My Reflection on Being a Personal Trainer for a Year

To the 18-year-old new hire

In a field with a high turnover rate, personal training is full of particular challenges. You have to believe in your skills, but be humble enough to admit when a particular skill isn’t in your wheelhouse. You have to be sensitive to others’ needs while giving them what they truly need. You have to be confident in your recommendations, but respectful enough to say “I’ll find you an answer.” You have to push with the correct amount of force that the person changes, but not too much that they break. It’s a balancing act that comes with experience.

Just like exercise, you get out of personal training what you put in. The more hours you spend studying the craft, learning how to sell, and interacting with different people, the better trainer you will be. I have been a personal trainer for one year now and if I could say anything to my former self, it would be this:

“You were meant to do this, just be patient, the confidence and self-worth will come.”

I needed that reassurance because I didn’t know how much I struggled with anxiety before taking this job. Personal training’s particular challenges made it super obvious that I was using needless worrying to distract myself from my true insecurities. My biggest obstacle has always been me. The challenges set in front of me made me grow leaps and bounds in the past year.