As a personal trainer... you'll be facing some struggles. In this article we share with you some of them and we share with you how to deal with them.
This article is proposed by Gymkee, the personal trainer software that allows you to deliver the best coaching experience to your clients while saving time and growing your personal training business.
Try Gymkee for free for 14 daysBeing a personal trainer, what a beautiful profession...
Well yes, you chose this path for good reasons, it's a fabulous job.
You help people to take charge of their lives, to improve their health, physically and mentally, to regain confidence in themselves, to let off steam, to reach goals that they might not have been able to reach on their own, you are a source of motivation and resources, of skills...
You have a lot to be proud of. 👏
And in addition to being a job that brings you a lot of personal satisfaction, it is also a job of passion and there is nothing more beautiful than being passionate about your job ! ❤️
Because, if you set limits for yourself that you respect, it is a pleasure to work. 👌
But you have to realize that the job is not all rosy. 🙄
You can love your job all you want, but you can’t deny it’s a source of struggles and stress that can have a devastating impact on your mental health and leads you to quitting the profession.
In fact, many personal trainers quit these days, because of many external factors. Plus, they can also develop internal conflicts such as an impostor syndrome, which is a very predominant problem among coaches.
I think that you could notice around you or even in your gym that many coaches leave the ship. ⛴
And it is not without reason.
Some people say that the life span of a coach is 5 years, and that after this time, many coaches make a professional reconversion.
And yes, many coaches, maybe even you, find that this beautiful profession is an ungrateful job, which obviously leads to demotivation and giving up.
So if you don't want to have gone through all this trouble to become a personal trainer and develop your business only to stop after 5 years, or if you were thinking of becoming a coach and that you’re disturbed by what i’m saying, I will reassure you right away. 😮💨
We are going to identify the reasons why coaches change profession and from there find solutions to these reasons, which are in fact problems of the profession which can completely be overcome.
In this article, I'm going to give you the main difficulties of being a personal trainer and simple and efficient solutions to deal with them.
Of course you knew before you started that it was a physical job, and you probably like that, to put your body to the test to build muscle, it's part of the game to get results...
But you shouldn't underestimate the impact that going to the gym every day has on your body in the long run.
It's a very progressive thing so you may not notice it today but it can obviously damage your health and exhaust you.
That’s why after a few years of doing this every day, you may find coaches who can't keep up anymore and are forced to stop because they say they are too old for this. 👵🏻
On top of that, as a personal trainer, you have a different schedule compared to other professions.
You can work very early until late, you often work on weekends...
All that is mental energy but also physical energy that you spend and that will quickly contribute to make you physically tired and therefore tired of the job. 😮💨
A lot of coaches give up after a few years because they never spare themselves physically and they end up exhausting themselves, that in addition to the mental exhaustion I'm going to talk about right after.
There isn’t a thousand solutions : you have to take it easy.
You take care to ensure the comfort of your clients, even if of course you push them to push their limits, but you make sure that they have time to rest, knowing that they don't go to the gym every day like you do...
All this attention that you bring to them so that they don't get injured and that they don't burn out in the long term, it's an attention that you should bring to yourself.
So take care of your health and your body, it's super important if you want to stay in the business.
Go get a massage once in a while and above all apply the care you bring to the comfort of your clients to yourself. 💆
There are many things in this profession that contribute to mental fatigue ;
There are many responsibilities, and things to plan, sessions to prepare, prospecting, social medias to manage, money to manage, all sorts of things... 😬
Not to mention the contingencies of life with last minute cancellations of sessions, and the pandemic and all that will shift your schedule and can stress you out. 😥
With this mental load that comes with being a personal trainer, there is also the fact that you can simply become saturated with fitness.
Doing too much sport, thinking sport, talking sport can kill a passion. 💀
Already making your passion your job carries a huge risk of getting disgusted with your passion because you bring a lot of obligations and stress factors into it and it's not just a pleasure anymore. 💔
As a result, many trainers get saturated and start to feel, not just disinterest, but fed up with doing and thinking and talking only about fitness because it's the equivalent of only talking and doing and thinking about work.
Take some time for yourself, to see people who are not in the business and cultivate other interests.
You may not feel the need for it right now but in the long run it will be good for you to know that you are something else outside of fitness, that you have a personality outside of that and that you are able to talk about other things.
And above all you will be able to make a real break from work.
Organize your schedule well, so that you can really have some personal time and as I said, cultivate other interests. ⏱
It's really important in the long run, I don't think you want to give up your passion.
It's not new, coaches are poorly paid and it's not getting any better, on the contrary. 💸
Gyms are riddled with charges so they don't hire many coaches anymore and when they do now it's a race for low cost, they want well trained coaches paid peanuts. 🥜
On top of that, there is a real collective problem of perception of the profession.
