It depends on what you mean by “customizable”.
If you mean “Can I input all my own habits, lessons, assignments, progress checks, workouts, surveys, etc?” then no, not for this first version of ProCoach.
Let me explain why not.
You can think of the ProCoach curriculum as an evidence-based framework that’s standardized, allowing for significant customizing on the client side (and coach side) of the program.
It’s what we call “Building Your Owner’s Manual”.
One of the “Build Your Owner’s Manual” exercises from the program.
You see, through the habits, lessons, and assignments, we ask clients to track their progress, gather data, and reflect on thought exercises.
They do this to write an “Owner’s Manual” — a collection of information and analysis about their lives, bodies, needs, wants, and real-life-tested experiences.
This process helps them:
- Take responsibility for themselves — their thoughts, their beliefs, their stories, their environments, and most importantly, their behaviors. (No more coach-blaming or “This diet / workout plan didn’t work for me!”)
- Feel empowered by and invested in the idea that they now have a set of “handling instructions for their bodies”. (No more “one-size-fits all” programs.)
- Test hypotheses, gather data, and draw conclusions, just like scientists. (No more blindly “just following the rules”.)
The Owner’s Manual empowers them to make informed decisions about their own needs, wants, and priorities (instead of you telling them what to think or feel or do).
It’s client-centered coaching at its best.
So don’t think of the curriculum as a set of interchangeable habits and lessons. It’s not that. It’s a skill-building self-discovery tool that we built using state-of-the-art psychological principles.
Of course, no matter how great the curriculum, it can never eliminate the need for your:
- Guidance and support.
- Strategies to get through blocks and setbacks.
- Problem solving and goal setting.
Indeed, that’s what what coaching is actually for. That’s what you’re for.
It’s for these reasons (and more) that we don’t even include “write my own lessons and habits” customization in our own coaching program with our own full-time coaches.
(Indeed, we’ve coached over 45,000 people to more than 900,000 pounds lost without that kind of customization).
And it’s why we’re not including it in ProCoach.
Oh, and one more thing.
Even if we thought it was a good idea to allow across-the-board curriculum customization, it would be A LOT of work — too much work — for you to customize the actual habits, lessons, and assignments.
Think about it…there are 24 x 2-week habits that roll out over the course of the program. And along with each habit comes a 2 week block of lessons (about 10-12 lessons in total), at an average of 500 words each.
So, to “customize” you’d need to not only restructure the delivery of the program, you’d also need to write a host of new lessons/assignments.
How much new content would you have to create? Well, say you wanted to change even just 2 habit blocks. Well, that’s 20-24 lessons and 10,000-12,000 words of new content you’d have to write to support your addition.
Indeed, by trying to customize the actual content, you’d spend all your time as a writer/content creator instead of as a coach. Is that really your highest leverage opportunity?
In the end, our research suggests that most ProCoach users plan on delivering the curriculum just as we deliver them in our coaching programs, because that’s the highest-value opportunity.
Again, we’ve used ProCoach to help over 45,000 men and women to over 900,000 pounds lost. That’s a whole lot of — very diverse — clients. And the key has been to deliver customization on the client and coaching side, not on the curriculum side.
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