The Making it Real podcast welcomes life and relationship coach Jonathan Thomas.

Jonathan is not only a successful life and relationship coach, but for for over 10 years Jonathan has helped clients reach their fitness goals as an in home personal trainer. Being welcomed into people's homes, and seeing what life was like for clients at their most open, true, and unguarded state gave Jonathan an awareness of the complexity of the human mind, and all the barriers and catalysts of change.

Being armed with the desire to learn and discover more about human behavior and why people do the things they do, Jonathan has built and continues to build a variety of ways to help enrich, enhance and add value to his clients’ lives.

Show Notes:

3:51 - Jonathan talks about self-sabotage and why he got into coaching

“Self-sabotage, what does that mean?”

“What people are doing is they're preventing themselves from reaching their goal or from reaching their total happiest self or from reaching their true, happiest killing it-crushing it-self, and they're preventing that from happening for a reason.

And usually it's to prevent that fear of failure or that fear of success like, “What happens if I really go for it and I'm not good enough or what happens if I do get it? What am I going to do with all my time now when I don't have this problem anymore?”.

That's a big thing too is people like to hold onto the problems and it gives them that kind of sense of identity and it gives them a scapegoat.

So, what I've learned is instead of tackling the self sabotage aspect let's pretend self-sabotaging is actually doing something for you. What's it doing for you? "Okay well, it's preventing me from actually reaching my goal.” It's like, "Okay, so what happens if you were to actually reach your goal? Well, maybe I wouldn't actually be as happy or maybe I wouldn't be as loved as I think I am when I reach a certain weight or when I look a certain way or when I get that job." So I like to look at problems and look at emotions and behaviors as they're doing something for you and if we can figure out what that is maybe we can meet it in a better way, maybe we can do that behavior in a better way.

6:22 - Use the right questions so clients come up with the answers themselves

I'm sure you've learned by now that giving advice doesn't really work that well.

You probably have friends or maybe you're that person or I'm that person where people give us advice and we just don't, we want to come up with our own answers.

So phrasing questions so that those people come up with their answers on their own that's super important because like how I learned from personal training they're the ones who are going to be having to do the longterm everyday work so it's going to be up to them. So maybe we can just help steer them and help guide them by using certain questions.

7:28 - Jonathan gives you the scoop on NLP

And one of those things, speaking of NLP, which we haven't really talked about it yet but NLP it's a tool. It's “neuro-linguistic programming” which sounds very smart and complicated but it's basically just learning people's patterns, phrasing questions, doing certain exercises that work on a subconscious level, using stories, using metaphors and things like that, that help get people in a different state of mind that help look at the problem from a different point of view.

8:19 - Drumroll please…the miracle question is…

So let's say someone has that goal of the perfect body or a perfect weight or that's how they want to look and how they want to feel and stuff. So you would phrase the question like, "Okay, so if a miracle happened overnight while you were asleep and you reached that goal… when you woke up what would you notice that told you this miracle happened?

"Okay, you've reached your goal now tell me what life is like there. How do you notice when that miracle has happened?" Well, I would probably wake up out of bed. I would walk into the washroom, I would have a side peek at the mirror and be like, 'Holy cow."

So, just have them map out that whole end goal and be like, "Okay so if this happened and you reached this and life is like this and you feel like this? And how will your friends treat you? And how would you treat your friends?"

Have them go to that end goal and see if they're actually going to be happy with it because a lot of times people they set these lofty goals and they don't really know what's going to happen and if they're going to be happy. They just think, "This number means I'll be happy. This number means I'll be fit."

So, that's a great question to get people to go to their end goal and be like, "Okay, so if that is going to make you happy and you've proven that by answering these questions and that stuff then now we can work our way back to the start and we can start figuring out how to get there."

10:02 - People are afraid of change even if they are miserable

As opposed to just making this big, huge plan for this big lofty goal and if you don't actually know what you're going to get when you get there a lot of people will self-sabotage on the way because it gets scary. It gets scary to change and if you're 250 pounds and you want to get to 150 but you've been overweight your whole life you don't know what life is like at that different weight. You don't know how people would treat you. You don't know how you'll interact with that whole world. So people are afraid of change sometimes even if they're miserable…

11:28 - Jonathan talks about practicing visualization

One of the things you will hear in NLP a lot is “see what you see, hear what you hear, feel what you feel”… and that's just getting people to tap into those three senses so that they can get a broader spectrum of that goal.

