Can I Become A Personal Trainer? Yes, You Can.

I distinctly remember walking into the office on a cold January morning in New York City knowing that this was going to be my last day at work. Never had it crossed my mind I would be taking the steps to becoming a personal trainer soon.

My desk faced midtown Manhattan 40 floors up looking out over Times Square. I wondering how I got there, and was overcome with this sudden empty feeling. It was as if I was as far away from what I wanted to be doing in life, as was the sidewalk below me.

Those of us who chose the route of corporate hacks only to feel as if you’ve made a wrong turn somewhere understand one another. This may be why you are reading this right now.  There is hope!

You’re Journey Becoming a Personal Trainer

Maybe you’ve been doing Yoga for the past 5 years and enjoy teaching your family members positions. You could be the go to person in your crew when discussing the best leg exercises. Maybe you’re fresh out of school with a lifelong passion in health and sports and want to become an online personal trainer. You may also be career transitioning as you recently noticed your skill set in the fitness industry is or could be unique.

Whatever the reason, you’ve now realized your passion. I can show you the route to monetize it while doing what it is we are best at as FIT (Fitness Industry Teachers), helping others. 

It’s Never Too Late: Becoming a Personal Trainer

I played sports my whole life. I was unknowingly building my fitness business long before I could drive a car. These are helpful steps for becoming a personal trainer.

I learned drills, lifting techniques, kinesiology, stretching routines, nutrition, recovery, all while simply having fun. When I went off to college I majored in Public Relations.

PR is (I never forget the definition) creating and maintaining relations between an organization and its constituents through strategic two way communication. PR is about honestly, and openly building relations with the goal of always selecting the best course of action.

Upon graduating I joined a PR firm in Manhattan. I loved my coworkers, the clients, but absolutely hated the work and daily grind. Who doesn’t?

I then moved on to a Hedge Fund for two years and felt the same emptiness.

My day started on 4 different trains and subways for a 90 minute miserable commute. I was answering emails at such a rapid pace that my mouse hand pointer finger was becoming arthritic.

Actual work was rarely getting done, and I wasn’t fulfilled.

Well, now I wasted 5 years of school and 100K in student loans. I guess I don’t have many other options except to stick with it right? Wrong.

Fortunately, I understood my happiness was of the utmost importance long term. You do too because you’re reading this still.  

Fill Your Mason Jar

We have the tendency to look at major life decisions as proverbial roads or paths. If you choose the left rather than the right path, there is some butterfly effect.

This now propels you into another realm of existence in which you’re forever stuck in. I implore you to think of your career path differently. I guarantee many of steps for becoming a personal trainer have already been taken be you.

Imagine that instead of a linear path, where you have a static horizontal line with an infinite number of careers.

For the sake of visual context each career is represented by a mason jar. Every marble represents a characteristic, situation, skill, or thought you have concerning that career. Each mason jar holds marbles until it is filled. Achieving it being filled means you have an expertise in that profession.

If I personally look at all my mason jars I may have only a few marbles in the, “Artist” jar. However, How many past experiences with sports, exercise, nutrition and health have you had?

I bet your “Personal Trainer & Health Coach” jar is already half-filled just from life experiences prior to making the leap!

What scares most of us is the thought of starting over. You now know that your mason jar was being filled all along the way. You are not starting over. It is waiting for you to drop in more marbles.

Career Change

It’s a daunting task to jump into a new career, or to even slightly shake up what we are currently doing and switch business models.

When I changed careers I moved across the country, spent all of my savings, and was sleeping on a friend’s couch. I was lost. The next step was dropping off my laughable resume to every gym in my new town. I only received one call.

That call was the catalyst to my entire career in the industry. Why? Because I learned how not to run a personal training business. 

The End Game: Becoming A Personal Trainer

Since then I have had over 25,000 personal training sessions, and owned multiple fitness companies. More importantly, I always had a waiting list of clientele.

I have never felt richer or more refreshed than when I was personal training. Forget financially, I am speaking purely from the freedom of never thinking about money.

I woke up every day excited to work with people I consider friends. My job was to help my friends reach their goals. There was no more waiting for the weekend. I didn’t have to check my bank account daily. The dream of fantasy vacations was gone. I made my life a vacation. 

There are rarely times in life where all the stop lights are green. If you’re waiting for “the right time” to change careers, or fix your current business model chances are you will take it to the grave.

What you need to do is limit the risk factors when making big decisions. I am here to help you do just that. 

“People who have found happiness, love and long term financial success all have one thing in common, they achieved it doing them indirectly”.

The Co-Founder of the Princeton Review, Adam Robinson

As a personal trainer your priorities and attention shouldn’t be focused on immediate success. Marketing strategies or building the best Instagram page will come with time as will your finances. First focus on learning.

Becoming the ultimate Personal Trainer depends on the following:

• Learning to become a great listener

• Create positivity out of all situations

• Realize your skill sets

Wake up every day with unrelenting focus and desire to help your clients in any fashion necessary. All the rest is easy and will fall right into place.

Realize Your Current Skill Sets

Learning both right and left side brain techniques is a must for success in this industry. Not everything can be boiled down into a formula. We have emotions and intuitive logic that come into play when building connections with our prospective clients for life.

“What If I don’t have any or know what exactly my skill set is?” We all have skill sets that don’t jump out at us instantly no matter how many times they’ve been beaten into our skull.

Take some time to think about family, friends, coworkers, teachers, and even superior’s compliments toward you throughout your life. 

Mine was working one on one with people. What comes easy for you? What is it that your friends and family consistently tell you you’re great at?

Fitness Industry Teachers need to marry their fitness skills and knowledge to their god given or developed skills, and let the duo shine.

For some it’s social, cognitive, emotional, memory, physiological, and most of us are a hybrid.  

Whatever your path was to get you to this point, you’ve developed a host of other skill sets that can and will fuse with your niche in the fitness industry.

You Are Ready To Start

Your mason jar has filled up more than you imagine. We will delve deeper into finding what your niche is or should be, and where your skill sets lie.  

For now the hard part is over. You discovered that helping people in the realm of health and fitness is your passion.

Now it’s time to realize and develop your strengths in the fitness and health industry, and never stop chasing your dream.

There are endless ways to monetize it, and I’m here to help you expedite your fitness business journey.

Understand this however; there are no techniques or marketing strategies that will bring you success as a fitness professional if you avoid caring for your clients.

Caring about your clients, and being passionate about helping them arrive at their goals is the only tool I can guarantee leads you to success.

With all that said, I of course recommend TrulyFit’s fitness business platform to start your journey. Also, reading up on how to get client’s as a new personal trainer is important.

Trulyfit was designed to help fitness professionals run their business. It is the only free platform that will allow you to put up a free profile, list your in person and virtual schedule, and have clients find you!

You can start slow and build your business using your schedule and pricing. Join TrulyFit today!