The Honeymoon Phase is Ending: Evaluating the Fifth Session with Joanna

hey Danna, we are back and ready to recap, debrief, download your

last session with Joanna, which was her fifth session, and, Yeah, I mean, from

a a listener's perspective, I thought it was good that she was like, I think

I got a handle on my nutrition stuff.

Let's talk about movement.

and then you gracefully, took her back to, to touch a little bit on

some of the stuff she talked about and then moved on to movement.

Danna Levy Hoffmann: Well, first of all, would it be okay for you if I just ask you

questions about what you mentioned at the beginning of the call, and then we will

dedicate the rest of the call for movement and, and everything you asked about.

And I really liked.

How you did that because you, you're like, wait, wait, wait.

There's a, there's a little bit of something here we still need to address.

Let's not skim over that.

and then go back to, to movement.

But um, I think you mentioned it at the beginning of your session when

she's like, oh, I have all these things, and you're like, this is great.

So I mean, I think could you talk a little bit about how, uh.

When some like the, the importance of coming to a coaching session with

something in mind, with something you wanna talk about and how, how Joanna was

able to guide basically her own coaching experience by what she's asking for.

Danna Levy Hoffmann: Yeah, that's a really good question.

I think first and foremost, it's keeping rapport, which is, you

know, the most important thing in a coaching session because if

we lose rapport with our clients.

They're not listening to you anymore.

They're thinking about how they didn't like what you just said, or

it's not clicking with what they are thinking about and stuff like that.

So I'm always super happy when a client comes and goes, like,

I have a shit ton of questions.

Sit down.

Are you ready for this?

Because then I know I have, I have so much information in my head, and

I have so many things that I want to talk to every single client of mine.

But it doesn't mean that it will resonate with them, especially in that moment.

It could resonate with them next week or not at all.

for me, I love, it really tickles me when a client goes, like, I got a, a

lot of stuff that I want to cover today.

Like, I have a lot of stuff, or I have a few questions.

I wrote them down.

You know, then you know they're in it, you know they're in it.

You know, they're really trying to utilize their time with you.

I

Danna Levy Hoffmann: want.

a lot of stuff, so

Danna Levy Hoffmann: No, and that's perfect.

That is, that is the ideal call is for you to come up with everything and, and

for me to just kind of feedback on that.

So that's, that's beautiful.

You know, they have thought about.

session prior or during the two week gap that we have between the calls.

and it just makes their experience so much better with the coaching experience.

So much better.

and for me as well, I, I just enjoy it a lot better.

You, you know that she's ready to talk about very specific things.

Mm-hmm.

Danna Levy Hoffmann: she's thirsty for more information, which is just amazing

Yeah.

Yeah, I really liked how you addressed, getting into that mental

space of does she wanna keep doing the food journaling or does she

think she should be doing it for you?

Danna Levy Hoffmann: you sounded disappointed about not managing

to keep your food diary.

My, my question would be, is it something that you still wanna continue doing?

In a certain capacity.

'cause I know we talked about kind of the, the keeping to a food

diary versus just a.in the agenda.

so my question is, do you want to keep it to a certain capacity?

you used the wording fell off the wagon.

Did, do you feel that not keeping it makes you also not be as

attentive to what you're eating?

where is the disappointment coming from?

I mean, mostly it's coming from the fact that I sort of

promised last time that I would continue keeping it for a couple

more weeks, and I didn't manage that.

So I don't like to promise things and then not deliver.

but I think there's a little bit of that as well.

If I, you know, I noticed if I was keeping it, then I would be a little

more careful about what I was eating.

But I wouldn't say that like my eating habits changed drastically on

the days when I didn't log my food,

And I think, you know, we've actually, you've

touched on that before and we talked about it I think also last time.

and I think that goes to a broader.

Mindset when it comes to health and wellness is the I should be

doing versus this is what I wanna be doing or I need to be doing.

From, what external people tell you you should be doing versus what

you know is gonna work for you.

And um, and sometimes that takes.

A few reminders to say like, okay, if, if you're doing this because it's

good for you, then keep doing it.

And if you need help figuring out how to keep doing it, uh, then we can do that.

But let's dive back a little bit and say, why are you gonna, you know, why do you

feel like the need to keep doing this?

So, and I do feel a kinship with Joanna from a data perspective.

I was really happy to see that, you know.

Her, her habit tracker and other things.

Yeah.

I do get, I do get geeked out about that, but I under, I also understand the

complex nature of keeping data, right?

So one, I feel like I always, if, if I don't keep it like

consistently, then what's the point?

But on the other hand, it's like if I don't monitor it and at least try to

do a 90% tracking, then, then I'm kind of, then I don't think about it at all.

So I thought that that was really cool, that, um, she still wants to do that

and she thinks that the value is for her, but how best you know to do that.

Danna Levy Hoffmann: Yeah, exactly.

And look, the, one of the hardest parts of being a coach is not.

Giving them the solutions that work for us.

It's helping them find the solution that works for them, because of

course, I can tell her exactly what works for me, but she's not me,

Yeah.

Danna Levy Hoffmann: I mean, like we all have our little ways of doing

things and she knows herself best and she knows, oh, well yeah, no,

that's definitely not gonna work.

