Feeling stuck in your fitness career?  I have answers…

Do you sometimes wonder if your fitness career is getting anywhere?  I know I do.  And for a long time I really and truly struggled with this.  Don’t get the wrong impression either.  I’m fully prepared to absorb these emotions as they will continue to come.  Only now, I feel just a little more prepared to do so.

That’s the story I want to share with you today…

In any given moment, it’s fairly easy to get the impression that nothing is happening.  Time stands still, you’re boss has made some unreasonable request, and your last three clients just don’t seem to get it. In those moments, especially as they seem to accumulate over the years, burnout creeps toward you until it’s right around the corner, like that invisible patch of ice you can’t yet see in the dark at 5:30 in the morning.  If you round that corner unguarded, you can quickly find yourself lying in a heap, and possibly with a broken ankle – setting you back even farther.

How do I handle these moments and that dark and mysterious force lurking around the corner?  First, I expect it to be there from time to time, and so I’m ready for it.  Ready to darn my invisibility cloak whenever I might need to, so that I can pass right through it.

Secondly, I keep going…

I simply keep going.  I move on to the next task, the next client, the next meal, the next email broadcast, the next chapter in my book, and the next project or action step that is ALWAYS waiting for me – the next thing that needs to be done.  Because if you’re willing to keep going, everything changes.  Not as fast as you want it to.  But eventually.  It has to change.  You leave it no choice.

I have written elsewhere on this blog and The Fitness Nomad Report about the ‘Compound Effect.’  Small, incremental changes implemented consistently over time are what create real change.  Think about your clients, for example.  Isn’t this the reason most of them struggle to achieve the success they seem to so deeply desire? And yet, as soon as they hit their first obstacle or maybe their third, they begin to lose hope, and eventually the enthusiasm that got them to you in the first place.  And you, as their coach, make an all too often failed attempt to convince them to continue.  To keep going…

If you are truly committed to advancing your fitness career, then I need you to keep going.  Take the next step.  Finish reading this post, for example, and then sit quietly and write down the 3 most important things you need to do next to keep moving toward your vision and your mission.  Even if your vision or your mission are not altogether that clear for you as of yet, it’s OK.  You will discover them if you’ll just keep going.

This year, I am planning to share with you in much more personal detail about everything that I’ve accomplished in my fitness career thus far, and about everything that is coming next.  Both, because it fulfills me to write about it, but also because I hope it helps you in some way.  You can stay tuned to the Founder’s Notes blog this year for about a post a week on this subject.

Lastly, and related to my fitness career, and to helping your clients ‘keep going’ when they get stuck, I’ve invented something for you.  I call it Accountable Fitness, and I’ve touched on it here a few times recently.  Accountable Fitness is a software tool in it’s early stages of development, but that also helps address first hand the problem of keeping going.  It took me more than a year to build it, and even now, I’m continually frustrated with my ability to advance it faster.  And so, in that journey, is another perfect example of how BIG things get done one small step at a time.

I’ve been using this tool in my own fitness business for more than a year now, and am happy to report that it is working swimmingly.  I look forward to sharing it with you.  For now though, I only wanted to mention it again.  To use it as an example for the theme of this post today, and also to inform you that next week, I am planning to make it’s presence more officially known.

I look forward to sharing this with you too…

-John

Search for Jobs on ExerciseCareers.com

Just made a post to The Fitness Nomad Report that I thought you might like.

You can find it here:

http://johnashworthblog.com/the-sweet-simplicity-of-lifes-sweetest-gifts/

-John

“You’re face looks different.” She said.

The comment surprised me because my head was covered by the hood of what my father-in-law calls my “severe weather jacket.”

My family and I were headed to the golf course for a walk and run with the dog, Allie.

“People keep saying things like that to me.” I said, with a good deal of satisfaction.

The comment came from my neighbor who knows what we’ve been through as a family over the last few years. Struggling to make a fitness studio that was dying work long enough to prevent losing EVERYTHING. She noticed a feeling that is starting to make it’s way slowly back into my life – contentment…

Earlier last week, a colleague sat down for a meeting at my new downtown studio location and said to me, “Dude, you seem a lot more relaxed.” “That’s good.” I had said, again with a great deal of self-satisfaction.

It’s taking some time, but my life has already improved exponentially now that I’ve sold my old 3,100 square foot fitness studio and moved in to another one that’s 1/3 the size, but that puts me directly in the catbird’s seat. I landed 4-5 new clients in my first two weeks of being open in the latter half of December. Not bad for a guy who could boast no more than a half dozen walk-in clients in 5 years at the old place. The place I now refer to often as “The Bunker.”

No regrets, simply lessons. Lessons I plan to share with you as we move into 2012. I look forward to the work. And mostly, I look forward to being more relaxed…

-John

The energy, the enthusiasm, the natural light beaming through the window.

And all that opportunity walking through my door to greet me…

It’s nice when you’re rewarded for following your instincts. Even when there was so much uncertainty.

-John

Screen shot from the new accountablefitness software program.

The screen shot to the left is one from the home screen of accountablefitness.

These are MEASURES gleaned from the data that is being collected on a daily basis in my fitness studio.  Together, they help form an assessment of my fitness business, and how well my clients are doing in relation to a change in their outcomes.  Best of all, I can look at various POPULATIONS in my business and make even further assessments about which group of interventions has the most positive effect on specific outcomes.

I think at this point, when people think of ‘fitness reports’ their vision is narrow and focused on one person at a time.

What might you and your clients begin to accomplish if you could look at the data in a more meaningful way?

More thoughts in this podcast…

I sold my space to Convergent Science, and there aren't any barn houses where I'm going...photo by nomad

Eventually, it’s NOT about the money anymore…

That’s right, it’s not about the money anymore.  Sure, I need to make a living and I would still like to be rich.  When you pursue the money as your primary motivator though, you begin to lose your way.

Today, I closed the sale on the business condo I’ve owned for the last five years.  I’m moving on, and taking the next BIG step in my fitness career.  It’s not a promotion, or a big job opportunity, or anything like that.  The move is one toward true and lasting job and fitness career satisfaction. The pursuit of a mission that goes beyond money, and that transcends the path of my life now.

I’ve run my fitness business out of this 3,100 square foot business condominium for the last five years.  In fact, I closed the deal to buy it five years ago October.  This was an important step in my fitness career and evolution as a human being.  I took some big hits, wasted a lot of money, and made a lot of GIGANTIC mistakes.

Many of those mitakes, including the ones where I over-extended myself during unfortunate economic times, still must be paid for, caught up, and settled for good.  This will take me a year or two to do by my estimation.  And you know what?  That’s totally OK with me.  Because along the way, those GIGANTIC mistakes were like pots of gold that haven’t been filled yet…

What do you mean Gold, John?

What I mean is that the knowledge and (even more powerful), the wisdom I’ve accumulated along the way has now provided me with a clear uninhibited path on my mission.  A mission which now has at it’s forefront, not money, but purpose, solidarity, and a steadfast commitment to bring it to life…

-John

PS  I have a ton more to share with you as we move into 2012.  I’ve taken some hard knocks along the way in my fitness career and I would love to know that you might learn from my mistakes, experiences, and from the wisdom I’ve accumulated along the way.  I look forward to sharing it with all of you as much as I can find the time to do so…