When I take on a new client there is one thing I do every time before anything else. I do it before sitting down for a deep dive, I do it before planning, and it drastically accelerates their success.
That one thing is a ‘life audit’ and today I’m going to explain exactly what that is and how you can do it for yourself as well.
In this episode I share:
- The first step that I go through with all high performing clients
- What exactly is a “life audit”
- What I as a support person get from an audit for my clients
- How the information captured can change depending on the part of your life or year you are in
- Where people go wrong when trying to achieve consistency
- The most important thing to get from capturing life audit information
- How a life audit can help with consistency
- An example of how this audit works with athletes
- The first step you can take to completing your own life audit
Key Quotes
“Since I’ve started using life audits with my clients the rate of which they have had success has been extremely accelerated.”
“Fundamental to helping people achieve their goals, it’s about consistency.”
“A high performance life doesn’t have to be suffering, difficult or unenjoyable.”
Episode Resources
Jessica Spendlove Website – www.jessicaspendlove.com
Jessica Spendlove Keynotes – JessicaspendloveKeynotes – Jessica Spendlove
The High-Performance Profile Quiz https://jessicaspendlove.com/quiz/
Jess Spendlove Instagram https://www.instagram.com/jess_spendlove_dietitian/
Jess Spendlove LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/jessica-spendlove-64173bb8/
About Your Host
Jessica Spendlove | Wellbeing Speaker & High Performance Strategist
Jess Spendlove is an international wellbeing and high performance speaker, coach, and advisor. With over 15 years of experience across corporate leadership, elite sport and the military she is known for helping ambitious leaders and teams optimise energy, build resilience, and sustain peak performance.
As one of Australia’s leading performance dietitians and a trusted voice in executive wellbeing, Jess delivers science-backed strategies that empower individuals, teams and organisations to thrive under pressure and achieve long-term success.
Episode Transcript
The following transcript has been automatically generated and not checked for accuracy
Jess (00:03.258)
In today’s episode, I wanted to take you through the first step I take with all my coaching clients that I have found to be pivotal to their success. Now this process to the level that it is now at is only something that I’ve been doing over the last 18 months to two years and recently I found myself reflecting on my coaching programs and how I am getting my clients such great wins. Both short term, fast impact.
feeling and seeing the results quickly, which is key to building momentum and staying motivated, but also while balancing that with embedding behavior change and integrating habits. For me, balancing the two is the sweet spot between.
Jess (00:49.43)
What I’ve seen balancing the two is the sweet spot between getting the wins now, feeling the impact, seeing the impact, while also making sure that it’s not just a quick win, and it’s something that’s integrated into their life.
Jess (01:10.526)
Now in today’s episode, I’m gonna take you through what this process is, the areas that I look at, how you might like to undertake this process for yourself and also give you access to a template that you can download to populate that.
I truly believe that self-awareness is the greatest superpower and once we have clarity on what we’re doing, we start to understand even why we’re doing that, that gives us the keys to making long-term change. Now of course when you work with someone one-on-one or in a group coaching program, you’re able to accelerate that, you’re able to collapse timelines and when I work with my one-on-one clients in six-month coaching programs, it allows us to go deep and fast.
I call the life audit is fundamental to that process. Now, the life audit is something that I do with every single coaching client, whether they are an elite athlete, a CEO, a business owner, a high level junior athlete, or any other high performing type of individual that I coach. The life audit.
The life audit captures seven days of information and the areas that we look at are their nutrition. So their meals and their snacks, what they have on the different days, their training, when they train, where they train, what time they train, how long they train. Sorry. Their training, when they train, where they train, how long they train, the types of training that they do.
It looks at their sleep, how many hours sleep are they getting? What time do they go to bed and wake up? Is that consistent? Does it vary? What kind of…
Jess (03:00.498)
Is it consistent or does it vary? I also get them to rate their energy levels so we can see any trends. Do they stay consistent across the week? Do they start good and fall off a cliff? Do they start really low and build across the week? I’ve seen it all, but getting that information is part of this process. I also look at the supplements that they’re currently taking, what they’re taking, when they’re taking it, how consistently they’re taking it.
what doses they’re having, all of that. And it also helps capture their life and the logistics of life. So for an elite athlete, that might be the days they train, the times they start, are they training at the same ground? Do they do recovery in different locations? For a corporate, it might be what days are they at home? What days are they in the office?
