Beyond Motivation: A Goal Setting Framework That Sustains Progress
Frameworks with Carl Hardwick | CoachRx Podcast Network
Most clients don’t quit because they don’t care. They quit because their goal was never connected to their real life.
I’ve seen it over and over: someone comes in fired up, names a big outcome, and then life shows up. Work stress spikes, sleep tanks, motivation fades, and the “plan” turns out to be more hope than structure. That’s why I don’t treat goal setting like a hype speech. A good goal doesn’t create pressure, it creates direction. It tells us what to do on the boring Tuesday in week three.
Why most goals fall apart by week three
Clients usually walk in with an outcome in their head. “I want to lose 20 pounds.” “I want to run a marathon.” “I want to get strong again.”
I love the ones that are objective because they’re easy to measure. If someone wants to gain muscle, we can scan, assess, and track whether muscle mass is actually going up. If someone wants to get stronger, we can use clear strength markers and watch those numbers trend the right way.
But plenty of goals are subjective, and that’s where coaches need to slow down. “I want to feel better.” “I want to be confident again.” “I want to look like I used to.” Those aren’t bad goals, they just require more questions before we can build anything useful.
Here’s the bigger issue I keep coming back to: most people don’t miss their goal because they don’t want it badly enough. They miss because the goal was never built on reality. They start with the outcome, skip the context, and sprint into a plan that can’t hold up when life gets messy.
When I start with the aim and ignore context, everything downstream gets fragile. The program might look great on paper, but it’s built on assumptions. Then six weeks pass, progress is unclear, confidence drops, and the client starts thinking they’re the problem.
That’s not a motivation issue. That’s a structure issue.
My job as a coach is to take a client’s desire and translate it into an agreement: what it’s going to take, what they can actually give, and how we’ll adjust when things don’t go perfectly.
The coach’s job: turn desire into structure, not hype
When a client tells me what they want, I don’t treat that as a plan. I treat it as a starting signal.
The role of a fitness coach, at least the way I see it, is to amplify desire by giving it structure. Not with rah-rah motivation, but with a clear path that respects the person’s real situation. That means slowing the client down, even when they’re excited, and building a shared understanding of what “success” will require.
I also want both sides aligned. If the client expects one thing and I’m coaching toward another, we’re going to have friction. And friction kills consistency.
This is why I like a simple goal setting framework (taught in the OPEX Method) that keeps me honest and keeps the client involved. The framework is:
Ground
Aim
Resources
Recipe
It’s simple enough to remember, but deep enough to shape real decisions. It also keeps me from doing what coaches love to do most, jumping straight to the program.
Ground: start with where your client is today
The ground is the truth of the client’s current reality. Not where they used to be. Not where they “should” be. Not where they want to be.
It’s where they are today.
When people say “meet your clients where they are,” this is what they mean. The ground includes things like training history, current capacity, injuries or pain, lifestyle stress, and patterns of consistency (or inconsistency). It’s also the place where I stop guessing.
A simple coaching cue I use here is: where are you starting from, not where do you wish you were?
Example: Jason’s ground (before we talk marathon)
Let’s say I’m coaching a client named Jason.
Jason says he wants to run a marathon. Cool. I’m not touching a 16-week plan yet.
First, I want the ground:
He runs twice a week for about 20 minutes.
He has recurring knee pain.
That’s the reality. That’s the starting point.
If I skip this step, the plan I write next will probably fail, not because Jason is weak, but because I built the plan for an imaginary version of him. The ground tells me what constraints I’m dealing with and what risks are already present (in Jason’s case, the knee).
“Truth first” is not a slogan here. It’s the difference between a plan that survives contact with real life and one that breaks the first time something hurts or the schedule changes.
Aim: the outcome matters, but the “why” matters more
The aim is the outcome, but I don’t stop there. The aim also includes the meaning behind it.
I don’t take goals at face value anymore. I ask questions until the real goal shows itself.
Some clarifying questions I like:
Why do you want this?
How are you going to feel when you do it?
Have you shown evidence in the past that you can do something like this?
Have you done it before?
This matters because when training gets hard, the finish line doesn’t always keep someone moving. The meaning does.
When the aim gets deeper, commitment gets stronger
Back to Jason.
What if Jason doesn’t just want to finish a marathon? What if he wants to prove to himself that he can be disciplined again after years of burnout and inconsistency?
Now we’re working with something real.
That deeper “why” changes how I coach him when he misses a session, when the knee flares up, or when work stress crushes his recovery. If the only thing we have is “26.2 miles,” we’ll rely on motivation. If we have meaning, we can rely on identity and values, and those tend to hold up longer.
