Understanding the role of agency and autonomy in client success will allow you to get much better results with your clients and set them up for long term success.
When it comes to coaching, your clients’ long term success depends on their ability to take ownership of their journey. As a coach, you can provide guidance, tools, and support, but lasting transformation only happens when clients feel empowered to make decisions and take action for themselves. This is where agency and autonomy come into play.
Let’s break down the role of agency and autonomy in client success, and how you, as a coach, can foster these qualities in your clients.
What Is Agency and Autonomy?
Agency refers to an individual’s ability to act independently, make their own choices, and take control of their decisions. It’s the sense of “I can do this, and I am in charge of the outcome.” It is about self-efficacy and the belief that your actions can influence results.
Autonomy, on the other hand, emphasises the freedom to act in alignment with your own values, preferences, and goals. When clients have autonomy, they’re not just following orders, they’re making choices that resonate with their personal identity and priorities. This can involve tailoring plans to suit their unique lifestyles, preferences, and needs.
Together, agency and autonomy create a framework that allows clients to thrive. When these elements are missing, clients may feel helpless or overly dependent, leading to a lack of motivation and poor long-term outcomes.
Why Agency Is Essential for Success
As a coach, you’ve likely encountered clients who are “high agency” and clients who are “low agency”, and the difference in the results between these two populations can be quite stark.
- High-agency clients succeed because they own the process. They understand that their actions, decisions, and attitudes are what drive results. These clients take an active role in their progress. For example, they don’t just follow a meal plan; they learn how to prepare meals that suit their lifestyle and allow them to hit their dietary targets. They don’t simply complete a workout routine; they adapt and modify it as needed to stay consistent and engaged.
- Low-agency clients often fail because they rely on external factors. They almost always attribute failures (and successes) to things that are beyond their control (“I couldn’t work out because the gym was crowded”) or rely heavily on the coach to micromanage every aspect of their journey. These clients often develop a victim mindset, where success feels out of their control and failure feels inevitable. Success just isn’t something that happens to them, and they don’t acknowledge that they have a role to play in achieving the results they want.
Without agency, clients are less likely to stick with their habits when challenges arise. And as we all know, challenges will arise. Whether it’s a busy schedule, an unexpected life event, or even a plateau in progress. High-agency clients have the tools and mindset to navigate these moments successfully. Low-agency clients, on the other hand, often fail and fall off track with things.
Why Autonomy Is Essential for Long-Term Success
Autonomy is the foundation of sustainable, long-term success. If your clients rely on you to achieve results, they haven’t truly mastered the habits and mindset necessary for continued growth. This dependency not only limits their potential but also reflects a failure to fully serve them as a coach. Here’s why autonomy is so critical:
- Independence Drives Sustainability: When clients learn to make decisions and solve problems on their own, they become self-sufficient. This independence ensures that they can maintain their results even after your coaching relationship ends. For example, a client who understands how to balance their meals doesn’t need a coach to adjust their macros every time their routine changes.
- Clients Become Advocates for Your Coaching: Empowered clients are walking testimonials for your coaching. When they’ve developed the skills to succeed on their own, they’ll naturally share their positive experiences with others. This kind of organic marketing can build your reputation far more effectively than advertising ever could.
- Autonomy Enhances Motivation: Clients who feel in control of their journey are more likely to stay motivated. Autonomy aligns actions with personal values and goals, creating a deeper sense of purpose and commitment. This internal motivation is much more sustainable than external pressure or accountability.
- You Avoid Burnout as a Coach: Trust me, constantly micromanaging clients is exhausting and unsustainable. By teaching clients to take the reins, you free up your energy to focus on strategic guidance and growth for both them and yourself.
I know a lot of coaches, and it is very easy to for coaches to fall into the trap of thinking that you actually want to keep coaching a client for as long as they will pay you. Rather than teaching them the skills they need to succeed without coaching, you hold back and don’t teach them the why behind your coaching decisions.
This is short sighted. By teaching your clients to be more autonomous and to actually develop the skills, and confidence in their knowledge and abilities to implement those skills, you actually end up providing a much better service, make your coaching practice easier (you don’t have to micromanage, and you end up making more money (because they now market for you far beyond the time you work together).
So, developing autonomy with your clients is something you should focus a lot on.
Empowering Clients: What Works and What Doesn’t
Your role as a coach isn’t to handhold your clients through every decision. Instead, it’s to equip them with the tools, knowledge, mindset and confidence to make those decisions on their own.
This can be difficult, so I want to just cover a few strategies to instil more agency and autonomy in your clients, and some common pitfalls to avoid.
1. Provide Education, Not Just Instructions
Giving a client a plan without explaining the why behind it is a missed opportunity. Clients need to understand the principles behind their actions so they can make informed decisions when circumstances change.
- Do this: Teach your clients the basics of nutrition (e.g., macronutrients, portion sizes, energy balance) and exercise (e.g., progressive overload, proper form, recovery principles). Empower them with knowledge so they can adapt their routines as needed. The easiest way to do this is to discuss your rationale behind any changes you make, so they can see how to adjust things specific to them.
- Why it works: When clients understand the rationale behind their plans, they’re more likely to stick with them and adapt them intelligently in real-world scenarios.
- Avoid this: Creating overly rigid plans that require clients to rely on you for every adjustment. This approach fosters dependency and erodes confidence.
2. Set Collaborative Goals
Autonomy flourishes when clients feel involved in the goal-setting process. Work with your clients to define clear, achievable goals that align with their values and aspirations.
- Do this: Use open-ended questions to engage your clients in the goal-setting process. For example, ask, “What’s most important to you right now?” or “How would achieving this goal improve your life?” Once you’ve identified their priorities, collaborate on a plan to achieve them.
