Do you ever feel like you are doing everything in your business but still not making progress? That scattered, overwhelmed feeling is not a personal flaw. It is decision fatigue.
In this episode, Michelle explains how to stop spinning your wheels and focus only on what grows your coaching business. You will learn a simple 10-minute exercise to clear the clutter, identify the few tasks that actually lead to clients and income, and set aside the rest.
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From Scattered to Strategic: How the 3 Big Rocks Framework Can Transform Your Coaching Business
If your coaching business feels overwhelming, you are not alone. Most health coaches hit a wall at some point. They either burn themselves out by trying to do everything or stall out completely because they cannot decide what to do first. The good news? The problem is not laziness. It is decision fatigue.
When every task feels equally urgent (writing blog posts, updating your website, posting on Instagram, creating programs) it becomes impossible to focus. That endless to-do list makes it seem like you are always behind, no matter how hard you work.
But there is a way through. It is what I call the 3 Big Rocks framework.
Why the “Big Rocks” Matter
Think about your clients. They are bombarded with health advice every day. Should they fast, go vegan, eat grass-fed beef, try infrared saunas, or buy medicinal mushrooms? It is no wonder most people give up and order pizza instead.
As a coach, you know the truth: the big rocks of good health are simple. Move your body, eat real food, drink water, and get enough rest. When those are in place, everything else is details.
Your business works the same way. Without the big rocks, you can waste years chasing tactics that look important but do not actually grow your practice. When you know what the big rocks are and keep your focus there, you free yourself from clutter and start moving forward.
Step One: The Brain-Dump
Start by writing down every single task on your mind. Do not edit. List everything you think you “should” do. This will probably be long and messy, and that is the point.
Once you have it all in front of you, circle only the items that directly connect you with potential clients or directly create income. The rest can wait.
Step Two: Identify Your 3 Big Rocks
Every coaching business is unique, but the same pattern holds true. At the core, there are only a few things that consistently lead to clients and revenue. Michelle calls them the 3 Big Rocks.
While they can take slightly different forms depending on your niche, they usually look like this:
1. Connect with new people.
Whether through networking, speaking, partnerships, or outreach, your first priority is putting yourself in front of potential clients.
2. Have meaningful conversations.
It is not enough to collect followers or send recipes in an email. You need to engage, ask questions, and understand what people need so they see you as the right guide for them.
3. Make offers.
At the right time, you must invite those conversations to move into coaching. If you do not extend the offer, no one will know how to work with you.
When you zoom out, almost everything in your business connects back to one of these three. If it doesn’t, it probably belongs in the “later” pile.
Step Three: Commit to the Big Rocks
Here is where the framework changes everything. For the next week, commit to focusing only on your big rocks. Let go of the urge to polish your website or draft another blog post unless it clearly ties into connecting, conversing, or making offers.
At first, it will feel uncomfortable. You may worry you are “falling behind” on things that everyone else is doing. But if those things do not directly build relationships or revenue, they are distractions.
By giving your energy to the big rocks, you will see real results faster than you expect.
Breaking the Overwhelm Cycle
The overwhelm will return from time to time. That is part of running a business. But now you have a way to reset. Every time you feel stuck, pull out a piece of paper, brain-dump your tasks, and circle the big rocks. Then recommit to them.
This is how you move from scattered to strategic.
Final Thoughts
Your clients need you at your best. When you stop chasing shiny objects and focus on the 3 Big Rocks, you not only grow your business but also create the stability and confidence that allow you to serve more people.
Want my exact “3 Big Rocks” framework? Get it free here: HealthCoachPower.com/Clients
Full transcript:
Michelle Leotta: Welcome to the Health Coach Power Community Podcast. I'm Michelle Leotta, ex corporate girl turned certified health coach with over 15 years of experience growing a successful online practice. I started out with no idea what I was getting into and learned a lot of lessons along the way that have given me the freedom to do the work I love and raised two boys as a single mom.
I created a health coach power community over a decade ago to make it easier for health coaches to build a career they love and make the world a better place.
What steps should you take to grow your health coaching business? If you're like most coaches, you end up procrastinating and getting nowhere because you're overwhelmed. There's just too many options. So today I'm gonna help you map out an action plan in just 10 minutes. You know, I started health coaching in 2009, and because of my marketing background, other coaches kept asking for help.
At first, I said no way. I was busy running my own practice, but pretty soon I realized that by helping lots and lots of health coaches like you together, we could reach far more people than I ever could by myself. Since then, I've worked with brand new health coaches, those earning six figures, and everyone in between.
Today, we're going to talk about how to get focused on what matters. So your health coaching practice can grow if you're here. I imagine it's because you know exactly what I'm talking about with the whole overwhelm thing. At the end of the day, you and I like, we got into this work to help people. We just wanna help more people.