Do they have any other extracurricular commitments or activities? Do they have children? Do they drop their children to school or pick them up? All of these details are so incredibly important. For the individual, it is just what they do, but for me, it is giving me visibility on what their life looks like. It also helps me see patterns. Sorry, I need to put the aircon on, Sam. Dying.
Jess (04:43.894)
Sorry, it’s so hot here and I’ve just put the aircon on, which was probably that rattling sound. So you’re gonna have to work your magic, but I just can’t, it’s too hot.
Jess (04:55.314)
Now the process of capturing this information is about me getting a really clear snapshot of what life looks like. Ideally…
the client who is capturing this information is told not to change what they’re currently doing. But the thing we know is when people start to document what they’re doing, it does start to shift their behavior. But nevertheless, I still find this an incredibly valuable exercise. All it’ll let, I still find it an incredibly valuable exercise. One of the main reasons for that is when I’ve got this information ahead of even sitting down with this client and which…
One of the main reasons for that is I’ve got all of this valuable information before I even sit down with the client. Now, that’s incredibly important for a few reasons. One, I’ve got a really clear snapshot of what their life looks like. It has enabled me to see what they are currently doing, any patterns. It gives me some opportunities to see any gaps or any… It gives me an opportunity to see…
what they’re doing pretty well, areas for improvement. It also gives me an opportunity to look at what life currently looks like and align and assess that against what their goals are. So before I even sit down with this client and do a two hour deep dive session, which is the first thing I do when I sit down with them, I already have a really clear understanding about their goals, their challenges and their struggles, which we’ve discussed on the application form and application call.
importantly, I am crystal clear on what their life currently looks like. Now the thing is, depending on who the client is, that may change. So for an elite athlete, I’m thinking I’m working with a few professional AFL players at the moment and they are just about to finish pre-season. So when we started working together a month or two ago,
Jess (06:55.594)
they capture that information and it was relevant to them for pre-season. So as we move into in-season, which is when they start to play games, I will likely get them to capture that information again, because everything has changed. Trainings change, sometimes they travel, they’ve got different days of the week, which is compared to pre-season where they have their set days. Monday they do this, Tuesday they do that, Wednesday they do that. But in pre-season, that looks totally different
on when they play their game on the weekend. Do they play Thursday night, Friday night, Saturday lunchtime, Saturday night, there’s so many variations which then impact what their week looks like. So depending on who the client is that may be captured a few times. If it’s a corporate client and not much changes, they don’t do too much travel, they may just capture that once at the start and that may be sufficient.
But this process is something that I do at the very start of the journey, before we even sit down in that two hour deep dive session, because this allows us to go deep. This allows me to get information to probe, to understand the decisions that they make. This also allows us to cover off anything else that’s going to be important to helping them achieve their goals.
Whereas if I didn’t have this information, I would spend that initial session capturing all of that information. So by having it in advance, we’re already ahead of where we would have been simply by doing that. Now, the other reason I like to capture this information, as I mentioned, it’s about seeing patterns and it’s about seeing opportunities and gaps. Now, this might be information which as you, you’re just going about living your life and for you, this is just your schedule.
Whereas for me, when I look at the different days or the different environments or circumstances, so for an example, let’s use a corporate who may be working at home one or two days a week, maybe working in the office a few days a week. They may have children that they’re either picking up or dropping off because they’re an, because that’s something of.
Jess (09:12.406)
because that’s something that they want to do, that’s something that they value. So within and amongst their busy life, even I’m thinking of a client I’ve got at the moment, he’s a CEO and that’s something that he values and he wants to do a few times a week. So this is all really critical information because fundamental to helping someone…
Jess (09:35.114)
fundamental to helping someone achieve their goals, it’s about finding consistency. However, where people go wrong is when they,
However, where a lot of people go wrong is when they’re looking to achieve consistency, they’ve only got one strategy. Now, one strategy may not work for all of those examples. So for this specific client I’m thinking of, he’s got three or four different mornings that we need to think about. The days he’s in the office early, the days he works at home, the days he drops his children to school, and then the weekend. Now with this client, one of the biggest focus areas is his breakfast and a high protein breakfast
his appetite, stabilise his blood sugar levels and set him up for the day. But what he’s able to have when he’s at home is very different to what he’s able to have in the office or when he drops his children to school or when he’s got more time on the weekend. So what my job is to identify that as a big lever, to discuss strategies with him and formulate a plan that’s going to work for all of those different days. And by having that information and being
Jess (10:45.46)
those different ways that he starts the day, I’m able to formulate that from the get-go rather than give him one strategy which isn’t going to work for all of those scenarios because we haven’t had the time to explore that in the depth that it needs.
