Mastering the art of saying NO for successful fit pros
“No employer, client or student really has any idea what you’re worth. You have to set your value in money and energy. The fitness industry is an energy exchange. Money is also energy. It has to match your energy.”
-Ericka Thomas
Transcript
I have always felt a great affinity with the “bad guy’s” in the story. The misunderstood, the disruptor, the dark side. I’ve tried for most of my life to suppress the part of myself that welcomes the destructive fire of Kali and Durgha in order to maintain the perfection of my good girl mask. I sometimes call this part of myself my inner mean girl. Because the world thinks she’s mean. But she’s not mean at all. She’s fierce. She’s the part of me with a back bone and a voracious truth teller. She’s the one often with the most common sense. She’s hungry for success. And she’s the one that understands that sometimes in order to succeed you have to burn shit to the ground.
Most importantly She’s the one who knows when to say no, so I can say yes. The full throated, whole hearted, YES, to the things I want in my life.
Many women have been conditioned from an early age to override that inner voice that says “no”. That gut feeling that this is wrong, we don’t want this. Our intuition. That conditioning infuses us with the culturally acceptable boundaries for who we are as women in our families, in business and in the world. We are all complicit in our own limitations. At some point we had to agree with it. But that conditioning chafes when you wake up to your dark side and realize what you have is not what you want and you can do something about it. That’s our work IN today. The benefit of finding the “no” to open the door to “yes”.
YES woman
We want to say yes. Saying yes when you mean no is a direct path to burnout and resentment.
It’s not our fault, we’ve been trained to do this. We’re rewarded for it in subtle and not so subtle ways. A stroke of the ego here and there is enough to stoke that slow burning resentment for a lifetime. And it’s that resentment that can leak out all over the people around us and ourselves. And that is a surefire way to a short career in fitness.
OK people, I want to talk to all my independent contractor instructors out there and anyone else that has ever overwhelmed themselves by overscheduling. THis isn’t an issue for only fit pros. I think all of us get caught in it at one time or another. Some of us learn faster than others. But for new instructors this can be especially insidious.Saying yes to everything, saying yes when you want to say no or hearing that quiet “no” and proceeding anyway.
When you’re fresh, new and green in the fitness industry there can be both excitement and a sense of urgency to work (and get paid). When you’re new it can feel like you have to say yes. “Beggars can’t be choosers” after all. But that is a fallacy that will come back to bite on the ass in the form of at best discomfort and imposter syndrome and at worst resentment & burnout.
So whether you’re new to the industry, new to a fitness format or simply new to the area, you can do things differently. Here are some tips to Master the art of saying NO to make room for the BIG YES’s.
Craft your professional “elevator speech” introduction. This is an exercise that can help you delineate and clarify your professional boundaries. It should include who you are as an instructor, what you do of course but it is also a reminder for yourself. We all need that. If my education and experience is working with athletes then that sets the stage for a different conversation than anything regarding postmenopausal women and bone health. This sets up your yes and makes saying no easier. Could you work with that population? Yes. Should you? Mmmmaybe but maybe you could step aside for someone who’s a better fit.
Take your sweet time with the decision. We don’t give ourselves the time for this in any arena but it’s pretty important. Many times we are given an opportunity that seems like it would be good, or we’re living with a sense of urgency, so we override the quiet “no” before we’ve thought it through. Trust that feeling. It doesn’t matter why you’re feeling that. There doesn’t have to be a “good, logical” reason. Sometimes even great opportunities don’t feel right. And that’s enough to be wrong for you. No matter how skilled an instructor you are, when something feels wrong about a job, you won’t be able to do your best.
Be courageous in your boundaries. It takes courage to say no and practice. We’re taught to not disappoint people. And some of us carry a lot of “people pleasing” baggage around that can get heavy. I feel myself getting caught in this and I wouldn’t say I’m necessarily a people pleaser. Saying no to anything creates space. For example if you have a 1 hour class that costs you 2 hours of drive time that’s 3 hours out of your day. That one hour class better feed you in more ways than the paycheck. I have cut classes from my schedule based solely on traffic stress. Getting 3 hours back in your schedule can be huge. That’s space that is available to say yes to something that works better for you.
