You Can't Change What You Refuse to Acknowledge
Why humility, perspective, and an honest look at ourselves are often the starting points for meaningful change.
There's a phrase I've come back to repeatedly throughout my years in leadership, coaching, and bodybuilding:
You can't change what you refuse to acknowledge.
It sounds relatively simple, doesn't it?
But I think there's something deeper to it than simply admitting when we're wrong.
We all see the world through a particular lens. That lens is shaped by our upbringing, our experiences, the environments we've spent time in, and the people we've surrounded ourselves with.
Over time, those experiences influence what we think, feel, and believe.
And there's nothing inherently wrong with that.
The problem begins when we become so convinced that our perspective is correct that we stop considering the possibility that there's something we haven't accounted for.
One of the principles I've learned to appreciate is this:
Perspective does not represent totality.
Your perspective might be valid. It might even be supported by your experiences.
But that doesn't necessarily mean you have all the pieces of the puzzle.
And sometimes, the piece you're missing is the very thing preventing you from moving forward.
When Our Perspective Becomes a Barrier
Think about an area of your life where you've been struggling to make progress.
Maybe it's your health. Your career. A relationship. Your ability to communicate with others.
You probably have an explanation for why things are the way they are.
But have you ever stopped to question that explanation?
Not because you're necessarily wrong, but because there might be another way to look at the situation.
During my years in leadership, I worked with individuals who struggled with difficult conversations.
They knew those conversations were part of their responsibilities. They understood the expectations of their role. But when the time came to address an issue with an employee, they'd put it off.
Sometimes they had perfectly reasonable explanations for why.
The timing wasn't right.
The employee was already having a difficult week.
They didn't want to damage the relationship.
And I could understand those concerns.
But understanding someone's reasoning doesn't automatically mean their approach is producing the right outcome.
If avoiding a conversation was negatively affecting the team, we had something we needed to address.
My goal wasn't to sit across from that leader and prove they were wrong.
I wanted to solve the problem, not prove somebody was the problem.
That's an important distinction.
Because when someone feels like they're being personally attacked, the conversation can quickly become about defending themselves rather than understanding what needs to improve.
Instead, I wanted to know why.
What made that conversation uncomfortable? Were they afraid of the employee's reaction? Did they lack confidence? Had they simply never been shown how to approach a conversation like that effectively?
Sometimes I'd offer to sit alongside them and demonstrate how I would handle it.
Then we'd discuss what went well, what could have been better, and what they might try next time.
The objective wasn't to make them feel inadequate.
It was to help them become more capable.
And that required both of us to remain open to the possibility that we didn't yet understand the entire problem.
Humility Isn't the Absence of Confidence
I think humility is sometimes misunderstood.
Being humble doesn't mean you lack confidence in your abilities. It doesn't mean you need to agree with everyone who challenges you.
And it certainly doesn't mean every piece of feedback you receive is correct.
To me, humility means being confident enough to acknowledge that you might have something left to learn.
You can believe in your approach while remaining willing to examine it.
You can disagree with someone's feedback while still being curious about why they see things differently.
You can have years of experience and still recognize that experience doesn't make your understanding complete.
That doesn't mean humility automatically produces change.
But it helps explain why the willingness to question our assumptions can be so valuable.
I think about this frequently when someone dismisses an idea before they've made an effort to understand it.
Why is that approach wrong?
What information are we using to reach that conclusion?
Have we considered the possibility that we're missing something?
Those are questions worth asking, especially when the approach we're defending isn't producing the results we want.
Being Willing to Try Something Different
I've experienced the value of this in my own bodybuilding journey.
For years, I trained consistently.
I showed up. I worked hard. I ate plenty of food.
And I made progress.
But eventually, I began approaching training differently.
I became more intentional about exercise execution, tracking performance, managing training volume, and understanding what meaningful progression actually looked like.
I didn't approach it as though everything I'd done previously was worthless.
I simply recognized that there might be a better way to accomplish what I was trying to accomplish.
And I gave that approach time.
Not a week. Not two weeks.
Several mesocycles of consistent training, with enough time to evaluate what was happening.
The changes I experienced in both strength and my physique were substantial.
But there's an important lesson in that experience beyond the training itself.
Being open to change doesn't mean constantly changing what you're doing.
Sometimes we become impatient because we expect the results of a long-term commitment to appear almost immediately.
We show up for a week and wonder why we haven't transformed.
But the process needs time.
And if we're constantly changing our approach before we've given it a reasonable opportunity to work, how can we accurately evaluate whether it was effective?
For me, the lesson was to remain open enough to try something different, patient enough to let it work, and objective enough to evaluate the results.
That's a principle that extends well beyond the gym.
Knowing and Doing Are Two Different Things
Now, I want to make an important distinction.
Not everyone who struggles to change is refusing to acknowledge a problem.
Some people are painfully aware of what's wrong.
They know they're unhappy with their health.
They know their habits aren't supporting the life they want.
They know they've been falling short of their own expectations.
And they might remind themselves of those things every single day.
The last thing they need is another person telling them everything they're doing wrong.
Knowing what needs to change and knowing how to change it are two different things.
That's where I believe coaching and leadership carry a responsibility beyond simply identifying problems.
Sometimes someone needs guidance.
Sometimes they need accountability.
Sometimes they need someone to help them take the first step.
And sometimes they just need somebody in their corner who recognizes that they're making an effort.
Imagine someone who's been averaging fewer than 1,000 steps a day.
A week later, they're getting 5,000.
That's a meaningful behavioral change.
Are they suddenly at their long-term health goal? Of course not.