I tried that in the past or I. You know, whatever you, you just hear

it and you go like, cringe, cringe.

Nope.

No, never gonna happen.

So it's really

Yeah.

Danna Levy Hoffmann: to go like, look, I, yeah, this worked for one client of mine.

This worked for another, this worked for another.

So it is always helpful to have some clients to, to feel suss out, you

know, what other methods there are to each thing, but to basically be like.

Look, let's brainstorm about this.

Rather than be like, this is what you should do, is rather like, oh,

well let's think about it together.

Like what could work?

Maybe you have an idea.

I definitely have some ideas, but I don't know if they work for you.

And

Right.

Danna Levy Hoffmann: that perspective of like, let's together find the

way that works best for you, it clicks a lot differently than.

Oh, you have this problem.

Okay, let do it this way.

Right.

Danna Levy Hoffmann: You know, and

Right,

Danna Levy Hoffmann: I'm never gonna do that.

Like, why, why

right,

Danna Levy Hoffmann: say that again?

And

right.

Danna Levy Hoffmann: And then you're, and then you're gone.

Or for, for that

Yeah.

Danna Levy Hoffmann: So, yeah.

Well, and I, I also think that.

if anybody hasn't been coached before and they're like, well, how can I apply this?

Like, how can I take something away from this?

When you wanna start doing something and.

it doesn't work for you.

Like you, you wanna start doing something habitually and you stop or

you don't get started or whatever.

what a coach does is kind of reflecting back, really just taking a few minutes and

thinking, well, why didn't it work for me?

What was it, the time of day I am trying to do this?

Is it because I just didn't remember?

So maybe I can add a different reminder.

is it that, I remembered and I really didn't wanna do it?

So if you dig in a little deep, well, why didn't I wanna do it?

Because I wanted to do it in the first place, so why didn't

I wanna do it when I remembered?

And this is the type of thing where a coach is helpful.

To ask these reflective questions and help you think about it, but

you don't need a coach to do that.

You can literally do that on your own.

Journaling, you know, just writing out like you were writing to a friend

why this didn't work, or you know, what was going on, and then really

giving yourself the space to go, okay, is this really still something

I should be doing or wanna be doing?

And, and if it's not working, then why not?

Danna Levy Hoffmann: I think the main problem is this.

We read a book or we watch something on TikTok or YouTube or whatever,

fill in the blank, depending on your, on the generation you're in.

and then you go like, oh.

How simple, this is what I've been missing my entire life.

Yeah.

Danna Levy Hoffmann: And then you don't manage to do it, or you do it

and it just doesn't resonate with you.

Or you know, again, it could, many things can happen in between,

Mm-hmm.

Danna Levy Hoffmann: the immediate feeling and reaction is, I suck.

Obviously it's working for everyone else, but because I suck,

Yeah.

Danna Levy Hoffmann: it doesn't work for me.

And so because I suck, I'm gonna suffer and I'm gonna do, you know.

Yeah,

Danna Levy Hoffmann: The whole negative aspect of it.

So when you get into that, I don't see anyone getting into that rut and then

going like, I'm gonna journal about this.

I'm gonna take the time

I know.

Danna Levy Hoffmann: do crunches to just journal about why I'm not doing crunches.

Right.

I wish that most people wouldn't need a coach, but fact is maybe

1% of people don't actually need a coach to get to where they wanna get.

Because we're habitual human beings.

We get into a rhythm of things, and it's so hard for our brain to

motivate us to change that, that thing, even if it's terrible,

smoking, drinking, whatever, right?

It's so te, it's so hard because our brain saves energy by keeping us in a loop.

Yeah,

it's natural.

It's something that we just have to deal with.

It's

the brain doesn't like change.

Danna Levy Hoffmann: It hates change.

It hates change.

It hates change so much that when you try to lose weight very quickly,

you will gain it back very quickly.

'cause your body's like.

Fucking retaliating.

It's like,

Yeah.

Danna Levy Hoffmann: doing to me?

You know?

Yeah.

Danna Levy Hoffmann: the thing is that we in internally, we want change Yesterday,

Mm-hmm.

Danna Levy Hoffmann: to watch a YouTube and already be going of going like, oh.

Click, it's done.

I'm at the next stage.

I'm super human.

Bring on the next TikTok to tell me what to do, right?

It doesn't fucking work that way.

It just

Yeah.

Danna Levy Hoffmann: you know, and

Yeah.

Danna Levy Hoffmann: easy, it's just as hard for us as coaches, as

it is for the people that we coach.

Every coach needs a coach, right?

Every co,

Yeah.

Danna Levy Hoffmann: person needs an accountability partner.

Every person needs a way to find that works for them.

I mean, I can give you just a little, little anecdote, right?

parents were here visiting, hi parents who never listened to my podcast.

my parents were here visiting for a week now, my mom, awesome, whatever.

My dad is a person who thinks that everything has to done

the way that he does things.

He's on many spectrums, doesn't matter.

Let's not dig into him too much.

But I realized when he was here, he was like, need to do it this way

and you need to do that this way.

and I was like.

