Failure or success for any person in anything is up to that person. While other people can help or hinder an individual progress toward any goal, those external influences cannot stop someone from being successful or make someone successful. Each person reading this, and the people writing it, are in control of their respective lives. At Nathan DeMetz Personal Training, we realize our success in business is determined by us. We must have the motivation to market ourselves, create quality programming for clients, and complete all other tasks we need to, such as hiring SEO services or assistants that can help us get work done. Running a business is hard. While some people think all we do is train people, that is not the truth. We have to worry about marketing (social media, SEO, etc.), education (staying up to date with training and nutrition concepts, etc.), customer service, technology (such as the app used for training, financial software, etc.), time management, accounting, website development, and many other tasks, such as the best way to leverage resources available to us. The point is, we must do things in order to succeed, otherwise, we will fail. We are not the most successful trainers, and certainly not the most successful fitness related business, but we live comfortably. We still have stressors, but due to our effort to make processes efficient, properly leverage our resources, and overall make the business process work as seamlessly as possible, we have low-stress business lives. As a result, we can focus on our own fitness, our personal responsibilities, kids, and everything else you or anyone else must worry about. In that same line of thought, your success in fitness, business, personal interactions, or any other area is determined by you. How to not fail this year People have different ideas on what it takes to be successful and we would argue many of them are right. No singular path to success exists, especially when considering people measure success in different ways and therefore have different goals to achieve to be successful. We are going to share some of our ideas on the topic. Motivation The main key to success is motivation. Without it, none of the other points matter. Your inner motivation is the only thing that will drive you to focus on the additional points. The drive comes from within—either you have it, or you do not, either you want to succeed, or you do not. While we will agree that external elements—people, ads, stories, etc.—can be temporary motivators, they will not keep you moving forward if you do not have the desire within you. Accountability Nearly as important as motivation is personal accountability. To be successful you must understand you have control of your situation. If you always say someone else is to blame for failures or responsible for successes, then you never take control of your life. Only once you admit you are in control can you take responsibility for effecting change in your life. If you always say someone else is in control, you always have a reason why your life cannot change. You must hold yourself accountable for your successes as well as failures, plan for them, work toward them, and grow from them. Goal setting If you do not have a goal, you do not have something on which to focus your drive or something for which to hold yourself accountable. Goal setting can be as simple or detailed as you want it to be. For example, a general weight change goal might be "lose weight," while a more detailed goal might be "lose 20 pounds," and an even more detailed goal would be to "lose 20 pounds of body fat." The goal is the thing on which you will focus, plan for, hold yourself accountable for, and overall be motivated to achieve. Planning Planning is necessary for any goal. In the realm of fitness, it is common for individuals to "wing it" every time they go to the gym, buy supplements without understanding why, and subscribe to ideas present by online fitness personalities just because. This approach does not constitute a plan. A plan considers your goals, situational factors such as schedule, current fitness, level, and training environment, among others, and has a goal-oriented focus to help you achieve progress. If you do not have a plan or have a plan that does not focus on you, then you are less likely to see success. For the best results, have a plan. Intuitive adjustment This topic can be the hardest for many people. The ability to critically analyze progress or other aspects of your training, and by that logic analyze how to adjust when life gets in the way of fitness, is a necessary skill, but one that is not mastered by many. While anyone can decide in the moment to change something, or intuitively adjust, not everyone makes the best choices. For example, people have a training or nutrition program to follow, but for reasons known only to them, they decide not to follow the program and do what they think they should. This is bad use of intuitive adjustment. Another example is when work-life responsibilities increase, many people will give up on the process because, in their mind, they can no longer "fit it in." The problem with this logic is the only way a person will ever achieve and maintain goals is by finding ways to make the process work even when work-life responsibilities make doing so difficult. There is always a way; we have never seen a situation where this was not the case, only situation when people were not willing to try. Intuitive adjustment is not easily explained or understood because it is an innate ability forged through knowledge and experience as well as trial and error. With that in mind, for you to work on this, you need to analyze progress, your program, and how to "fit it in" even when work-life responsibilities get tough, among other applications. These are some ideas from us on how to not fail this year. Each point could be expanded upon, but these topics cannot be covered in full detail in a blog post or newsletter. That said, take time to think about each point and try to expand on each in your mind and through conversation with others.
Nathan DeMetz holds degrees in Exercise Science, Business Administration, and Information Technology as well as certifications in strength and conditioning, sports nutrition, run coaching, and other areas. His credentials come from organizations such as Indiana Wesleyan University, Ivy Tech College, and the International Sports Sciences Association. Nathan has 17 years of personal and professional experience in the health and fitness world. He works with people from across the globe, including locations such as Kuwait, Australia, and the USA.