seven days of behavior instead of the story you've constructed around those seven days.

Sometimes another person helps you realize your nine is actually a six.

That isn't failure.

That's information.

And now we have somewhere to start.

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Good Coaching Isn't Just Telling Someone What to Do

This is where I think behavior-change coaching is often misunderstood.

Someone tells me:

“I can't stay consistent with my nutrition.”

Okay.

I could give them a meal plan and tell them to follow it.

But what happens when they don't?

Do they need another meal plan?

Probably not.

I want to know why they didn't follow the first one.

Maybe work got crazy.

Maybe they were traveling.

Maybe they didn't have food available.

Those circumstances are real. I'm not interested in pretending they're not.

But I'm also not interested in stopping the conversation there.

What could we have done differently?

Could we keep protein powder at work?

Could we prepare something the night before?

Could we structure meals differently on days we know will be chaotic?

Your circumstances may not always be within your control.

Your response to those circumstances is still something we can investigate.

That's behavior change.

Not creating a life where nothing ever goes wrong.

Learning how to make better decisions when life does.

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Accountability Without Shame

Accountability gets a bad reputation because we often confuse it with punishment.

You didn't follow through.

You screwed up.

Someone is disappointed in you.

That's not how I view it.

If I'm looking at someone's training and notice their performance dropped, my first question isn't:

“Why didn't you do what I told you?”

It's:

“Hey, what was going on here?”

Then we investigate.

Sleep?

Stress?

Nutrition?

Programming?

Something happening at work?

Or maybe you simply made a decision that, looking back, you could have handled differently.

Seek to understand before you seek to correct.

Because accusation creates defensiveness.

Shame makes people want to hide.

Neither helps us solve the problem.

If you didn't follow through, I don't need you beating yourself up over it.

I need us to understand why you didn't follow through.

Maybe I need to challenge you.

Maybe we need to change the system.

Maybe your expectations need to change.

But we can't solve the right problem until we're willing to investigate what actually happened.

That's accountability without shame.

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A Good Coach Should Make You Better at Coaching Yourself

This might be the part of my coaching philosophy I care about most.

I don't want my clients dependent on me forever.

I want them to understand why we're doing what we're doing.

If I adjust your nutrition, I want you to understand why.

If we change your training, I want you to understand why.

If life disrupts the plan, I want you to develop enough awareness that you can start working through the problem yourself.

Because the goal isn't for me to make every decision for you.

The goal is to help you become better at making decisions for yourself.

A good coach shouldn't just give you better answers.

They should teach you how to ask better questions.

Why did this happen?

What could I have controlled?

What information did this give me?

What should I do differently next time?

If coaching only works while the coach is watching, we haven't really changed the behavior.

We've created supervision.

Good coaching should eventually give you more agency, not less.

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Not Everyone Needs a Coach

And I mean that.

If you're new to training, enjoying the process, learning, and making progress, keep going.

If fitness is simply something you enjoy and you're happy with where it's taking you, great.

And if you already have a system, you're consistently executing it, and you're steadily moving toward the outcome you want?

You may not need coaching at all.

But there's a difference between not needing help because what you're doing is working and refusing help while repeatedly admitting that what you're doing isn't working.

Maybe the better question isn't:

“Do I need a coach?”

Maybe it's:

“Would another perspective help me get where I'm trying to go?”

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Sometimes You're the Person Holding the Map

Imagine you're lost in a forest.

You've been walking around trying to find your way out.

Could you eventually figure it out yourself?

Probably.

But then you meet someone who's already made it through that forest.

They know where one of the trails leads.

They know where people tend to get turned around.

They've encountered some of the obstacles you're about to encounter.

Would asking them for directions make you less capable?

Of course not.

So why would you refuse the map simply because you wanted to prove you could find the exit alone?

Asking for help doesn't put someone above you.

It doesn't diminish your capabilities.

It doesn't devalue you as a person.

We're all writing our own books. We're just on different chapters.

Sometimes you're the person who has already made it through the forest.

Sometimes you're the person standing inside it.

Sometimes you're holding the map.

Sometimes you need one.

There's nothing wrong with either one.

Maybe you can figure everything out yourself.

You probably can.

But capability was never really the question.

The question is whether figuring everything out alone is actually serving you.

Because asking for help doesn't mean you've surrendered your agency.

Done correctly, it's the opposite.

Good coaching doesn't remove your agency. It helps you develop it.