Unfortunately, many people still don't understand that coaching is a real job and even think that it is extremely simple to do, so they expect it to be almost free. 😑
Well yes, there are a lot of people who will think that you are just an enthusiast paid to give them advices that they could find on youtube so it shouldn't be so expensive for so little.
Don't flinch. Get paid what you're worth. 💰
It's better to have a handful of clients who value your work and pay you the right price than a multitude of clients who pay you peanuts because that will quickly demoralize and demotivate you and leave you broke at the end of the month.
Find out about the salaries of the gyms, don't just go for it.
So yes, we advise you to work at a gym in the beginning before starting your own business, even if you are poorly paid, but that's only for 2 years, after that if the salary doesn't satisfy you, you should fly on your own. 🕊
There are many personal trainers who give up the profession because they say to themselves “it's already a thankless job for the body and the mind, it's poorly paid, why should I do this to myself”.
You have to persevere and really get paid what you're worth. 💯
It will be complicated the first years but there are also many coaches who have good incomes and you just have to have patience and make the right choices in terms of rates.
And yes, obviously the pandemic had a huge impact on the fitness industry and the coaching profession.
If it was an opportunity for some coaches to explode via online coaching, some did not know how to take the digital turn and did not survive the closing of the gyms. 💀
The thing is that you might be telling yourself that it’s not relevant anymore, lockdowns are over, and that the gyms have reopened for good. 🤞
But with the instability of the situation, people are afraid to take out memberships and others have simply got into the habit of staying at home... 🛋
...and on top of that, this instability is also a huge stress factor for trainers. 😬
Going digital is therefore crucial today because it allows you to compensate for this kind of unpredictable situation and to adapt to the new home habits of your clients.
It simply allows you to continue your activity despite everything.
Going digital doesn't distort the coaching experience as some may think, if you use the right tools to ensure quality.
And even if technology is not your thing, going digital is not necessarily complicated.
For that I have a simple solution, it's our application Gymkee. ✨
It allows you to create personalized fitness programs for each of your clients and deliver the best coaching experience possible.
👉 You can look take a look at the app right here.
In short, digital makes life easier especially during this complicated period so don't hesitate to consider it before giving up.
I talked about it quickly when I was talking about salaries, the devaluation of the profession includes absolutely everything I said before.
With a too low salary, youtubers without diplomas who can improvise themselves as free coaches by showing videos of their workout, coaching today is perceived as something simple, within the reach of everyone and therefore of anyone. 🙄
Just a passion that costs us nothing in energy and time and mental load and therefore it should be cheap.
Unfortunately, we can't change all mentalities, we can't revolutionize the world and remove these beliefs.
But what we can do is change our way of seeing things, our perception and our reaction to it all. 👀
Instead of getting depressed and feeling devalued and belittled, which leads directly to demotivation and giving up, you must tell yourself that you know what you are worth. 💯
You know how much work, energy and time you put in, and even if some smart guys minimize it, you will still be rewarded for your efforts by your clients and the clients you will acquire. ✨
So yes, there is some justice in this, because any client who does a few sessions with you will immediately realize that this is a real job with real responsibilities.
You will never have the esteem of everyone, but you will have the esteem of those who count, that is to say yourself first and your clients, who are the ones for whom you work so hard.
When we offer a service or a product and it starts to be successful, sometimes we doubt ourselves... 😔
We think that what happens to us is not deserved... that we have no merit and that the clients will realize that we are mediocre at what we do... 👀
❌ All that is very wrong. ❌
As a personal trainer, you sometimes underestimate the value of what you bring to your clients and then develop an impostor syndrome :
It is the belief that if you succeed, it is only due to luck and not because of your talent or skills and that you are not as competent as others perceive you to be. 🤥
To put it simply, impostor syndrome is the experience of feeling like a phony—you feel as though at any moment you are going to be found out as a fraud—like you don't belong where you are, and you only got there through dumb luck. 🍀
It can affect anyone no matter their social status, work background, skill level, or degree of expertise.
There are simple advices you can follow to deal with it and eventually surpass it.
It is estimated that 70% of people will experience at least one episode of this phenomenon in their lives. 🤯
The signs of an impostor syndrome are :
In other words, If you think you might have impostor syndrome, ask yourself the following questions :
If you have an aggravated case of this syndrome you should talk to a therapist, but if you don’t there’s simple advices you can follow to deal with it and eventually surpass it.
There are a lot of personal trainers on the market today and yet you are there, at this level.
You have clients who trust you with their health... Do you realize that? 🤯
Not many trainers take the time to step back and take an overview of all they have accomplished.
