Hard work, determination, never giving up and staying motivated are all admirable traits that are essential for success in any endeavour.
However, they are more or less meaningless without direction.
Direction is “A general aim or purpose” or “The management or guidance of someone or something” as defined by the Oxford English Dictionary.
It doesn't’ matter what pursuit you are chasing down, what goal you're striving to meet or what outcome you desire; if your drive and determination don't have direction, a rudder to steer them the right way then you are directionless.
So how is this relevant to the Health & Fitness Industry I hear you ask?
Totally relevant for everyone involved at every level!
Whether you only do classes or cv, weight training or circuits, you still need to know where you want to get to. Some like to start with a goal in mind and work back from there to a starting point. Others set a more open goal, more of an outline idea but put detail in the journey getting there.
You need to go in the right direction to get to your goal!
The goal could be to lose a certain amount of weight, gain muscle or strength, to look a certain way, maybe improve your overall fitness or even to run a marathon! As long as you have a goal no matter how vague, you will have direction. Your goal may evolve as you progress towards it, your journey may take a different path from that which you originally planned.
But that's ok, as your journey should be one of discovery. In pursuing your goal you should also be learning about yourself, challenging yourself physically and mentally, learning new training methods and how they can change your body; adjusting your nutrition and seeing how that impacts your training and your body.
Learn, adjust, grow and develop!
From this you may review your original plans and decide upon a new goal. I have trained many people who had not done much weight training before, given them some basic strength exercises, seen them respond well to the training and actually enjoy it and then ask for more! Their goal of getting fit, strong, healthy or whatever hadn't changed but the way they trained has massively and for the better too as they are now reaping the rewards from a broader range of training stimulus.
From a coach's perspective an athlete or client with a clear goal is in general far more motivated to train than one without a real idea of why they are training. Now I am not talking about someone who doesn't know how to achieve their goal, or doesn't know what is possible through training. These people just need some guidance to help them understand what they want for themselves, how to train to get their goal. This is our job as coaches and trainers, to clarify and teach our clients and athletes about the journey and help them to achieve their goals.
I hope this has helped in some way and that you have enjoyed the read? Please don't hesitate to get in touch with questions, feedback or suggestions.
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