I would like to share a deep dark secret that 90% of health and fitness professionals have, but would never tell their clients....
They have a fear of of ending up like their clients
For example;
Super high stress levels, lack of sleep, pain in the body, chronic fatigue, stiffness, moodiness, being out of shape, depressed.... the list goes on.
FYI this is certainly not a rule that to be successful your health takes a dive to gain material success, but you will see my point shortly.
A fitness professional will do anything to keep as far away from this extreme as they can. This is usually a result of something or someone close in their lives being affected in a negative way by being unhealthy.
So the fitness professional goes to the other extreme and obsesses over health, routine, nutrition and training. They get so far in that they lose sight of what their client's world and what it is like to be them.
"Why can't my client just do what I tell them? Why won't they go to bed at 9am and get 9-10 hours sleep a night? Why can't they prepare their meals the night before like I do? Why don't they push themselves hard enough in sessions? Why are my clients so stressed? Why aren't my clients .... me?
The trouble is, that the clients world is completely different. Its about business, connections, growth, getting to the next level. In order for this to happen, they have to connect and build great relationships with the right people. This means taking people out to dinner, going to events, negotiating, working longer and harder to exceed expectations and get that deal! They have to keep doing this no matter the cost! Work hard and play harder!
I would argue that the trainers view is almost naive and selfish. DO you seriously think that you can build a wildly successful business/ businesses by living the perfect healthy lifestyle?
9 hours sleep a night, training 2x a day in 2 hour sessions, chicken and broccoli in tupperware 6x a day, 7 days a week, researching supplement protocols to give you that extra 1% in the gym, watching youtube videos about how to get bigger and leaner with the latest secret formula, stay on Facebook for 5 hours everyday liking and sharing fitness related things and pretending you are busy?
For the client, do they seriously think that they will get into shape and iron out the lifetime of habits by running once a week and ignoring everything that comes with it?
Sleeping on average 4 hours a night, 4/5 parties a week, 16 hour days at work, overloaded with emails, meetings, eating fast food 1-2 times a day and surviving on coffee to get them through the day?
Both of these extremes are dead wrong and yield very little in terms of long term, sustainable results for both parties. The reality is that to be successful, we must master the act of "counter balancing"
For instance;
In order to get anywhere in life we have to focus our energy on our business and work to move closer to the hopes and dreams that we have. However, it will get to a point where we have lots of money, material wealth, but feel like we have no life and are on the edge of burn out.
On the other side of the scale, we socialize with family and friends, go to the gym, stay healthy and in balance, but after doing just this for prolonged periods, we also feel like we have no life as we are around people all the time.
If we live the perfect balance of just working enough, socializing enough, going to the gym and getting our food right etc, then we have balance but will never move forward in our lives. We remain stagnant, which will eventually make us depressed too.
So what is the solution? If we work too much we get depressed, if we socialize too much we feel exhausted and depressed, if we stay in the perfect balance we feel stagnant and depressed... its sounding all a bit shit now isn't it?
Having had the opportunity to train and rub shoulders with some of the most successful business people and fitness professionals in the world I have learnt a few lessons from them both along the way.
In order to move forward we need to get our heads down, work longer hours, burn the candle a little bit, deal with slightly higher stress levels and lose a bit of sleep. The key is to know when to back off, and counter balance this by working less, catching up with friends, looking after after your diet and get a little bit more sleep
Without staying too comfortable, we then need to head back into battle and get back into work mode until we start to feel a little bit burnt out again... counterbalance, rinse and repeat...The art of getting it right is knowing when to counter balance and that comes with experience.
Counter balancing allows us to achieve more sustainable progress granting us great material wealth, but not at the cost of our health. So whatever it is you aspire to, get your head down, work hard, but know when to back off and have a plan for that.
Your in Health
Patrick Fallis
PS- For more about this please read the "One Thing" by Gary Keller who speaks about this in more detail. It was a real eye opener for yours truly, who used to make the disgruntled trainer noises like the ones written earlier. Thankfully things have changed considerably