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”.

We’re shifting gears a bit over the next few weeks as we take a look at some essentials for fit pro success. Now I know not all of us are fitness professionals. But we all are fitness and wellness consumers. And because of that I want to take some time to share some of the qualities that make good instructors better and great instructors great. These are things we can all look for when shopping for wellness options that work for us. 

Our work in today is the #1 boundary fit pro’s need to set and that we can look for as savvy consumers of fitness. 

When we are looking to raise the bar for both ourselves and our students we have to start somewhere. And today's work IN we’re going to get into the nitty gritty, boots on the ground for how to integrate gold standard instructor skills that are so simple but they’ll take your craft to the next level, make you more comfortable in your own skin and inoculate you against the dreaded imposter syndrome. These are things you can apply to pretty much any area of your life where you come into contact with other human beings.

That skill is holding space. What does that mean? Safety, Predictability, Agency, Communication, Energy…

For coaches it is really easy to get that certification and then just ride it for a while. And if you’re not careful the ever changing world of wellness will leave you behind. Science changes, health recommendations changes, people and society change.  And what it means for you to be a good coach changes. And all those things are important because you never know who will be standing in front of you at any given time. And if you’re not big on self awareness and you haven’t cultivated any understanding of human nature, communication skills or holding space you risk your students.

In my experience there isn’t much certification or continuing education providers can do to guarantee any level of or standard of quality in their fitness professionals. Let’s face it, if you know how to take a test or can spend a weekend at a conference you can get certified in pretty much anything. The fitness industry doesn’t provide any professional oversight. It’s up to the individual fitness professional to raise the bar and perhaps for our students and clients to raise their expectations.

So the next few podcast episodes we’re going to focus on that idea. How to Raise the bar as a fit pro in any format, one on one and group setting, for yourself personally, your professional credibility and your clients. Today we’re starting at the top by challenging certification mediocrity.

The number 1 career killer in the fitness industry is burnout. Where does that come from? The pay structure for fitness contractors is one culprit. Another is the lack of employer support and understanding of overtraining for instructors. And then there is the failure of instructors themselves to integrate self care to avoid that burnout.

In part 4 of our fit pro success series we talk a bit about using team building to prevent some of those things and improve turnover and relieve burnout for long fulfilling successful careers.