It might get worse before it gets better. Change can be chaotic. If there’s one thing I’ve learned living in a 175 year old house it's that sometimes things get worse before they get better. Change is uncomfortable and messy and sometimes a little painful but in the end when everything is in its place and the dust settles there is more peace. Sometimes when it comes to scheduling, you feel immediate relief. Sometimes just making a decision in your mind to let something go or make a change is enough to feel better. Often it takes time to extract yourself from commitments or get out of or into new work situations. Again, change can be uncomfortable but so worth it for your own long term career.
Make course corrections quickly. Don’t wait. Don’t hold on too long hoping it will get better. Sometimes in the beginning we aren’t sure exactly what we want to do or the demographic we want to focus on so we try things. That’s great. But when you realize that one is better (or worse) than another. Or when an account/class or client feels like a BIG mistake or isn’t turning out to be successful, Course correct, immediately. Own it, apologize, (to yourself and whoever else is involved) and then get out of it. Don’t wait. The longer you stay in a gig that doesn’t fit you, or isn’t working the more you suffer. There’s no shame in this.
So the question remains. What do we look for in opportunities to find that full body YES - that HELL YES that we want and wish we had as successful fit pros?
It’s taken me a long windy road and a lot of time in the fitness industry to figure that out.
But here are 3 things I’ve found that every BIG YES has for me. And they happen to apply to other areas too. So win-win.
It lights me up. The opportunity has to be something that provides both challenge and success an element of excitement. This is something as an instructor I strive to give to my clients and students at every opportunity. And we are entitled to it too. Maybe it’s just me but I like a little bit of a push to get better at what I do. So for me if I’m not growing in some way through this class then it usually won’t hold my interest. I look for ease in the effort. There have been many many times when I didn’t feel that and it had nothing to do with the class itself. In other industries you might call it “toxic work environment”. In fitness we have to be even more aware because you’re at the front of the room you set the tone and if you aren’t comfortable, if you’re stressed and insecure that comes across to your students. Then no one is comfortable.
It fits me like a glove. There’s a clear objective that fits my boundaries, intentions & gifts (BIG). This of course requires that we know what those are. I have found that if you don’t really know yourself and what you want/need, that's when we can find ourselves in conflict with particular circumstances. Who are you in your work, what is your intention for yourself and your students, what are your particular gifts? Are those things a good match for this opportunity?
There’s a positive energy exchange. Know your value and own it celebrate it. There’s nothing that undermines your professionalism faster than feeling taken advantage of and by extension taken for granted. This is a money mindset issue and fit pros are notorious for not working on this. Just like art, beauty (value) is in the eye of the beholder. No employer, client or student really has any idea what you’re worth. You have to set your value in money and energy. The fitness industry is an energy exchange. Money is also energy. It has to match your energy. Now I’m not only talking about the dollars for hours. Most ICs are paid hourly and we (and the folks who hire us) can get hung up on getting paid for our contact hours. But the value is in the experience behind those hours. The education, the investment in certification and continuing education should all be included in the negotiation. That negotiation might be explicit or implicit as in only in your personal decision making process. The bottom line is you can get paid in both money and energy. If you absolutely love what you do and love the people you do it or then you are being fed by that energy and well as hopefully a paycheck. I look for a strong balance here. After your first year as a fit pro (maybe less) you don’t have to accept payment in “experience and exposure”. Now if you want to give away your services for your own philanthropy, go for it. In my mind that’s better than undercutting your industry colleagues by under pricing those services. Because that sets unrealistic client expectations and hurts the industry as a whole. We’ll talk more about money mindset coming up in this series.
Saying yes when you mean no can be painful because it puts you in conflict with your core values. You may not have a strong awareness yet of those values but they are there and they are there. That quiet no you sometimes feel in your gut needs your attention. That’s your intuition and it could use some nourishment.
That’s what mastering the art of saying no can do, clearing the way for that whole hearted full bodied YES, in your personal and professional life.
If you're looking for ways to handle the effects of stress, physically, mentally and emotionally through the body head over to savagegracecoaching.com/theworkin you’ll find all the show notes for this and other episodes plus lots of free resources. And if you’re in a place where you are ready for more and you live in the Dayton Ohio area I’m taking private clients for trauma release yoga in person and online. So book a discovery call and we can have a real life conversation. And of course I’d be ever so grateful if you would take a moment to like and subscribe to this podcast wherever you’re listening.
Hey there!
I’m your host Ericka Thomas. I'm a health coach and trauma informed yoga professional bringing real world resilience and healing to main street USA.
I offer trauma release + yoga + wellness education for groups and individuals…regular people like you.
Book a call to learn how I can help.