No, actually it doesn't work that way.

Like not every person has to do things your way in order

for them to do the thing.

Right.

Danna Levy Hoffmann: I think that a lot of people a think that way.

And B, because of that also think there is this one way and

I just need to find that one way.

And it's not the way it works.

Like we

Yeah.

Danna Levy Hoffmann: test things out.

We need to figure it out.

Like for Joanna, keeping a, a journal worked for a while because she had to

do it for a study that she was, in.

But then that study ended

Mm-hmm.

Danna Levy Hoffmann: to do it.

Therefore lost the accountability partner in that aspect, right?

I wasn't pushing her to do it.

I didn't say, you have to do it in order to work with me.

she kind of went like, okay, well then it's not a priority, I think that's

where things kind of go like, oh yeah, then, then, then you know, if it's

something that is helpful for you.

But it doesn't necessarily work this way.

Let's find another way

Right.

Danna Levy Hoffmann: as humans, we just sit there and we're like, it doesn't work.

Yeah, and that brings me probably in the way we can

wrap this up, but something else I wanted to point out is that when we

designed this coaching experience.

To give to our listeners to help them kind of be a fly on the wall.

We knew, both of us knew that normally you have a minimum of six months

working with a client every two weeks.

That's 12 sessions.

for a full hour.

And we were like, okay, but you know, if, if we, we need to make this.

Something we can wrap our brains around and and also wrap our time around.

So we said, okay, let's do six sessions, only half an hour each.

And I think it really shows in today's session where.

it just takes time, right?

Like, if you have something very specific you wanna work on, maybe

three months is enough time when you're like, I need to do, like, let's say

you got a diagnosis and you're like, I really need to change my lifestyle

now because it's really imperative that I, I'm, I'm something bad will happen

if I don't change my lifestyle now.

Right?

This is kind of the, the.

Best way to change lifestyle habits when you have an imminent threat

of severe health injury or danger.

But most of us are not in a severe health injury or danger moment.

So then therefore we don't feel that kind of urgency that's why it can

take much longer to implement these changes and find out what works

and find out what doesn't work.

So thinking that you can fix yourself in a couple of sessions with a coach.

It's not, I, I, it is a, I feel much more long-term engagement with a coach.

When you talking about habit change, you need to accept that it's gonna take time.

And I feel like when you say, oh, I have a six month engagement with this coach.

And I think it also sets the mindset up of, okay, I'm, this is something

that is going to go on for some time and I'm not gonna just give up

after two weeks of trying something.

Because in two weeks my coach is gonna ask me how it went, and I'm gonna be able

to reflect on that, oh, it didn't work.

And then she's not gonna let me back down because she's gonna ask me, well,

what can you do differently next time?

Or what would might work differently next time?

So just having that, um, structure in place is also helpful, for

someone, to yeah, begin to do lifestyle or habit change,

I'm feeling already quite a lot more energy, like able to work

through the day now, 45 comes up or five o'clock, I'm like, oh wow, okay.

it's already that late, you know?

so really big change from a few months ago where I would just completely

slump at, you know, three o'clock and

Danna Levy Hoffmann: Yeah.

oh, I can't, I can't do anymore.

Danna Levy Hoffmann: Yeah,

Yeah.

Danna Levy Hoffmann: My fear around three month mark or the

like shortened version of this is that life going to happen, right?

And I see this with my clients all the time, who I work with in full capacity.

It's like.

Three first months are like the honeymoon stage and everything's

working and stuff, and then all of a sudden there's vacation or birthday

Mm.

Danna Levy Hoffmann: holiday or whatever, and then all of a sudden they feel very

lost 'cause they fell off the wagon.

I hate that terminology, but whatever, like fell off the wagon.

They, they, their habits changed because they were in a different.

Surrounding, they were in a different place.

They didn't have the, uh, security and safety of being at home and

being on their regular schedule.

And so things kind of fly out the window and when there's not someone there.

To pull you right back and to just remind you, cool, that was a vacation.

Now we're going back let's kind of talk about how we reintegrate

everything that we learned.

that's where people kind of slip off and then they're like, oh, crap.

And then again, the negative thinking of, I just ruined everything.

I worked with this person and then all it took was me going on

a long weekend to, to ruin this.

Right?

So, yeah, that's the only thing that I'm quite, Concerned about, but I'm always

concerned about that also with clients.

After six months I'm like, And then I'm like, please don't, please

just, just continue everything like you're doing incredibly well.

Just don't, don't let life throw you off.

Yeah.

Danna Levy Hoffmann: but you know,

Yeah.

Danna Levy Hoffmann: not, I'm not living in, uh, LA where my

clients can afford me for life.

So

Yeah.

Danna Levy Hoffmann: there's that.

Alright, well then, we have one more session with Joanna and then we

will see how everything turns out again after a very shortened period of time,

but hopefully still impactful, but, okay.

Danna Levy Hoffmann: Yeah.

I

Thanks, Don.

Danna Levy Hoffmann: she's killing it, so I'm, I'm, I, I trust her.

Yeah.

All right.

We'll see you later.

Danna Levy Hoffmann: All right.

Bye.