One of the biggest challenges that you will face over the course of your fitness career is the loss of motivation. And this can happen to anyone, regardless of whether you are a newly certified fitness coach or you’ve been working as a personal trainer for decades.
During such days, you may begin skipping workout sessions with your fitness clients. And if it keeps happening, you may end up losing all your clients. Consequently, your fitness business will suffer a major hit. You don't want to lose clients. You'll want to gain them and retain them, if anything. Therefore, you need to find ways of gaining back the motivation you’ve lost and keep pushing forward.
So, how do you stay motivated as a fitness professional and keep pushing forward even when your motivation levels are at a minimum? This guide has the answers. Below, we share 7 actionable tips that can help you to stay motivated as a fitness professional.
1. Change Your Routine
As a fitness coach, there’s a high chance that you’ve already settled on a certain routine, which you follow every day. For instance, you may be waking up at 4 am, have breakfast and leave the house by 5 am. You then start your day at around 6 am and you are back at the house at 9 pm.
While there’s nothing wrong with having a routine, doing the same thing repeatedly for long can lead to loss of motivation and boredom. Therefore, it will be advisable to shake things up occasionally to prevent this situation.
So, how can you disrupt your routine? Well, you have several approaches to consider. First, you can change how you normally start your day.
For instance, instead of simply waking up, taking breakfast and leaving for the gym, you can introduce a short jogging session in between. And by the time you leave for the gym, you are already feeling energized, highly motivated and ready for the day.
Second, you should consider changing the route or means that you use when going to the gym. For instance, if you usually drive to work and your gym is not far from your home, you should instead just walk.
By walking to work, you will have more time to yourself, enjoy the surroundings, avoid the traffic stress, and enjoy some fresh out there. And most importantly, it can help to boost your energy levels, improve your mood and renew your motivation.
Third, you should change personal training methods and find ways of making your sessions more enjoyable. By making your sessions more fun, you will start looking forward to going for your sessions, as opposed to looking for excuses to skip them.
Besides, making your sessions fun and enjoyable can also increase motivation in your clients, thus helping to boost gym loyalty and retention rates. Simply put, it’s a win-win for both you and your fitness clients.
2. Take a Short Break
As a fitness professional, you definitely want to make as much money as possible, to keep your fitness business growing. To this end, you may be tempted to be working round the clock, day after day, month after month, year after year. The problem is, this will eventually lead to burnout. And burnout will eventually lead to mental exhaustion, loss of motivation, and loss of productivity.
To prevent this from happening, it will be highly advisable to set aside some time for yourself, preferably every week for a short break. During this short break, you can then enjoy a nice relaxing bath or go for a short hike.
You can also use this time to do some gardening work, catch up with your favorite TV show, repair a fence, listen to relaxing music, or read a book. Taking a short break from work and engaging in these non-work-related activities can help to rejuvenate you, reduce work-related stress and help to restore your motivation levels.
3. Maintain a Positive Mindset
As much as you would like all your personal training sessions to go smoothly, this is not always the case. For instance, you may make a mistake during your sessions, leading to an injury on one of your clients. Consequently, the affected client or even your colleagues may criticize your training methods.
When this happens, it may lead to loss of motivation, and you may no longer feel as if you want to continue being a fitness coach. But the reality is, mistakes can happen to anyone. And instead of wallowing in self-pity, you should instead use this criticism constructively.
By maintaining a positive mindset as opposed to running away from criticism, you will keep improving your performance, regain your motivation, and continue delivering great results for your fitness clients.
4. Set and Review Your Goals
One of the main reasons why some fitness professionals may struggle with motivation is because they lack clearly defined goals. Goals are more of an action plan. They will tell what you intend to achieve, how you will achieve it, and when you will achieve it. Hence, having a clearly defined set of goals will help to keep you motivated.
So, if you have been operating without goals, it will be advisable to sit down and list a couple of goals that you may want to accomplish. Your goals can be big or small. If it’s a big goal, you can then break it down into smaller goals.
For instance, you can list down your main goal as adding 40 new personal training clients within 12 months. You can then split up this large goal into smaller ones such as adding three to four new clients every month, making it easy to achieve them.
After setting your goals, you then need to be reviewing them at the end of one month, three months, six months or 12 months. By having a clearly defined set of goals and working towards achieving them, you will always remain motivated.
5. Reflect On Your Success and Reward Yourself
Even if you have been consistently working hard since you started your fitness career, you may sometimes feel as if you are not making any progress. And this can happen for several reasons. For instance, you may feel as if some of the colleagues you started out with are now way ahead of you. And with such feelings, you may start doubting whether it’s worth continuing being a fitness coach.
If you happen to find yourself in this situation, you should sit down and list all the successes you may have achieved along the way. And, it’s highly likely you will be surprised by how much progress you’ve made along the way.
From there, you should then find a means of rewarding yourself, regardless of how small or big those successes are. You can reward yourself with something like a deep tissue massage in a nearby spa, a fancy dinner with a loved one or even a new car if your budget can allow.
So, whether you’ve made small wins or big wins, make sure you celebrate every success along the way. Reflecting on your successes and rewarding yourself will help you to regain your motivation and keep pushing forward.
6. Surround Yourself with Motivational Thoughts
Another powerful method that can help you to regain your motivation is to fill your surroundings with motivating pictures, thoughts, and motivational quotes. And, you can find them almost anywhere you look. For instance, a simple Google search will give you thousands of motivational quotes and phrases. You can also subscribe to be receiving daily motivational quotes and thoughts.
From there, you can then download them and stick them somewhere. Whether you decide to stick them in your office, at home, or in your car, these motivating quotes, pictures and thoughts can considerably help to re-align your mind, inspire you to pursue your goals, and boost your motivation, whenever you are feeling de-motivated.
7. Complete a Different Certification
If you have been working as a general fitness coach in a gym for many years, you may start feeling as if you are stuck in a rut and there’s no more room for growth. And this may eventually cause a loss of motivation. Also, you may even start contemplating whether to shift to another field.
The reality is, your heart lies in fitness. And as much as you may shift to another field, the level of satisfaction may not be similar to what you get when you help others pursue and achieve their fitness goals.
So, how do you regain your motivation and keep doing what you love, if you happen to find yourself in such a situation? Well, you can simply upgrade your skills and specialize.
For instance, you can complete a certification as a senior fitness specialist, youth fitness specialist, strength and conditioning coach, corrective exercise specialist or bodybuilding specialist.
By upgrading your skills and specializing in a specific field, you will have an opportunity to work in different environments, thus helping to beat the boredom of only working in a gym. Besides, specializing also comes with more room for growth, meaning you will no longer feel as if you are stuck in a rut. And this will go a long way to boost motivation.
8. Wrapping It Up
Motivation is key for being productive, both in your professional and personal life. When you are motivated, you will be in a better position to inspire your fitness clients, train them effectively and help them achieve their fitness goals. If you happen to lose your motivation for whichever reason, the above strategies will help you to regain it and continue doing what you love.