NLP is a big visualization focused tool.

So, you would have them close their eyes and have them to think back of a time when they were overeating and to actually step back into that exact time, not watching them do it, actually go all the way back in there, see what you see, hear what you hear, feel what you feel as you do that behavior again. And get them to feel it and then slowly but surely you would guide them to disassociating from that behavior.

You're going to be in a bird's eye view watching yourself do that behavior so now you create some separation.

12:55 - When to disassociate and when to associate with good or bad behaviors

Now let's zoom out even further and let's make it a little fuzzy so you can barely see yourself. So you're disassociating with that behavior.

Normally you want to disassociate with those bad behaviors and the good behaviors you want to associate.

So, you would do the exact opposite where, "I finished eating, I wasn't quite stuffed, but I felt good and I stopped eating." "Okay, well, let's think of a time when you did that." And then, get them to associate with that as much as you can just by guiding them through those visualization techniques.

15:00 - Jonathan’s rendition of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs

There's that physiological survival need - once that's accomplished you can start moving your way up into self-actualization. Because it's hard to meditate and think of bigger picture when you can barely provide food or you're worried about your health and safety. So you've got to get to check certain boxes.

So another behavior model was called six human needs and that basically talks about every human has these six needs that they need to meet. It's not like a should or a want, it's like “I'm meeting these.” Even if I know about this model or not, I'm already doing it, so it helps to know about it - and at least that's my belief. And there is certainty - that's one, there is variety - that's number two, number three is connection, four is significance and then five and six is growth and contribution.

16:08 - Jonathan talks about the loss of connection and the increase in online shopping and drinking habits

So, what I've noticed, I'm sure you've noticed too, but there's a couple behaviors that have skyrocketed during the pandemic and that's online shopping -  big time - and drinking. Drinking is huge because we've lost our need or our means of connection. I haven't hugged my parents in over a couple months now, and the Zoom provides some connection but it's not quite as great so we've lost that connection means. So how do we get connection?

A lot of it is we just connect with ourselves, so I feel like depression has been skyrocketing also, because that's a way to connect with yourself.

You feel sad. You feel things but they're all internal. Because if you can't feel things with other people you'll just use your own body to do that.

And variety and certainty, the alcohol and the online shopping that's a way to buy things and to feel like you're growing, also when you're upping your wardrobe or you're doing your deck, or you're buying things for your patio and just nonstop buying things, buying things. And just something to do some variety and also some kind of growth there.

17:35 - Meeting needs in an effective and productive way

And then anger, anger is a good way to get certainty. It's not a good way but it's an effective way.

So, you'll see a lot of people that are clenched jaws and just shallow breathing and angry, a lot more angry when it comes to just everyday life because there's so much uncertainty in the world. And when you're angry and when he can put blame on things and this is why this is happening and it's these people's faults and Trinity and all that stuff. But people have predictable behaviors and I find that these needs, everyone has to meet them.  

It's just how to meet these in a good way - in an effective, productive way - as opposed to getting a drinking problem or getting an online shopping problem or using depression as a way to meet connection sometimes.

18:44 - How to perform a needs audit with your clients

Yeah, like a needs audit. So, you'll write them down on the blackboard or the whiteboard and be like, "Okay, how are you meeting this need?" And it's like, "Well, I don't know." It's like, "Okay, well let's talk about some behaviors that you've been doing."

Once you break down behaviors and file them into certain columns you'll see like, "Okay I do this for this reason. I do this for this reason."  

I like to think that we go to emotions to meet certain needs as opposed to emotions just coming to us for no reason.

20:50 - How to learn more about NLP

If you want to learn more about NLP give it a quick Google. You can go to nlpcanada.com also. That's where I was certified and that's, it's a great tool for your tool belt, and it's nice to not just have one, not just have a hammer for every problem that you have - it'd be nice to have screwdrivers and maybe a sander and stuff too. So just develop the whole skill set so that you can choose which one is appropriate for the appropriate client.

If Jonathan’s interview sparked some inspiration, check out his website  torontoperformancecoaching.com and his Toronto Performance Coach Instagram.

Further Reading:

4 Tips on How to Create Meal Plans Your Clients Will Actually Follow

How This Nutritionist Teaches Clients How to Make Daily Decisions for Long Term Success

Why Feeling Calm Matters for Both You and Your Health Coaching Clients

Understanding Body Dysmorphia (& How to Navigate It With Your Health Coaching Clients)

mindfulness, Client Engagement

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