Surrender Control: Four Keys to Success from a Fitness Veteran

Ready to discover why some people achieve remarkable transformations while others struggle? Drawing from 28 years of experience as a fitness professional, I'm pulling back the curtain on what truly separates success from frustration when working with a coach or trainer.

For high-achievers especially—the entrepreneurs, leaders, and go-getters—these insights might challenge your approach to personal growth. The truth is, the very qualities that make you successful in your career could be sabotaging your fitness journey. The constant need for control, information-gathering, and self-direction often becomes the biggest obstacle to transformation.

My most successful clients share four critical traits that allow them to break through plateaus and achieve lasting change. 

These principles transcend fitness and apply to any transformation requiring expert guidance. Whether you're struggling with a plateau or just beginning your journey, implementing these four strategies could be the difference between perpetual frustration and genuine breakthrough. 

Remember: whatever timeframe you've set for your goals, your body deserves patience, and sustainable change takes time. Are you ready to relinquish control and catalyze real transformation?

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Website: unbreakablemindandbody.com

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Disclaimer: This show is for education and entertainment purposes only. This is not intended as a replacement for therapy. Please seek out the help of a professional to assist you with your specific situation.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:08):
Welcome to the Unbreakable Mind and Body
podcast.
I am your host, tiana Gonzalez,a multi-passionate, creative
storyteller and entrepreneurwith a fierce love for movement.
This is our space for powerfulstories and actionable
strategies to help you buildmental resilience and elevate

(00:28):
your self-care practice.
Together, we will unlock thetools that you need to create an
unbreakable mind and body.
Welcome back to the show.

Speaker 2 (00:40):
I am your host, tiana , and on this episode, I'm going
to share with you four thingsthat my most successful clients
did.
Now, these are pretty simple,but they're actually hard for
people to implement into theirlife if they are used to being
in the driver's seat.
Now, you may or may not know, Iam a fitness professional.

(01:03):
I have 28 years of experience.
That includes the time I spentin the gym building my physique,
training myself to get readyfor bodybuilding shows, then
transitioning into powerlifting,crossfit, weightlifting,
weightlifting and throughoutthat time, I also decided to

(01:25):
become a personal trainer, getmy certifications, get my boots
on the ground and work invarious gyms.
So I worked in a CrossFit gym,I worked in a big box gym, I
also trained people at home andI had an online business.
And throughout all of myexperiences, there are four
things that I have noticed themost successful people have in

(01:49):
common.
Number one they stopself-coaching.
This is really tough for someof my alphas the people who are
leaders, who are small businessowners, entrepreneurs, the
go-getters, the primarybreadwinners in the home they

(02:09):
are used to being in charge.
Now, when you layer that withthe fact that we are inundated
with information all day long,whether it's on your favorite
social media platform, or you goon to some sort of group or
community and you're in a partof a conversation thread, or you

(02:30):
go to work, or you seeadvertisements or you hear them
on the radio.
We are getting slammed withinformation all day about what's
really working and what's not,and so when I have my alphas,
who are also people who consumeor who watch podcasts or who
listen to thought leaders,creators, influencers and

(02:50):
sometimes they listen to actual,real scientists who know what
they're talking about it leadsto more confusion, and so what I
have had to do with many of myclients is to ask them to stop
consuming and then secondguessing themselves.
There's a difference inlistening to information and
maybe making some notes andseeing if it's relevant, or

(03:14):
consuming something and thendoubting yourself and being
paralyzed because now you don'tknow which way to move and you
don't know if what you're doingis actually the quote unquote
right thing to do.
People who are used to figuringthings out, people who are used
to making quick decisions, it'shard for them to relinquish
control.

(03:34):
But here's the thing when youhire a coach or when you hire a
trainer, you hired them so thatthey can teach you the things
that you don't know, so thatthey can filter out the noise
and so that they can keep youfocused on what's really
important Now.
Number two most successfulpeople that I have worked with

(03:57):
over the years.
Number two they wereopen-minded Just because you did
a certain type of diet or acertain type of lifestyle or you
used a certain method andapproach in your past and it
used to always work for you.
And now you're at a stickingpoint.

(04:18):
Now we have to maybe change itup a little bit, but people who
are so used to doing things acertain way are going to find
resistance, even if, on asuperficial level, they do want
the change and they are willingto try something new.
Many times the people whodefault, who go back to their

(04:40):
old ways, they end up notfinding the success that they
want.
I cannot tell you how many timesI've started to work with
somebody, particularly on theirnutrition, and we're getting
into it, and they're like ohwell, I decided to go
gluten-free and dairy-free.
Who told you to do that?
Well, it worked for me in thepast, okay, but you hired me to

(05:02):
work with you on your nutrition,so we're supposed to make these
decisions together.
So again, here we go with thecontrol-free right, the ones who
make the decisions, and theytell you about it after the fact
, instead of including you inthe process.
Those people usually don't findsuccess.
Sorry, they trust me.

(05:29):
They understand that they cameto me for a reason and they
trust that, with time, effort,trial and error, strategy

(05:50):
implementation and alwayscircling back to make sure we're
on task and we're following,you know the plan and we're
getting us closer to the goal.
They trust me in the process.
It doesn't always have to beabout diet and nutrition.
This could be about, you know,a career mentorship as well.
If you do not have trust withthe person advising you, there's
always going to be a gap,there's going to be a void,

(06:12):
there's going to be somethingmissing.
If you do not feel safe in thespace, then you cannot relax,
and when you cannot relax, it'sharder for you to learn.
Think about your kids when youdrop your kids off at school.
If they don't feel safe in theclassroom, it becomes very
difficult for them to learn.

