User Power
Value/Post Ratio
310%
- Aug 2, 2017
- 348
- 1,079
I've literally asked them multiple times what they wanted and for every response that was echoed I made sure to write it down to include it in the app
Let's say you're a nutrition coach.
An overweight client comes to you for a diet plan.
You ask them what they want.
They say "to lose weight"
Almost a no-brainer, right?
You ask them to keep a food log for a week so you can review their eating at your next meeting.
When you review the logbook, you see that your client has been eating nothing but garbage. Donuts for breakfast. Three trips to the drive-through. Extra deluxe pizza with that greasy cheese in the crust at 11pm.
But he told you what he wanted! He wants to lose weight! How can this be?
What people tell you they want, and the kind of wanting that drives most human behaviors in the course of daily life, are two different things.
Now, this doesn't mean your client is wrong about what he wants. He probably does want to lose the weight.
But he also gets hungry. He fails to plan thanks to years of habitual failure to plan. He goes for the easy option because it's easy, because it stops him from being hungry. It's hard to turn down that hit of dopamine at the best of times. Without a process in place, people will succumb to temptation every time.
The lesson is: what people say they want, and the motivations that actually push them to act in the moment, don't usually align.
Asking people is not enough. You need some way to track the motives that get them to say "YES!"