So I was talking to a great friend, Jolene, the other day and she asked how long it’s been since I started training/being a gym owner full-time now.
As an unrelated side note, we went to lunch at Life Alive in Lowell (FINALLY) and it was awesome. I love this woman {despite the fact that we have only met a few times in real life} and the food at Life Alive was phenomenal. I’m so thankful for blog friends who become in real life friends. 🙂
Back to the answer to her question… guess what y’all? It’s been over a year since I made the best decision of my life (well, the best decision besides marrying this guy and having this child).
That’s right, it’s been over a year since I left corporate America and went all-in at Skill of Strength with my husband. Leaving corporate life for a startup gym and training facility was a scary decision to the say least, but in the last year, by working hard and treating people right, we have grown our business enough to expand our gym (happening THIS FRIDAY). Cue excitement and anxiety!!!
Has this past year been all EASY? No way! I think some people see me and think, wow, she has it all… a flexible, part-time schedule, the privilege of working with her husband and the opportunity to hang out at a gym all day.
As far as that part-time job thing, my job is only part-time as far as the hours that I train clients. Otherwise, I am pretty much working all the time, if not as a business owner, as a mom.
Next, working with my husband is certainly something to be envious of a lot of the time, but take it from me, working with your husband can be very good or very bad. It’s hard to draw lines between work time, family time and couple time and it can be hard to make business decisions when you don’t agree on something.
As for hanging out at a gym all day… just remember that I still have a 2 year old, I do all the cooking, cleaning and laundry at home and I do the marketing, operations and accounting for our business. Trust me when I tell you, this job is a lot more work than any other job I’ve had in the past and I don’t spend much time ‘hanging around’ at the gym.
Like I’ve said before, most things that are easy are not great. Starting a family and a gym all within the last few years has been challenging, but amazing. I seriously love what I do for the first time in my life and I wouldn’t trade our gym or the extra time I now get with my sweet and crazy two year old. I chose this crazy-busy life and I love it.
It makes my heart so happy when I hear I have positively influenced other’s lives. I’ve done this in the obvious way by motivating people to work harder during our adult group classes or during a personal training session, but sometimes the best rewards come when I least expect them.
Sometimes I write a blog post or make a comment on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram and have no idea who, if anyone, will relate to what I said. Just last week when I opened up a bit about overtraining and my type-A personality, I heard from several women who said they “needed to hear those exact words.” Obviously, it is part of my job to encourage people to train hard, but what I see many personal trainers forget to emphasize is training smart. I’m working hard to be real with my readers and clients and part of that is sharing my own struggles, letting you know I don’t have it all figured out and that yes, sometimes it’s hard to practice what I preach.
I have loved the last year of my life more than any other year before. I’ve also gone way outside of my comfort zone more in the past year than any other year before, both with my career and my own training {and rest days}.
Don’t forget that getting somewhere great takes a whole heck of a lot of work, patience and support from loved ones. I’m thankful for my faith, my supportive husband and the best friends and family in the world. I couldn’t do this on my own.
That includes you. Thanks for reading and sharing in my crazy journey.
If you’ve been thinking about making a change and you know deep-down that it might be hard, but that is also might be worth it, I’d love to hear from you!
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