The day was finally here. After months of hard work, driving my family crazy, and overcoming bumps and pitfalls along the way, it was happening….
Today I’d have my very first client at my new studio in Fernandina Beach, FL. The lucky winner of a gift certificate I raffled off at an event in town, what better way to start out this endeavor?
I’d been waiting and wanting to get back into the industry I love and this was my very first client in my new place. Excitement filled my day!
As I put the finishing touches on her workout, she promptly opened the door at 5:00 pm. No sooner did she take her sweatshirt off, she announced:
“I really don’t want to be here. I would MUCH rather be next door.”
That would be the massage place.
Following a quick “no offense,” she began to tell me about her long day filled with meetings. Her co-workers invited her out for a drink after accomplishing a really important project they had been working on for months.
I just smiled because I knew that she had passed the first hurdle in beginning a personal training program: honesty.
To succeed in your fitness and health goals, the very first thing you need to do is be honest.
Honest about your feelings, your fears, your diet. Honest about your hatred of burpees, your love of peanut butter, and why you want to lose 5 pounds. I want to hear why you don’t move more throughout the day, your health history, about that injury you had to your rotator cuff years ago — pretty much anything that can possibly effect your path to success.
The path to success starts with honesty.
You’d be surprised how many people leave out important details when starting out a fitness program. Rarely purposeful, it’s human nature to ignore what we don’t want to talk about, the things that we think might make other people think “less” of us.
So many times a new client ends their first session saying,”Well that wasn’t so bad.” This statement indicates that they were nervous or scared or reluctant about coming. Had they been honest, like my raffle winner, I might have done things differently to put them more at ease. When a nutrition client tells me that they forgot to mention their refusal to eat anything green, honesty would have prevented me wasting both of our time discussing salad recipes or the best way to cook asparagus.
Honesty is the best approach.
You are placing yourself at a disadvantage if you aren’t being honest about your starting point. If you need directions on how to get from Key West to Fernandina Beach, you don’t use Massachusetts as your end point, right? Driving 1600 miles is way more intimidating than 500. It’s the same with fitness — Being dishonest about where you’re beginning sets the mindset that things are going to be a lot harder, longer, and tougher than you thought.
It’s my job as your trainer to meet you where you are in your journey. The ONLY way for that to happen is for you to be honest.
Honest with yourself.
Honest with me.
Your consistent honesty will result in solutions that make your fitness journey more enjoyable. And we all know that enjoyment makes you more successful in reaching your goals!