Sometimes taking a step back from what we do allows us to realize the progress we have made to date. 📈
You have clients who trust you with their most valuable asset to help them feel better, be healthier, believe in themselves and live longer.
If they’re training with you, you are good at what you do. 💪
People are not stupid...
Coaches who are not good are quickly found out and they don't reach the level that you have today. 👀
Often, we don't take the time to celebrate small & big successes because we have so much on our plate that we think it's not over yet... because we always have more to achieve.
To celebrate is to emphasize a positive event that has just happened to you.
As soon as something positive happens in your personal or professional life with your clients, don't hesitate to emphasize this event.
When one of your clients reaches his or her goals, when you sell more programs, when you make a significant amount of money, take the time to celebrate what you've done. 🎉
Take a step back and appreciate the work you've done.
Accentuating the positive isn't just about celebrating.
You can reward yourself for every success you achieve...
For example, You can tell yourself that if you manage to make a client reach this goal, you’ll get the latest iPhone or anything else. 🎁
When you think you don't deserve what you have, it's usually after you've failed or screwed something up. 😬
The thing is, everyone fails, even the ones at the top.
Instead of self-destructing after a failure by telling yourself that you're no good and that you don't deserve what you have, take the time to pause once again and take a step back.
You just failed, so what? 🙄
What's the impact? Is this mistake the end of your life? Will you never get over it?
In 99% of the cases, it's not that bad.
Well, unless you killed someone... that's another matter. 👀
When you have a failure, just tell yourself that you can learn from it to become even better at what you do. 💪
So yes, it's much easier to say than to do because it's the last thing on your mind when you suffer a failure... but it's the right thing to do.
Today, we all have access to anyone's life... at least the visible side of their life.
With social medias, everyone displays their life to whoever is interested in seeing it. 👀
Among these people, there are bound to be people who seem to be more successful, happier and live a better life than us. ✨
Is this the reality? Maybe not, but that's what it looks like.
So, we compare ourselves to those people who seem to be very far from us.
The thing is, you don't know what this person has been through. You don't really know their life.
Maybe they had it easier than you from the start? Maybe they have 10 more years of experience than you? 🤷♀️
In short, there are many reasons why there is no benefit to comparing yourself.
This is going to sound sappy, but the only person you should compare yourself to is yesterday's you. 👈
Your only goal should be to be better than the old you, it's good enough.
You witness your clients comparing themselves to people on social medias everyday and you must find it ridiculous and tell them that it’s mostly fake am I right ? 🙄
Well, it’s exactly the same thing here because it’s as easy to photoshop your whole life and success as to photoshop a bikini body. 👙
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We know that the overuse of social media may be related to feelings of inferiority and it can also lead to making you pretend to have a perfect life. 🙄
If you try to portray an image on social media that doesn't match who you really are or that is impossible to achieve, it will only make your feelings of being a fraud worse. 🤥
Your current life and your current achievements are enough and should be celebrated no matter how small. 💪
Be authentic on your page and people will be even more admirative because they’ll feel that you’re are grateful and relatable and that your success is achievable for them, and that’s what you want people to think to transform them into clients. 🎯
Remember that if you are feeling like an impostor, it means you have some degree of success in your life that you are attributing to luck.
Try instead to turn that feeling into one of gratitude.✨
Look at what you have accomplished in your life and be grateful.
Some people keep a gratitude journal where they write down things they’re grateful for every morning or every night and i encourage you to do that. 📓
It helps be more positive everyday and take a step back.
Being a personal trainer is a thankless job but it's still a beautiful one that can be appreciated at its true value.
You need to be patient and take measures so that it doesn't eat you up and loses its value in your eyes.
Time, the right choices, good management will make your business work and grow without you having to lose your health, your spirit, your dignity and your confidence.
If this is supposed to be your path, coaching will work for you, you must have confidence and not let everything I have mentioned make you give up, if you apply my advice.
You have to hold on, I know that you can survive this curse of 5 years of life expectancy because you have all the resources at your disposal and you are aware of everything that coaching implies.
🙌 Thank you for reading my article you can :
❤️ Share this content with your friend's personal trainers, it can help them achieve more in their personal training business.
❤️ Don't hesitate to check out our video on the topic on our Youtube channel.
❤️ And of course, if you're not using the app for personal trainers Gymkee yet, you'll find the link at the top of the page to get a 7 days free trial and start delivering the greatest coaching experience ever to your clients while maximizing your time & activity.
📧 If you need more pieces of information, feel free to mail me at marine@gymkee.io!
Take care ! ❤️
This article is proposed by Gymkee, the personal trainer software that allows you to deliver the best coaching experience to your clients while saving time and growing your personal training business.
Start for free
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