(06:32):
But if they're in anenvironment where they feel
comfortable, where they liketheir teacher, where the
classroom is warm and cozy and,yes, of course, it is a learning
environment.
It's not a living room or aplayground.
I get that, but when it's aspace of encouragement and
kindness and joy and, yes, ofcourse, respect and boundaries

(06:57):
and rules.
But when those things are allin place and it's the right
ratios and the student can relax, then they can learn.
Now, when we're talking aboutnutrition, I always tell my
clients listen, this is reallypersonal.
Sometimes it's going to feellike I'm looking in your

(07:18):
underwear drawer.
So, yeah, trust is kind of abig deal being overloaded with
information.
If somebody is constantlyreferring to podcasts they
listen to or articles they reador things that their friends

(07:38):
told them, it can start to feellike, hey, do you trust me in
this process, or do you want tojust share with me everything
you know and tell me how muchsmarter than me you are?
Like, what's the point?
What are we doing here?
Everything you know, and tellme how much smarter than me you
are, like, what's the point?
What are we doing here?
Now number four and this one isprobably the most important and

(07:59):
it's something that I talk toeveryone about.
Doesn't matter what the goal is, whether it's health and
wellness, whether it's a careergoal, a personal financial goal
focus.
This is number four.
They focused on their effortsday to day and removed the

(08:22):
emotional attachment to theoutcome.
I'm going to say this one onemore time the most successful
people that I have worked within a health and wellness
transformation or a nutritiontransformation, where they're
trying to change something abouttheir health or their physique,
they focused on the effortsthat they were making day to day

(08:48):
and not on the outcome.
So if I say I want to lose fivepounds in eight weeks, okay,
what are you going to do inorder to make that happen?
And we work it backwards and webuild out a plan, we pick
measurement intervals.
So let's say, we're going totrack each week, we're going to

(09:09):
weigh in and get on the scaleand we're going to make sure
that things are moving in theright direction.
If they're not, we adjust theplan.
But every single day I'm askingthe client to focus on what
they're doing that day andthat's it.
We're not thinking about eightweeks from now.
Is that the goal?
Sure, that's the vision, butguess what?

(09:33):
You don't actually have controlover how that happens.
You don't actually have controlof if you're going to lose all
five pounds in the eight weeks.
Now, this is just an example,remember.
So what you do have controlover are things like did you

(09:53):
prepare your meals?
Did you bring your meals withyou to work?
Did you drink all your water?
Did you get your workout in?
Did you get your steps?
Did you go to bed on time?
I mean, it's so basic andboring and it's not sexy and
guess what.
That's the thing that's going tomake the difference between a
win and a loss, and the truth isthere's really no such thing as

(10:18):
a loss.
It's just going to be a lesson.
So you're either going to hitthe target or you're going to
learn a valuable lesson, andthis is about self-discovery.
So it's important to staygrounded.
It's important to understandthat you can have the best
possible outcome, and it's goingto be a result of the daily
things that you do the habits,the tasks, the discipline in the

(10:42):
beginning and making sure thatyou're doing all of the things,
checking all of the boxes.
So I'm going to run through thislist.
One more time real quick.
Number one One more time, realquick.
Number one my most successfulclients stopped self-coaching.
Number two my most successfulclients were open-minded.

(11:04):
They were willing to try thingsmy way and my approach.
Number three my most successfulclients trusted me.
They came to me for a reason.
They sought me out for a reason.
They sought me out for a reasonand even if I asked them to be
open-minded and I asked them tostop self-coaching, once I got

(11:25):
the buy-in they trusted me.
They saw results.
They know I'm not full of shit,they know I'm the fucking
expert in my craft and that Ican help them to get the
transformation that they want.
And number four my mostsuccessful clients focused on

(11:48):
their efforts and relinquishedthe emotional attachment to the
outcome.
I hope that you find thisepisode helpful.
I hope that you find thisepisode helpful.
And yeah, I use some stronglanguage because that's how
passionate I am about this.
The thing is, people for themost part, take what personal
trainers do for granted.

(12:09):
I see it every single day howpeople think that because they
can use resources like AI orsocial media or they could just
copy something that they see,that they know what they're
doing and I got news for you.
No, you don't, because youcould read instructions on how

(12:29):
to perform brain surgery.
That does not mean you're goingto be able to do it well or
successfully.
Okay, it's not what we do.
It is how we do what we do andthe thing is for me, I'm not
really out here marketing.
People come to me, I work offreferrals, I get people results.

(12:54):
I'm a change maker and I'mreally fucking confident in my
craft and in the work that I do.
And I know that when you becomethe expert in the thing that
you are the most passionateabout and the thing that you can
facilitate you, if you ifyou're already there, you're
listening to this episode goingfuck yeah damn right, me too.

(13:18):
There's room for all of us to besuccessful.
There's room for all of us towin and there is room for all of
us to make the changes and havethe transformations that we
want Relinquish control.
Get somebody to help you beopen-minded, make sure you feel
safe and you can trust thatperson and attach yourself to

(13:40):
your efforts.
That's how you catalyze change.
That's how you make shit happen.
One more thing whatevertimeframe you have in mind to
accomplish your goal, I wouldlike for you to double it, if
not triple it.
Be nice to yourself.
Your body's been through a lot.

(14:01):
It's storing a lot.
In order to catalyze change,you got to work with it.
Okay, thank you so much forbeing here.
I really hope that you enjoyedthis episode and if you could do
me a huge favor and give theshow a five-star review and
leave a comment, that would beawesome.
If you enjoyed the show.

(14:23):
I really appreciate you and Iwill catch you on the next one.