If you’ve been coaching for a while, you’ve probably noticed a trend: some small changes lead to massive improvements, while other efforts seem to do almost nothing. This is the 80/20 rule in action, also known as the Pareto Principle.
As a coach, understanding and applying this principle can make your job easier and significantly boost your clients’ success.
What Is the 80/20 Rule?
The 80/20 rule, or Pareto Principle, states that 80% of results come from 20% of the effort. In the context of coaching, this means:
- 80% of a client’s positive results are generated by 20% of their most effective habits and behaviours.
- Conversely, 80% of their struggles and stagnation are caused by 20% of their negative habits.
So, instead of dispersing energy across a broad spectrum of activities, clients should hone in on the select few that yield the greatest impact. The same applies to coaches, by focusing on what truly moves the needle, you can create more value in less time.
Why the 80/20 Rule is Crucial in Coaching
Most clients come to you feeling lost and overwhelmed. They’ve tried everything, fad diets, intense workout programs, and all sorts of lifestyle hacks, yet they’re stuck in a cycle of minimal progress. The issue?
They are focusing on the wrong things, spending energy on what doesn’t matter while neglecting the most crucial elements.
As a coach, your responsibility is to cut through the noise and pinpoint the 20% of efforts that will yield 80% of their results. This helps your clients:
- See progress faster, which increases motivation and adherence.
- Build sustainable habits, rather than trying to maintain exhaustive, unrealistic regimens.
- Eliminate frustration, as they no longer waste time on ineffective methods.
Applying this principle also makes your coaching more effective. Instead of overwhelming clients with exhaustive plans, you can direct their focus toward key changes that create outsized results. It enhances both their success and your credibility as a coach.
The beauty of the 80/20 rule is that it simplifies the process. Your clients don’t have to be perfect; they just need to consistently apply the most impactful habits. Helping them recognise this will make their journey far more sustainable and rewarding.
Breaking Down the 80/20 Rule in Coaching
The key to leveraging the 80/20 rule is identification. What are the 20% of actions your client engages in that generate the most significant results? Likewise, which 20% of negative habits are causing the majority of their struggles?
Once these are identified, your job as a coach is to eliminate the ineffective and double down on what works. For example:
- A client struggling with weight loss? The biggest culprits might be a reliance on ultra-processed foods and liquid calories. Instead of overwhelming them with a detailed diet plan with complex timing strategies, focusing on whole, unprocessed foods and increasing water intake can create a dramatic shift.
- A client frustrated with their workout results? Instead of adding more complexity to their training, you might find that improving intensity, focusing on compound movements, and ensuring proper recovery could lead to much better progress.
A key skill you will need to develop is being able to actually identify the most important things to focus on.
Applying the 80/20 Rule to Coaching
The key to effectively applying the 80/20 rule in coaching is prioritisation. Many clients spend time on inefficient strategies, spreading their efforts thin across multiple areas with little impact.
Your job is to help them focus on the select few habits and actions that drive the majority of their success.
Let’s break this down into key areas of health and fitness coaching: exercise, nutrition, and lifestyle.
1. Exercise: Less But Smarter Workouts
Many clients think they need to spend hours in the gym to see results. In reality, most of their progress will come from a few key exercises and principles that provide the biggest return on investment.
Applying the 80/20 Rule to Exercise:
- Prioritise compound movements: Squats, deadlifts, presses, and chin-ups stimulate the most muscle groups and burn the most calories.
- Focus on progressive overload: Consistently increasing resistance, reps, or intensity over time is the most significant factor for strength and muscle gain.
- Resistance train at least 2-3 times per week: These sessions provide the majority of strength and muscle-building benefits.
- Walk more and stay active outside the gym: Non-exercise activity, such as walking, contributes significantly to overall calorie expenditure and cardiovascular health.
- Keep workouts simple and consistent: A structured 30-45 minute session 3-4 times per week will be more effective than sporadic 90-minute workouts filled with unnecessary exercises.
- Prioritise recovery and mobility: Ensuring proper warm-ups, cool-downs, and recovery strategies helps prevent injuries and ensures long-term progress.
- Avoid exercise distractions: Many clients waste time on ineffective exercises or excessive cardio that does not align with their specific goals. Help them eliminate these inefficiencies.