So I wanna make it simple for you. I put together a free three-part formula. It cuts to the chase. This is the stuff that's gonna move the needle. And PS, it has nothing to do with using social media. Go ahead and grab it for free. It's at HealthCoachPower.com/Clients. I'll remind you again at the end. So when I was putting this episode together, I was thinking, hmm.
What were some times that I felt overwhelmed and scattered in my health coaching business, and then I laughed and laughed and laughed because I think I felt that way every day. To some degree, it's so, so normal. But yeah, in the first five years, I'd say it was very hard to know what to focus on because I didn't have a boss telling me what to do.
I always had a boss telling me what to do. Now I had to be the boss, and I had lists and lists of ideas, and I wanted to do them all at one point. My average week consisted of this. Meeting with my clients, of course, writing blog posts, sending emails, tabling at the farmer's market, holding workshops, driving to people's homes for pantry cleanouts, hosting cooking classes in my kitchen, and teaching about 10 yoga classes.
I was working seven days a week, and some of those days started at five or 6:00 AM and went until nine or 10. Which, as you can imagine, led me straight into a health crisis I hadn't been expecting. I mean, I left my career in big advertising because I wanted better work-life balance. And here I was.
Ironic, I know. Burning myself out as a health coach, I was ready to quit entirely. I love the work, you know, I love my clients, but I was trying to do all of the things without any sense of what actually mattered. And it wasn't working. Like I wasn't, I had hit a wall. I wasn't going to get past that. I wasn't gonna be able to grow my business unless I could add 10 more hours to each day that I could continue to burn myself out with, you know, of course, that wouldn't have worked either.
And I hear from so many of you. You feel scattered. You're all over the place. Either you're burning out like I did, doing all the things, or you're frozen in procrastination because you don't know which of the things to do. It's all totally normal. It is not a character flaw. It's just what happens when every tactic looks equally important.
I have to post on Instagram is equal to, I have to start a blog, which is equal to, I have to build a website, which is equal to, I have to create a group coaching program, which is equal to, I have to choose a target market, and on and on and on. When everything feels urgent, it's like your brain just can't figure out what to prioritize or how to move forward.
It's not laziness. Decision fatigue is what it really is. And the same thing happens with our clients. So I think it's helpful to think of it from that lens, like our clients are bombarded, or just people in general are bombarded with health advice these days. It's ice plunges and saunas and fasting and grass-fed beef or plant-based, or you should meditate or wear this weighted vest or try these medicinal mushrooms.
That's why most people pretty much just shrug, order pizza, and think not today. You know, it's just, it's too overwhelming. You can't even wrap your head around it all. What do you and I know when it comes to these health topics? We know it's the big rocks that matter when it comes to good health. Like, it doesn't matter if you wear a weighted vest or not; you don't need the infrared sauna.
I mean, those things might be nice, and you do you. But if you can simply move your body and eat real food, and like eat a vegetable sometimes and drink some water, I mean, you are 90% of the way there. The details, how you do it when you do it, those, they just don't matter as much. But it's very easy, and you'll see this all the time with your clients.
It's very easy for people to get bogged down into those details, and then they just stay stuck. Now your business. Very much the same. It needs the same kind of big picture perspective, so you're not chasing every shiny object and running yourself in circles when you know the few things that actually create clients and income.
Then everything else is just details. So here's a small action that I want you to take today. Grab a piece of paper, and let's get all that stuff outta your head, brain dump. Every single business task that you think you should, and I'm doing air quotes, if you're listening and you're not watching all the things that you should be doing, that might take a while.
It's gonna be a long list, I bet. Go ahead. Get all out, and then when you're ready, go back and circle only the items that directly connect you with potential clients or create income. I want you to notice that I said directly, directly connect you with potential clients, directly create income, and here's a hint, updating your website does neither of those.
So commit to focusing on just those circled tasks for the next week. Ignore the rest. You don't need the LLC this week. You know what I mean? And this is the secret, like this is how you break that overwhelm and procrastination cycle. When you feel overwhelmed, you will many times, as you build a business, I often do to this day, but it's never a sign that you should give up.
It's a signal that you need to zoom out and look at the bigger picture. You know, you gotta take that bird's eye view. Just like we teach our clients to focus on the basics of good health, those big rocks that matter most, that's what you see when you zoom out. And if you'd like to see the exact three big rocks that I give to my own students, the ones, the health coaches that are going from hearing crickets to getting clients without relying on social media.
Those three rocks are free, and they're waiting for you at HealthCoachPower.com/Clients. It will allow you to see the big picture so you can focus on what matters most and take the action that's gonna move you forward.
Thank you so much for listening to the Health Coach Power Community podcast. Please take a moment, leave a written review on Apple Podcasts. It helps us reach more coaches and allows me to bring you this free content every week to join us live. Ask your questions and have a direct line to me. Join our free Facebook group at HealthCoachPowerCommunity.com.
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