I was going to start this blog with “It’s not about me” then I thought twice about it. Besides not being as buff as the guy in the photo, I think I might have used that heading once before anyway!
I was talking with some ‘fitness types’ the other day and a young guy chimed in about how he was going to start personal training and showing people how to do what he has done. He was particularly well built from a couple of years of going hard with the iron. It was an admirable achievement because I know it takes a lot of discipline to achieve such a body change. The statement reminded though of where I had it wrong in my early days of training clients.
I made the erroneous assumption that my future clients were wanting to be like me at that time. Although I have never been muscle bound, I was pretty darn fit, as I was training for possible elite level performance in my chosen sport of tennis. I didn’t mind suffering for that goal, in fact I wanted to suffer. Weird I know!
The thing I learned fairly quickly was that my definition of fitness, health, strength etc. was not necessarily going to align with what my clients were wanting. I guess it also is the main reason why I chose Best Practice as a name for the business and not my name. “Fit over 40” is actually better in my opinion, which I have registered. But that story is for another day. Back to the issue at hand, you probably think more about WIIFM -“What’s in it for me?” in a direct way. This is indeed how it should be, because after all, you are paying!
Everyone has a different goal when it comes to health and fitness and a win comes when you simply build something no matter how small that is, from where you started. You just need to feel like you are getting a benefit, be it mentally or physically. Not everyone wants 6 pack abs, gigantic pecs or a bikini body. It’s definitely okay if you do, it’s just that I believe that there is a majority out there who just want to feel better as the very first priority. And then once that is achieved, either rinse and repeat (which is a great life time achievement) or take it a bit further and achieve some other goals that your new found confidence in your health and fitness ability starts to imagine is actually possible.
