It’s December 1st and I like to take this last month of the year to reflect on the past year, goals (achieved or missed), and to give thought to goals for the upcoming year. 2020 has been a tough year for all of us. My emotions went from a high, experiencing one of my best months in January at the studio, to worrying about this virus and how it will affect me, to temporarily closing my place, and wondering how am I going to survive and provide for my family. That was in the first 3 months! We are closing out the year and as of today, Moderna and Pfizer have both applied for emergency F.D.A. approval for their vaccines. There is a light at the end of the tunnel. I turned 50 in 2020, the studio tuned 5 years old (a true milestone in the gym business), and I entered my 30th year as a personal trainer. This was not how I envisioned the year 11 months ago. As I give myself permission to plan for 2021, reflecting back is helping me navigate how to predict my future.
I didn’t have an elaborate plan during my initial five years in the fitness business. I worked at a national gym chain (Bally’s Total Fitness). If you watched the character Ben Stiller portrays in the movie Dodgeball, I think you’ll get a vibe for the era.
There was limited strength and conditioning education available and personal training was not considered a profession. This was the time in my life where I avoided sharing with people at social gatherings what I did for a living. When asked, I either received the dreaded look that I was a deadbeat, lacking a “real” job, or I was relegated to listening to them describe their ab routine and their questions on how to get a six pack. I did have two key takeaways during this period. Energy is contagious and people gravitate towards it. I wasn’t the most educated early on, but my energy was off the charts. I loved training and working with people and that was obvious. My second takeaway was the importance of being reliable. I started to gain traction as a coach because people could depend on me. I showed up. As President Kennedy said in 1963, “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step”. As a coach, people depend on you to help keep them on the right path.
It was during my next ten years in the industry, that I decided I wanted to make this my life’s career. I adopted the approach that if it’s worth doing, I want to be the best. I know that it sounds cliché and corny, but I worked to get a little better every day. Energy and passion alone would not get me to the top. I had to immerse myself in education. Early on, I learned about exercises, but now I had to learn the body. It started with tightening up on my anatomy (which is an on-going process). Then it was kinesiology. I didn’t formally go to school for this, but as the industry started to mature an abundance of resources started to make themselves available. One of my goals for 2021 is to complete a course (Functional Range Conditioning) taught online by musculoskeletal and human movement specialist, Dr. Andreo Spina. It’s a course on joint health and mobility. These are things that weren’t available ten years ago. My thirst for learning started over twenty years ago and still continues.
The last ten years of my journey have been interesting. I’ve reached a level of confidence after working with hundreds of people and helping them to achieve goals. I still have moments of humility when I come across information reminding me “The more you know, the more you realize how much you don’t know.” The era of social media has been enticing for the fitness world. The internet is filled with influencers and gurus who can post a video and get thousands of views and likes within a day. I have a few friends who are successful in that realm. If you speak to them privately, they will share that they are more of a model and less of a coach. I’m a coach, not a model. I prefer to live by the mantra that it’s not what I can do, but rather what I can coach. Yes, I have an Instagram page, and I invite you to please follow me if you currently don’t (Janddfitness @Instagram), but believe me, the internet is not threatened to break when I post. My goal is to continue helping people. I may not be one of the highest rated profiles on social media, but that’s okay. I can remember when in 1982, “Come on Eileen”, by
Dexy’s Midnight Runners was #1 on the music charts. Where are they now? As I plan out my path for 2021, I will continue to work towards being an endless classic, instead of becoming a one hit wonder.
I invite you to start planning your goals for 2021. Give it some thought. Create a few different lists. Have your smaller goals, along with the moon-shots. The key is to give it thought. Thanks for reading my rant and giving it your time. I’ll see you at the studio.