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- Be Resilient
Jim Bell, PhDc
Personal Training is an emotionally
draining career. You are constantly attempting to deal with your
clients' needs; they are constantly attempting to deal with their
wants. You know they need to exercise, but they want
to be lazy. You know they need to eat healthy, but they want to
eat junk, and a lot of it. You know they need to improve their
lifestyle and make good choices and they want the instant
gratification that comes from bad choices.
The result is that you are left with feelings of
frustration and inadequacy because you could not persuade them to start or
stick-with your program. The harder you try, the more you care, the more intense
your efforts-the greater the negative feelings of failure.
Be resilient! Be aware of the facts of life. On the
planet earth, if you drop an object in a vacuum it will fall at 32 feet per
second - everything and everywhere on our planet. That is a fact! On our planet
earth, not every human being will start an exercise program, and of those that
do start, a very high percentage will dropout. That is a fact! There are many,
many, opinions as to why 80% of the American population does not exercise with
enough regularity to receive any health benefits, but let us stick to the facts.
The facts of personal training are that you will
never be able to convince everyone to start exercising or eating healthy, and of
those that do many of them will drop out. It does not mean you are the worlds
worst personal fitness trainer (PFT), though you should always strive to improve
your knowledge and skill. It does not mean you are an ineffective communicator,
though you should always strive to improve your communicative skills. It does
not mean you are an ineffective motivator or teacher, though you should always
strive to improve your motivational and teaching skills. Many times it will have
absolutely nothing to do with you and have everything to do with them. Accept it
as a fact of personal training and be resilient.
You should always analyze why the relationship
ended, but do so unemotionally. One thing you can do is to ask them to fill out
an Exit Survey. You can often times find
out more from a departing client than you can from someone who has been with you
for years. {Note: I will research an old Exit Survey form I used to use many
years ago, update it and have our IT department put it on our website:
www.ifpa-fitness.com in the resource section}. More emotionally draining, are
the clients who stay! The clients who stay can actually be more of an
emotional drain than those who leave. In my mind, once a client was out of the
program and out of my care I felt no emotional tie to them. However, I felt very
close emotional ties to the clients who stuck with the program. These clients
were putting in the time, effort, energy, expense and
making sacrifices simply because I asked them to. This left me feeling highly
responsible for their results. In each and every training session I used
tremendous volumes of emotional energy to motivate them through every session. I
felt like I was a pitcher of water and my clients were glasses. I poured my
life-force into them so that by the end of the day I may not have lifted a
single weight, but I was empty, the pitcher was drained dry.
I didnt notice early on because I was still
exercising hard and maintaining my fitness level, but as I began to get busy, my
own workouts started to suffer. Eventually I was working way too many hours and
even when I did attempt to get a workout in, someone would constantly be
interrupting me to ask a question about exercise, nutrition, sports
conditioning, or who won the World Series in 1969? {N.Y. Mets, 4 games to one
over the Baltimore Orioles}.
I am going to give you some advice that no one gave
me back in my PFT days:
- Learn to say NO! It is
always ego gratifying when someone walks up to you and says they told me you
are not taking any more clients right now, but my friend told me I should only
work with you. Learn to say no. If you want to last a good long time
as a PFT dont allow your ego or greed to force you into a situation that will
burn you out.
- Develop Professional
Emotional Detachment. Just as doctors, lawyers, and other professionals learn
to cope unemotionally with their client and patients, so must you.
- Dont let yourself get into
a programming rut. Dont be lazy - it is real easy to develop a one size fits
all training program with all your clients getting the same program, but its
not right for you or them. They are not getting their needs met and you are
getting bored to death.
- Maintain the health and
fitness lifestyle.
- Maintain the highest caliber
of ethics. Every time you cheat, lie, or steal it
will place a stress on you that will eventually come back to haunt you. If you
dont understand, please read Charles Dickens' A
Christmas Carol.
- Maintain a healthy balance
in your life. The Ancient Greeks had a Whole Man concept. The Greeks felt if
you did not develop yourself mentally, physically, emotionally, artistically,
and spiritually, you were not a Whole Man {Update to read Whole
Person-since the IFPA has as many female as male trainers}
- Re-Assign Difficult Clients.
You are not going to get along with everyone, so dont put yourself through
the stress of trying.
- Become a master of your
craft! Learn from your peers, college, books, IFPA CEC courses or Advanced
Certification courses, attend the IFPA conference (Aug. 26th - 28th,
2004), visit chat rooms online (IFPA-Forum), find a mentor, take advantage of
the numerous venues to learn.
- Strive for personal and
professional excellence. I have always believed the marvelous richness of
human experience would lose something of its rewarding joy if there were not
limitations to overcome. Be resilient!
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