Are you buying results or are you buying hope?

When you buy a product/service in the market, do you buy it because you know the product/service is good and useful or do you buy it because you are made to believe that it is good and useful (for you).

Irrespective of the product/service, it is the marketing that sells, not the product itself.

The same applies to fitness services/programs as well. You may have seen a lot of advertisements, heard a lot of transformation stories, which could convince you to purchase a certain fitness program or enroll with a particular fitness professional.

But does buying a plan that gave someone else the results guarantee that you will also get the results that you want?

Let’s dive into the thought process and feelings that come up when you come across a post/ad which displays someone else’s transformation and eventually leads you to sign up.

Assume that you had been wanting to lose fat/gain muscle. You see a person’s transformation and are intrigued by how he/she did it. Seeing the result on someone else builds a certain level of confidence and trust towards that particular program/coach. You get the details and decide to sign up for the program/with the coach.

The expectation here may be that since they got results, you will too. But did you really buy the assurance of results or did you buy hope? Hope that you will be transformed.

Now, there is no problem buying that hope but it is good to be aware of what you are buying so that you don’t set yourself up for disappointment and give up on your journey later.

The first problem is that people claim to be selling results but they are not. The second problem is relying on the coach/program more than required. People transform based on how they are and what they do, not based on how good of a program they follow or how good of a coach they have. Because at the end of the day, a coach or program is only a guide, and you have to walk on the path to your transformation.

So, how does the path to transformation look like? As glorious and interesting as it may look on the outside, results are achieved by doing the same boring routine and eating the same boring food over and over again. If someone promises you variety and tells you that you can ‘enjoy’ every meal/workout, then you should know that it is a sales technique.

People who claim to enjoy their journey and food also start off with a lot of resistance but eventually start to like it because they see results.

Either that or they share a superficial and unemotional relationship with food, which is easy to change.

But no one is ever going to say, ‘I did not like the way I got these results’.

No change is easy. And without change, there are no results. If you could get to your goal without changing anything, you would not need expert guidance in the first place.