Jess (11:09.602)
The other thing I really like about capturing the life audit is, for myself as the practitioner, the reason I really like getting my clients to capture this information is because it helps me see the biggest levers that need to get pulled to give them the biggest impact.
Sorry, Sims, grab that.
Jess (11:35.97)
Probably the…
Jess (11:39.83)
Probably the most important part of capturing this information is it allows me to see the biggest levers that need to get pulled to give the client the biggest impact to get the most runs on the board and gain the most momentum but with the least amount of friction or with the most amount of ease.
Let me repeat that, it is about finding the biggest levers that can get pulled, that’s going to give the client the biggest wins, the most momentum, with the least amount of friction and the most amount of ease. I fundamentally believe that a high performance life doesn’t have to be suffering, difficult or unenjoyable, despite maybe what you’ve been told.
What I believe is that a high performance life is about integrating proven strategies and tactics that are gonna elevate energy, mood, performance, help you optimize your body calm, help you lose weight, help you improve your health, whatever you’re trying to achieve, but in a way that’s personalized, customized and tailored to you. Now, the way in which that’s done is by adjusting what you’re currently doing and starting with the levers that are gonna have the most impact. Now, if you tuned into last week’s episode
took you through my five step proprietary process when it comes to the hierarchy of nutrition priorities.
is key to identifying the biggest levers. Most of the time was, in most, in every instance, we’re starting with that foundation base and looking at a few levers from there, but there may be some instances where we’re layering some of the higher levels with that. Never will we start at the top before we address the bottom because there were always areas in that fundamental base that need to be optimized.
Jess (13:56.97)
Now with the life order, it really is the… Now with the life order, I found…
Jess (14:06.902)
The life audit is fundamental to any client’s success and I know that if you do this process yourself, you will start to see gaps within your own week, even without having that support to take you through. Of course, if you’re wanting that support, you can click the link in my show notes and explore ways that we can work together. But for me, before…
But for me, the life audit is fundamental to doing before any deep dive session that I spend with my client. It’s because I don’t wanna sit there capturing all of this. I want to have this information. I wanna capture it in real time. And it also by, and by doing so, it allows us to go deeper into other areas, such as their background, their medical history and other important information, which all shapes the game plan that we’re going to set together.
Now, as I mentioned, consistency is on as the biggest driver to success and finding ways to be consistent when life is different and all of the variables is the biggest challenge. It’s also where most people go wrong. They have a set and forget strategy, but they don’t take into consideration all of the different variables, such as the client that I shared with you just before. He’s got four different mornings we need to consider. So if he just had that one strategy, it wasn’t gonna work for all of those different scenarios. But with that visibility and seeing that,
because it was mapped out, we were able to tackle something with one strategy but four different options that worked for him that fit harmoniously into his life with ease and was setting him up for success across the day. For me that’s why a process like this is a non-negotiable and it’s so important and I can never imagine working in any other way. Now I want to take you through a few different examples of how I’ve used this life audit process with a few of my most recent clients to give you some visibility.
on how it’s helped identify areas for improvement that would have maybe potentially otherwise gone unknown or undetected for a period of time.
Jess (16:31.202)
So first up, I wanna take you through two, they’re actually both AFL players. I’m going through a phase of working with AFL, which I really enjoy. I know AFL very well from working with the Giants for eight years. So these players, yeah.
which I really enjoy working with AFL players after spending eight years at the Giants. I know the sport very well and truly respect all of the demands that are required. So the first example is an older AFL player. He’s been playing for more than 10 plus years and he was really focused and he’s really focused on his longevity in his career, getting the most out of his body, optimizing his body composition for where he is at in his career,
unturned in an attempt to extend and prolong his career. He’s still very much at the top, very much at the top performing week in and week out but understands that…
Jess (17:40.47)
but understands that sooner or later, based on his age, things are going to shift. And he’s at a stage where he wants to stay performing at his top. And I mean, the benefit of doing a program like this for someone like him is it could extend, it could, it can very much extend his career. Either in the form of the years of contracts he’s getting because he, his body, either in the…
The benefit of undertaking a program like this is truly leveraging every aspect of nutrition to ensure he sustains at his peak for as long as possible. The difference that this can make for him is more contracts or contract extensions at a higher level or the ability to continue showing up week in, week out with minimal injuries and minimal illness.