- Why it works: When clients feel a sense of ownership over their goals, they’re more motivated and committed to achieving them.
- Avoid this: Dictating goals based solely on your expertise or assuming all clients have the same priorities (e.g., weight loss or performance gains). This one-size-fits-all approach often leads to disengagement.
3. Celebrate Effort Over Perfection
A critical part of fostering agency is helping clients see the value of consistent effort, even when things aren’t perfect. When clients learn to adapt and move forward after setbacks, they build resilience and confidence in their ability to succeed.
- Do this: Highlight small wins, such as completing a workout despite a busy day or making a healthy choice at a restaurant. Reinforce the idea that progress, not perfection, is what matters most.
- Why it works: Celebrating effort helps clients build a positive relationship with the process. This mindset shift makes it easier to sustain habits long term.
- Avoid this: Punishing or shaming clients for not sticking perfectly to a plan. Perfectionism breeds fear of failure, which can paralyse progress.
4. Encourage Problem-Solving
Clients need to feel capable of overcoming obstacles. Instead of solving every problem for them, guide them to come up with solutions on their own.
- Do this: When a client says, “I’m struggling to find time to work out,” respond with, “What are some ways you think you could fit it into your schedule?” Offer suggestions as needed but let them take the lead.
- Why it works: Problem-solving builds confidence and teaches clients how to handle future challenges independently.
- Avoid this: Immediately prescribing solutions without involving the client in the process. This can make clients feel incapable of managing their own journey.
5. Foster a Growth Mindset
A growth mindset helps clients see that their abilities and habits can improve with effort and learning. This belief is fundamental to agency.
- Do this: Reinforce the idea that challenges are opportunities to grow. Use language like, “You’re learning how to…” instead of “You’re bad at…” Encourage clients to reflect on their progress and lessons learned.
- Why it works: A growth mindset shifts the focus from fixed traits to ongoing development, empowering clients to embrace the process.
- Avoid this: Allowing clients to dwell on fixed traits or external blame (“I’m just not a disciplined person”). This reinforces a victim mindset and stalls progress.
The Dangers of a Victim Mindset
One of the biggest barriers to client success is a victim mindset, the belief that life happens to them and they have little control over outcomes. Improving their agency and autonomy helps to combat this, which should lead to better results for your client.
This mindset can manifest in various ways, from blaming external circumstances to adopting disempowering narratives about their situation. As coaches, we have to be mindful not to reinforce this mindset, even unintentionally.
- Don’t enable dependency: If clients feel they can only succeed under your direct supervision, they’ll struggle to maintain results long-term. Instead, empower them to take control of their actions by emphasising their role in shaping outcomes. For instance, instead of saying, “I’ll fix this for you,” frame it as, “Let’s explore how you can address this challenge.”
- Challenge negative narratives: Some clients may have deeply ingrained beliefs, such as, “The patriarchy is the reason I have a poor relationship with my body”, “Society has made it impossible for someone like me to succeed” or “It’s the food industry’s fault I can’t lose weight.” While these statements may contain elements of truth or reflect real societal pressures, affirming them without context can cement a sense of helplessness. Instead, acknowledge their feelings but pivot the focus to actionable steps they can take: “While societal pressures are real, what can we do today to help you feel more confident and in control of your health?” While systemic change would be great, and is certainly needed in many areas, focusing on this rather than what your client can do right now under their own volition is not helpful.
- Empower problem-solving: Teach clients to focus on what’s within their control rather than fixating on external barriers. For example, shift the conversation from “Why can’t you do this?” to “What’s one small step you can take right now?” This approach encourages them to identify and act on solutions, fostering a sense of agency and confidence in their ability to create change.
Final Thoughts On The Role Of Agency And Autonomy In Client Success
As a coach, your ultimate goal is to work yourself out of a job. Not because you’re no longer needed, but because your clients have developed the agency and autonomy to thrive on their own.
This doesn’t mean you abandon them but that they reach a point where they can confidently navigate their health and fitness journey with minimal external reliance. Empowering your clients means:
- Providing knowledge and tools that enable them to make informed decisions. Educate your clients on the principles behind their nutrition, exercise, and lifestyle choices. When they understand the “why” behind their actions, they’re better equipped to adapt when circumstances change.
- Encouraging independent problem-solving and decision-making. Teach clients to think critically and solve challenges on their own rather than turning to you for every adjustment. For example, if they face a setback, guide them to identify the cause and brainstorm potential solutions.
- Supporting them through challenges while fostering resilience and confidence. Challenges are inevitable, but how your clients handle them determines their long-term success. Help them reframe setbacks as learning opportunities and build confidence in their ability to persevere.
At the heart of empowerment is a shift from dependency to self-efficacy. When clients feel capable, confident, and in control of their journey, they’re far more likely to achieve lasting success. This doesn’t just benefit them; it’s also a testament to your success as a coach. There’s no greater reward than seeing your clients take ownership of their health and well-being, knowing that you played a pivotal role in their transformation.
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Finally, if you want to learn how to coach nutrition, then consider our Nutrition Coach Certification course, and if you want to learn to get better at exercise program design, then consider our course on exercise program design. We do have other courses available too. If you don’t understand something, or you just need clarification, you can always reach out to us on Instagram or via email.
Paddy Farrell
Hey, I'm Paddy!
I am a coach who loves to help people master their health and fitness. I am a personal trainer, strength and conditioning coach, and I have a degree in Biochemistry and Biomolecular Science. I have been coaching people for over 10 years now.
When I grew up, you couldn't find great health and fitness information, and you still can't really. So my content aims to solve that!
I enjoy training in the gym, doing martial arts and hiking in the mountains (around Europe, mainly). I am also an avid reader of history, politics and science. When I am not in the mountains, exercising or reading, you will likely find me in a museum.