2. Nutrition: Finding the Key Dietary Habits
Clients often stress over every calorie, macro, and supplement, but in reality, a few simple dietary habits make the biggest difference.
Applying the 80/20 Rule to Nutrition:
- Prioritise whole, minimally processed foods: The majority of a client’s diet should come from nutrient-dense foods that support energy levels and body composition.
- Eat enough protein: Protein is a key driver of muscle growth, satiety, and fat loss.
- Control portions without obsessing: Encouraging mindful eating and portion awareness will do more than rigid meal plans.
- Hydration matters: Many clients overlook the impact of proper hydration on energy, hunger, and performance.
- Consistency beats perfection: A diet that is 80% “clean” and sustainable is far better than a perfect diet that is abandoned after two weeks.
- Encourage meal prepping: Having healthy meals available reduces reliance on fast food and impulsive eating decisions.
- Reduce high-calorie beverages: Liquid calories from sodas, fancy coffee drinks, and excessive alcohol intake are often silent contributors to stalled progress.
- Limit ultra-processed foods: While occasional indulgences are fine, cutting down on high-calorie, low-nutrient foods leads to better body composition and energy levels.
3. Lifestyle: Small Changes for Big Results
A client’s lifestyle outside the gym and kitchen often dictates their success more than any specific workout or meal plan. Addressing lifestyle factors ensures long-term adherence to positive habits.
Applying the 80/20 Rule to Lifestyle:
- Sleep is a top priority: Improving sleep quality often has a bigger impact than adjusting training or diet. Poor sleep leads to higher stress, cravings, and reduced recovery.
- Stress management is essential: Chronic stress leads to overeating, poor recovery, and stalled progress. Encourage mindfulness, meditation, or other stress-reduction techniques.
- Daily movement beats occasional high-intensity workouts: If a client is sedentary for most of the day, a single workout session won’t offset the lack of movement.
- Mindset and accountability matter: Helping clients shift their mindset from “all or nothing” to “small wins add up” is crucial for long-term sustainability.
- Environment shapes behaviour: Clients succeed when they create an environment that makes healthy choices easier. This includes stocking healthy foods at home and creating routines that make exercise effortless.
- Create realistic schedules: Overbooking workouts and meal prep can lead to burnout. Encourage sustainable schedules that fit their lifestyle rather than forcing rigid adherence to unrealistic plans.
Identifying the 20% of Negative Habits Holding Clients Back
Just as 20% of habits drive most success, a small handful of bad habits often create the biggest roadblocks. Your job as a coach is to pinpoint these and help clients replace them with better alternatives. Identifying and addressing these key obstacles can create significant breakthroughs in their progress.
Common Negative Habits That Sabotage Results:
- Mindless Snacking or Binge Eating: Clients often snack out of boredom, stress, or habit rather than hunger. Identifying emotional triggers and replacing them with healthier coping mechanisms, such as mindful eating, can drastically improve adherence to nutrition goals.
- Excessive Liquid Calories: Beverages like sugary sodas, fancy coffees, energy drinks, and alcohol contribute empty calories without satiety. Encouraging water intake and lower-calorie alternatives can help clients cut back without feeling deprived.
- Overtraining or Ineffective Workouts: Many clients believe that more is better when it comes to exercise, leading to burnout or injuries. Educating them on recovery, progressive overload, and structured training plans ensures they maximise their efforts without unnecessary strain.
- Lack of Sleep or Poor Recovery Habits: Sleep deprivation leads to increased cravings, poor workout recovery, and impaired cognitive function. Teaching clients about sleep hygiene, bedtime routines, and stress reduction techniques can greatly enhance their results.
- Stress-Induced Eating or Inconsistent Adherence: Stress and emotional distress often lead to unhealthy food choices or inconsistent eating patterns. Implementing stress management techniques, like meditation, deep breathing, or structured meal planning, helps clients stay on track.
- Skipping Meals or Erratic Eating Patterns: Some clients skip meals due to a busy lifestyle or the misconception that it aids weight loss. However, this can lead to overeating later in the day. Encouraging structured meal times and balanced eating supports better energy levels and metabolism regulation.
- Neglecting Self-Care and Mental Well-Being: When clients ignore self-care, their motivation, mood, and overall health suffer. Encouraging small daily self-care routines, such as taking breaks, engaging in hobbies, or practising gratitude, can foster long-term success.