So when we sat down together and I had him complete his life order, what I was able to see was one practice that he was doing regularly was fasting on low training days or rest days. Now, when I asked him about this, this was a strategy he’d been doing for a few years. And the reason he started fasting was because he’s listening to all the podcasts and he’d heard that there were a lot of benefits.
to fasting so he thought, oh, this is something I might try. And also, not in all instances, but in some instances, in a sport like AFL, as athletes age, sometimes depending on the position, they may benefit from actually maintaining or reducing their overall weight, just to offload some of the…
just to offload some of the load that is put through like their joints, ligaments and tendons. So this is not in all instances, it really depends on the position, the athlete, the injury history, there’s so many factors, but.
Jess (19:43.222)
This is something that I have seen quite regularly with older athletes in sports like AFL. So anyway, he was fasting multiple times a week, three or four times a week in pre-season, wasn’t eating until lunchtime. And I was able to see that really clearly on his life order. We were then able to discuss that in more detail. And the reasoning he was doing that was coming from all of the right reasons. He had heard it was important for longevity.
Jess (20:13.256)
his body composition, a way to like essentially manipulate and adjust his energy intake. So understanding that
So that was the first step, seeing what he was doing and understanding that. But now that we’re working together in such a detailed way, I am able to present to him a more customized, personalized and tailored strategy, which is getting the best of both worlds, as well as things like optimizing his fueling and recovery. Now, the discussion that we had was that while fasting is something which may have some longevity benefits, what he had heard and what is out there doesn’t consider
do and it definitely doesn’t consider what a professional athlete like an AFL player in pre-season who is training so much, running so many kilometers, lifting four or five times a week needs. In that instance we need to look at things like optimizing recovery, optimizing muscle protein synthesis, periodizing his intake and also his fueling. So that
So together we’ve reformulated a strategy for him, which captures and optimises all of those things, which has meant that fasting isn’t appropriate. And…
What he’s reported back to me after only working together for four or six weeks with the improvements in strategies is his weight is coming down, which he’s wanting, his body fat’s coming down, his muscles maintaining, his energy is elevated, his mood, he’s sleeping better, his recovery is feeling better across the week. And this is why.
Jess (21:52.234)
This is why it’s so important to get that personalised and customised advice because information that you hear in audiobooks, on podcasts, you know, in the media are not necessarily customised and personalised to the individual and in some instances, some of these supposed best practices or protocols that are out there may actually be counterproductive, may actually be counterintuitive for this individual person. So…
Jess (22:22.662)
With this specific athlete, we were also able to see that he was overeating at other parts of the day because of the fasting and that the way that he was periodizing his nutrients were around the wrong way. So for example, he was having high carbohydrate dinners the night after his main field sessions when instead he would have benefited from having that the night before and then reducing it the night after providing we’d optimized his recovery. So this is the benefit of the life order.
Another example of an AFL player who he is a little bit younger, so a few years into his career, so different considerations and his goals was really around optimising his performance, optimising his body composition, gaining muscle mass and maintaining that in season. So historically he has struggled to gain weight pre-season because there’s so much running and then as he gets to in season.
where he is at has slowly declined over the year because he didn’t have the strategies in place to sustain those gains in season. So what we were able to do through the life audit and conducting that in both pre-season and in-season was see the patterns and the areas for opportunities. And the biggest thing which stood out for this specific athlete was that he was not eating enough on rest days. Now,
There’s different, now there’s different, now there are people who, scrap that. So by seeing the opportunities to increase, so for example, on rest days, he needed to increase the amount of meals and snacks that he was having. And even on his training days, we had to increase his snacks, both before training and after training. And simply in doing so and having that strategy and the right composition of those snacks, he was able to achieve his goal mass.
