In yesterday’s blog I talked about how a lot of the Fitness Industry are worried about the impact of AI.
In fact I’d say the overall mood across all the Fitness Professionals I have contact with isn’t particularly high moment.
Many are struggling.
Quite a few have recently left the industry or a talking about doing that.
In 23 years in this line of work I’ve noticed various waves of exodus.
The 2008 financial crisis and COVID / lockdowns being the biggest two.
If anything, that post COVID period seemed to see even more exit the industry.
I think many had held on through the lockdowns in the hope that “everyone will come back when this is over”.
And, when that didn’t happen for them, they moved on to something else.
The more recent number of Fitness Professionals that seem to be struggling is down something that I have noticed as well.
A change in what you could “consumer behaviour”.
This last year the number of people that essentially ignore me has increased noticeably.
It’s always been a thing, but it’s definitely a higher proportion now.
Bear in mind I’m not ‘cold calling’ people – these are people that have specifically asked me to do something.
They filled in a form asking me to contact them or they’ve joined and asked for accountability and support.
Only a few years ago the overwhelming majority of people showed up to a call that we had scheduled together (again, not me trying to force something on them, they had literally booked in a call with me and had had confirmation and reminder messages and could’ve rearranged or cancelled at any point).
The percentage of no shows and ‘ghostings’ has noticeably increased recently.
The percentage of people literally promising that they’re going to go and do something and then pretty much immediately doing the exact opposite has definitely gone up.
And I know a lot of my contemporaries are really struggling with this.
Calling people out on social media as being “flaky” and “unreliable”.
Missing that without people struggling to do things, we would be out of a job.
If everyone found it really easy to do the things that needed to be done to have the body, fitness and energy that they desired then we wouldn’t be needed (if you’re find it ‘easier said than done’ and actually want to make it happen, then jump in at www.myrise.co.uk/apply – I literally guarantee that you’ll be glad that you did).
But, more than anything I think they’re taking it too personally.
They could benefit from taking the emotion out of the result.
As we all can at times.
If this was an employed job where someone paid me to do the number of hours I do and involved doing the work that I do, then I would be pretty happy with my situation.
It’s tempting to feel differently about it when it’s your business and it can feel like people are ‘doing this to you’.
And it’s tempting to get up caught up in the emotion and frustration of the things that we need to do to get the health and fitness results that we desire.
But we can just reframe it.
Take the emotion out.
Treat it like we might do certain aspects of our work or life that are much more straightforward.
Just book in those workouts and then do them.
Arrange a weekly time to give some thought to the coming weeks food consumption, get stuff ordered and make some plans.
Realise that we’re essentially being ‘paid’ for this time and effort but with physical and mental benefits rather than cash.
Or maybe turn it around to another way of seeing it.
Imagine if we’d always had a body we like the look and feel off and which gave us the energy and mood that we wanted.
And someone offered to reduce our work hours by a couple per week……..
And give us a pay rise of a few pounds a day……..
But we’d have to gain weight, reduce energy, feel worse and so on.
Would we take it?
Would we heck.
I know these things aren’t always easy.
But sometimes adding layers of extra emotion on top make it much harder than it has to be.
Taking that emotion out of the result and just doing the things that need to be done can really help.
Much love,
Jon ’emoji’ Hall