I see this all the time in body composition goals too. Someone says they want 15 percent body fat, or they want to gain 15 pounds of muscle. Those aren’t wrong. I just want to know why. Not to challenge them into quitting the goal, but to find the reason they’ll still care when progress slows.
A weak aim creates weak commitment. So I don’t rush this part.
Resources: what makes the goal possible (and what might block it)
Once I know the ground and the aim, the next step is resources.
Resources are not just equipment. They include the stuff that determines whether the plan can actually happen in the client’s life:
Time, energy, schedule flexibility, support at home, recovery capacity, and emotional bandwidth. Also, what else is happening right now? Is this the right season of life to push for this aim?
If I ignore resources, the plan will demand more than the client can give. That’s when they start missing sessions, then they feel guilty, then they lose confidence because they’re not stacking wins.
So I ask two things:
What supports this goal, and what’s missing?
The “what’s missing” part is gold because it shows me constraints we need to respect. Not as excuses, but as variables.
Jason’s resources (the part most programs ignore)
For Jason, the resource check might look like this:
He has three days per week to train.
He has a supportive wife.
He has limited recovery because of work stress.
Now I’m getting somewhere.
This tells me how aggressive I can be with running volume, how much strength work we can add, and how careful I need to be with recovery. It also tells me the plan needs to be livable, not heroic.
Recipe: only now do I design the program
The recipe is the training plan, nutrition plan, lifestyle plan, and the weekly execution details.
This is where coaches want to start. I get it. Program design is fun. But when I write the recipe before I understand the ground, aim, and resources, I’m just writing a generic plan and hoping the client adapts to it.
I want the opposite. I want the plan to fit the person.
Jason’s recipe (challenging, doable, repeatable)
For Jason, a reasonable recipe might include:
A 16-week running progression, strength training twice per week, and very intentional recovery work because we already spotted recovery limits. I’d also keep volume increases conservative to respect the knee pain we saw in the ground.
The rule I keep coming back to is simple: the recipe should feel challenging but doable. If the client can’t repeat it, it doesn’t matter how good it looks on paper.
This is also why copying and pasting “the perfect program” across clients is a trap. A program means nothing without context. Who is doing it? What’s their environment like? What resources do they actually have? What do they believe they’re signing up for?
When all that is clear, building the recipe becomes easier, and honestly, it becomes more effective.
What this goal setting framework changes for you and your clients
When I run ground, aim, resources, and recipe in order, three big things happen.
First, it connects goals to reality. That’s the whole point. The goal stops being a wish and starts being a direction.
Second, it aligns expectations on both sides. The client knows what they’re committing to, and I know what I’m responsible for guiding. It’s hard to measure success if we never agreed on what success requires.
Third, it turns coaching into a collaborative process. The client isn’t being “handed a plan,” they’re part of building it. That tends to raise buy-in fast, because trust goes up when people feel seen and heard.
And trust matters more than most coaches admit. Trust is what keeps someone showing up when motivation fades. Trust is what makes a client tell me the truth about sleep, stress, and missed sessions, instead of hiding it.
A framework like this also gives me a better way to handle mistakes. Because coaching is messy. Sometimes the recipe I thought would work doesn’t work the way I expected. When that happens, I don’t pretend I’m perfect. I bring the client into the pivot.
“Here’s what I thought would happen. Here’s what happened instead. Here’s what we’re going to change, and here’s why.”
Most clients respect that. It builds more trust, not less.
How I apply this in real consultations (without overcomplicating it)
The next time a client brings me a goal, I slow them down and walk the steps in order:
Ground before aim, aim before resources, resources before recipe.
That one sequence keeps me from skipping straight to sets and reps. It also helps the client stop chasing outcomes and start executing behaviors we both agreed on.
I don’t need fancy language to do this. I just need to be thorough and honest. The point is not to make the goal smaller, it’s to make the path clearer.
If you want to go deeper into the coaching systems behind this style of work, I keep my eye on tools and education that support real coaching conversations, not just program templates. That includes CoachRx Coaching Software for managing the process, and the OPEX Method Mentorship (CCP Level 1) for coaches who want a structured method for assessment, goal setting, and program design. I also share coaching ideas and updates on my Instagram profile.
Conclusion: goals aren’t wishes, they’re agreements
If I treat goals like wishes, I’ll coach like a guesser. When I treat goals like an agreement built on truth, coaching gets a lot more predictable. Ground, aim, resources, and recipe give me a simple way to keep goals tied to real life, not day-one excitement. When those pieces line up, progress stops feeling random. Thanks for reading, and if you try this framework, I’d love to know what changes in your next consult.
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Have questions? DM Carl on Instagram @hardwickcarl
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