How to Address These Habits Effectively
Instead of overwhelming clients with restrictions, focus on eliminating the one or two biggest negative habits that are causing 80% of their struggles. Work collaboratively to create sustainable, realistic adjustments that align with their goals. Small, incremental changes can lead to major transformations over time.
By identifying and tackling these high-impact habits, you can help clients break through plateaus, maintain motivation, and achieve lasting success with minimal unnecessary effort.
How to Implement the 80/20 Rule in Your Coaching
Now, I know it can be quite difficult to actually implement this stuff in your own coaching practice. So here are some tips:
1. Conduct an 80/20 Audit for Each Client
To effectively apply the 80/20 rule, begin with an in-depth audit of each client’s daily habits, routines, and patterns. Have them track their workouts, nutrition, sleep, and stress management for at least a week. This data will help identify which 20% of their habits are responsible for 80% of their progress and which negative habits are stalling their success.
Go beyond surface-level observations. Ask probing questions:
- What meals do they eat consistently?
- What workouts do they enjoy and stick with?
- When do they struggle with motivation the most?
- What external factors (stress, work, environment) impact their adherence?
Once this information is gathered, categorise habits into high-impact, low-impact, and detrimental habits. Prioritise the high-impact ones and work on eliminating the most damaging habits first.
2. Simplify Their Action Plan
Avoid overwhelming clients with drastic overhauls. Instead, guide them to focus on 1-3 key habits that will have the biggest impact on their progress. The goal is to implement simple, sustainable, and results-driven habits that align with their long-term success.
Examples of simplified coaching strategies:
- Instead of micromanaging every calorie, emphasise eating protein at every meal and focusing on whole, unprocessed foods.
- Rather than an extreme six-day-a-week workout plan, start with three full-body resistance sessions per week that they can sustain.
- If sleep is the biggest issue, create a structured nighttime routine before tackling more advanced nutrition or training adjustments.
- For fat loss clients struggling with energy balance, prioritize daily movement such as a step goal rather than aggressive cardio regimens.
Helping clients simplify their routines ensures consistency and adherence, which ultimately leads to better long-term results.
3. Track Progress with the 80/20 Lens
Traditional tracking methods often focus solely on weight, reps, or calories. However, using the 80/20 rule requires tracking habit adherence, energy levels, and overall progress consistency.
Key progress indicators:
- Are they consistently applying the core habits responsible for their results?
- Do they feel more energised and motivated rather than burned out?
- Are they showing improvements in performance, body composition, or mindset?
- If results stall, are the high-impact habits still being executed effectively?
Encourage clients to reflect weekly on what is working and what needs adjustment. This approach helps reinforce the importance of high-impact habits and allows course corrections without frustration or self-sabotage.
4. Encourage Sustainable Change
One of the biggest benefits of the 80/20 approach is that it removes the all-or-nothing mindset that causes so many clients to fail. Rather than aiming for perfection, the goal is consistent execution of the most important habits.
To reinforce sustainability:
- Teach flexibility: Clients should understand that missing a workout or indulging occasionally won’t ruin their progress, as long as their core habits remain intact.
- Adjust goals to fit real-life challenges: Rather than rigidly adhering to a plan, clients should learn how to make adjustments when travelling, during holidays, or under stress.
- Celebrate small wins: Recognising progress from consistent habits helps reinforce positive behaviours, making them more ingrained over time.
- Set long-term expectations: Remind clients that sustainable results take time, and the key to success is focusing on small, impactful actions repeated consistently over months and years.
By structuring your coaching around the 80/20 rule, you create a more efficient, effective, and client-friendly approach that leads to sustained success without unnecessary stress.
Final Thoughts On Using The 80/20 Rule In Your Coaching
When you apply the 80/20 rule to coaching, everything becomes more efficient. Your clients will get better results with less effort, and you’ll be able to coach more effectively without drowning in unnecessary details.
Your job is to guide clients toward the small but powerful habits that yield the biggest return, and help them eliminate the few obstacles that are holding them back. Master this, and you’ll not only become a better coach but also build a reputation for getting clients life-changing results without unnecessary stress.
We have a lot of free content available in our content hub, if you want to learn more. We specifically have a lot of content for coaches in our Coaches Corner. If you want even more free information, you can follow us on Instagram, YouTube or listen to the podcast. You can always stay up to date with our latest content by subscribing to our newsletter.
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.
