If you knew then what you know now: What would have been most helpful when you started working as a Fitness Professional?
When I started out as a personal trainer I felt like I had a decent understanding of the “body” (though I would clearly learn more and grow). However, I have felt that having a greater understanding of the “mind” (especially in these initial stages) would have made a more significant impact my clients and my professional success.
I have a very obvious bias in that the majority of the time I have worked as a personal trainer and health coach I was concurrently working towards my doctorate in clinical psychology with an emphasis in motivation or change psychology. Despite that fact, I still feel and felt that a deeper understanding of the mental side, motivation, cognition, behavior management, etc. was needed and would have had a greater impact on my comfort, confidence, and effectiveness.
I am just wondering if others had a similar experience where understanding people and their needs became a critical component to the success of your work as fitness professionals. Or maybe there is another element that you have found to be the thing that transformed your ability to better serve your clients.
Please tell me what area i.e. group classes, small group, nutrition coaching, one-on-one personal training, etc. (be as specific as you would like) and the things that you learned later (on the job, in seminars, etc.) that you believe would have been helpful to have had exposed/mastered early on (again be as specific as you would like).
That there’s enough to go around and that whatever we do is not a secret.
That people want human interaction and to feel like they matter.
That people are capable of doing much more than they think, sometimes it’s simply a matter of the right type of encouragement.
That not all trainers match their potential client and visa versa and it’s ok to walk away from a situation that “doesn’t feel right.”
I now have a working definition of “what is wellness and well-being.” Positive psychology has done a beautiful job at defining the elements of the construct of well-being. (check out www.authentichappiness.com for more info.) Wellness is also a construct made up of different elements which influence each other – much like weather (humidity, wind, sun light, etc all come together to make up weather.) Now, when I work with people, I share my definition of wellness, which is also made up of 5 different elements – for more information http://www.juliekaminski.com/About-Julie/What-is-Healthy.aspx
Natalie,
Well stated!
I understand the desire for a balanced approach towards the burdens and the blessings of one’s career, life, and family. Good for you. To clarify I understand burdens as a positive thing. To me this burden is much like the tension during a good stretch, the burn on a good run, and the pump after a good lift!
Well wishes to you as you continue to create balance in life, work, and wellness.
Shaun,
Integrating something as simple as a blog with your professional website would be a great start for virtually any fitness professional. One of the keys, however, would be to provide valuable content that was so appealing to your audience they couldn’t help but come back for more of it by visiting your site again and again. It would be even better if they found the content so useful they shared it with their friends via Facebook, Twitter, etc.
Other ideas include autoresponder courses, white papers, and monthly newsletters. Here’s a fantastic list of ideas, some of which might be of interest to you or others:
– http://www.copyblogger.com/creative-content-marketing/
If you get a chance to read the post at that link, I would be interested to hear your thoughts – regardless of whether or not you wanted to monetize the content.