But they've demonstrated that they're capable of doing something differently.
And I think that deserves recognition.
I want that person to know I'm proud of their effort.
Not because we're pretending they've already accomplished everything they set out to do, but because we understand that meaningful progress is often built through a series of manageable decisions.
That doesn't mean encouragement alone is enough.
But helping someone experience success, especially when they're accustomed to feeling unsuccessful, can be an important part of building momentum.
The objective isn't to make someone dependent on constant praise.
It's to help them recognize their own capacity to improve.
Feedback Is a Two-Way Street
There's another side to this conversation that I think deserves more attention.
If we're going to ask people to be open to feedback, we need to be willing to receive it ourselves.
I've always tried to establish that expectation early in my coaching relationships.
I want my clients to understand that we're working toward a shared objective.
Yes, I'm responsible for providing guidance, structure, and expertise.
But that doesn't mean I automatically know everything they need.
So during our check-ins, I'll ask a question:
Is there something I'm not giving you that you need?
Maybe they need more support with nutrition.
Maybe the training plan isn't fitting their schedule as well as we'd anticipated.
Maybe there's something about how I'm communicating that could be more helpful.
I need that information.
Because if I expect someone to acknowledge their own opportunities for improvement while refusing to examine mine, what kind of example am I setting?
Feedback isn't a one-way street.
And it isn't one-size-fits-all.
Different people have different needs, experiences, challenges, and ways of processing information.
That doesn't mean our expectations or standards have to disappear.
It means we should be willing to adapt how we help people meet them.
Simply telling someone they can be honest doesn't guarantee they'll feel comfortable doing so.
We have to demonstrate through our own behavior that we're genuinely willing to listen.
And sometimes that means hearing something about ourselves that we'd rather not hear.
What Does the Evidence Actually Tell Us?
There's something else I want to address.
When we aren't getting the results we want, it's tempting to immediately reach for an explanation.
Maybe we blame our circumstances.
Maybe we blame ourselves.
Maybe we conclude that the entire approach doesn't work.
But before deciding what needs to change, I think we owe it to ourselves to examine what's actually happening.
Take someone who's frustrated because their weight hasn't changed.
The easy response would be to assume they aren't following their nutrition plan.
But that would be an assumption.
A more useful approach is to investigate.
How consistently have they been tracking their intake?
Are there foods, drinks, or portions they might be overlooking?
What does their bodyweight trend look like over several weeks?
Has their activity changed?
Are there other factors affecting the outcome?
The goal isn't to catch someone doing something wrong.
It's to collect enough information to make a better decision.
And sometimes the evidence might show that the person has been consistent and the plan itself needs to change.
That matters.
Because accountability isn't about finding someone to blame. It's about understanding what we can influence and taking responsibility for our next decision.
That makes sense to me.
When we're willing to observe what's happening rather than rely exclusively on what we think is happening, we give ourselves a better opportunity to learn.
But data still requires interpretation.
A number on a scale, a missed deadline, or a disappointing result doesn't automatically tell us why something happened.
It's information.
And information becomes useful when we're willing to examine it with an open mind.
An Individual Self-Audit
I want to leave you with something practical.
Not another list of things you should feel guilty about.
Not an exercise in identifying everything that's wrong with you.
Just an opportunity to examine an area of your life from a slightly different perspective.
Find a few minutes where you can be honest with yourself and work through these five questions.
1. Where in my life am I not making the progress I want?
Be specific. Choose one area rather than trying to examine your entire life at once.
2. What explanation have I been giving myself for that lack of progress?
Consider the story you've been telling yourself about why things haven't changed.
3. What evidence supports that explanation, and what evidence might challenge it?
This is where we have to be willing to question our assumptions. Look for information that could change your understanding, not just confirm it.
4. What might someone with a different perspective notice that I'm overlooking?
If you have someone you trust, consider asking them. Not because their perspective is automatically correct, but because they may see something you don't.
5. What's one realistic change I can make, give sufficient time, and evaluate objectively?
Keep it manageable. Give yourself an opportunity to follow through and learn from the outcome.
You don't need to answer every question perfectly.
The purpose isn't to arrive at some definitive judgment about yourself.
It's to become a little more curious about what might be possible if you looked at the situation differently.
You Don't Need All the Answers
After years of working with people in leadership and coaching, one thing has become increasingly clear to me:
People don't all need the same kind of help.
Some need to recognize a behavior they've been avoiding.
Some need a different perspective.
Some need better information.
Some need more time.
And some need someone willing to extend a helping hand and remind them that they're capable of making progress, even when the first steps seem small.
But I think there's something that connects all of those situations.
A willingness to remain open.
Open to feedback.
Open to learning.
Open to the possibility that what we currently believe might not represent the entire picture.
You don't have to question everything you've ever done.
You don't have to assume that someone else's opinion is more valuable than your own.
And you certainly don't need to have everything figured out before you begin.
You just have to be willing to consider that you might not have all the pieces of the puzzle.
Because sometimes the thing standing between where you are and where you want to be isn't a lack of effort.
It's something you haven't yet learned to see.
And you can't change what you refuse to acknowledge.
Sometimes, a different perspective is exactly what we need.
If you know you're capable of more but haven't quite figured out what's standing in your way, you don't have to figure it all out on your own.
My approach to coaching isn't about telling you everything you're doing wrong. It's about having honest conversations, understanding where you are, identifying what might be holding you back, and building a realistic path toward where you want to go.
I'll be honest with you. I'll challenge you when it's necessary. And I'll be in your corner every step of the way.
If that's the kind of support you've been looking for, let's have a conversation.
— My Disciplined Mind
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