and sustain it in season. Not only that, he felt elevated energy, sustained output, and had benefits in every single aspect of his performance. Now…
Jess (24:34.598)
On my new website, which I’m really excited, it launched a few days ago, I have a few case studies. So the athlete I’ve just spoken about, he is featured on there. So you can read the words himself from the different levels, the different strategies we were able to implement and how he responded. But the way in which we were able to achieve that was through completing the life audit. Was through starting at the start and truly understanding all of those areas
through the nutrition, the training, the sleep, the energy, the supplements, the life, the logistics and correlating them with the goals and most importantly customizing it to the person’s life. Now the last example I want to use this person is a business owner, busy, pretty big
Jess (25:25.313)
Mm-mm.
Jess (25:30.258)
scrap that. So I know I’ve shared a few examples here today. I’ve given you two athletes and I’ve also given you a busy corporate. He is in fact the CEO but I have a range of other clients at different levels. I have a range of other corporate clients or business owners or people in the corporate world at different levels and no matter who they are this is the process we follow. We complete the life.
We complete the life audit, we align up with their goals, we look at their challenges and their struggles, and we start with the most important levers. Now, the life audit truly allows me to take a full 360 degree look at my clients lives to be able to develop a personalized, customized roadmap. This is truly…
This really is the secret to how we’re able to balance immediate results, especially things like elevated energy, mood, focus and productivity with long term behaviour change. And that is because it is totally tailored and customised to their life and their goals. It isn’t…
Jess (26:45.154)
The other thing I’ll point out, which was, the other thing I’ll point out, it’s also about looking at techniques like habit stacking, and that’s when there’s already a habit that’s in place, and we might be looking to create or add something new, and we might like to pair it with that.
If you haven’t listened to the episode with Dr. Gina Cleo, which was a few episodes ago, on that episode she talks about how the brain is able to handle anywhere from one to three changes at a time, whether that’s creating a new habit, breaking a habit or adjusting a habit. So I…
Jess (27:20.118)
which is key for anyone listening who wants to undertake this process and complete their own life audit and look at areas that they may see purely from capturing that information that they wanna work on. I would really encourage you to only choose one to three areas maximum at a time, implement them, change them, feel the effects and then layer it on from there. So.
If you are interested in completing your own life audit, what I would encourage you to do is download the template, which you can find in my show notes, and complete it for one week. Try not to adjust anything, try to simply capture it, so you can get a 360 degree look at your life and the things that you might not even realize that you’re doing because you’re on autopilot. The best part of this is that it will start to make you more aware of what you have been doing.
Jess (28:17.342)
And while this specifically is looking at areas of your health and your wellbeing and your performance, this process really does work in any aspect of your life. At the moment I’ve been completing a time and energy audit for my business. What I do each day, what I spend time on, how much it…
what I do each day, how much time I spend on it, and also how much energy it takes from me or gives me. It’s been a really interesting and insightful, it’s been a really interesting and insightful process.
And I would really encourage you if this is an, if you’ve got health and wellbeing and performance goals that you wanna improve to help you achieve the goals you want in your life, to download the life audit template and to complete it. Alternatively, if you know that you work better with a coach, support and have, alternatively, if you know you work better with a coach, having someone.
Alternatively, if you know that you work better with a coach or you simply want to collapse timelines or get something really customised and curated to your life, I have two coaching spots available. You can complete the application form in the show notes. I’d love to hear more about your goals and to see if we’d be a good fit to work together. You can… I mentioned…
You can also check out my past and current clients and their experience and transformations on my brand new website. So again, you can click the link in the show notes to read more about that.
Jess (30:02.894)
God, today’s been clunky. So just to recap today’s episode, the life order process is an essential part of my coaching program and is key to ensuring fast results while creating long-term behavior change. It really is about the win-win.
That’s because it is customized to the person’s life and it isn’t about changing everything but optimizing what they are currently doing while aligning it with their goals.
If you liked this week’s episode, I’d be grateful for you to share it on social media or send it to a friend who would enjoy, as well as leaving a rating and a review. It really helps get the podcast out there and I also love reading and hearing the impact that the podcast is having on people’s lives. That’s all for this week team. I’ll be back again next week to help you all not only reach the top, but to stay there. I’ll see you all then.