Making the choice to become a personal trainer is a great career choice if you’re passionate about health. Helping others to reach their fitness goals isn’t just a job, but a way of life and a passion. Without having all the right elements in place, you risk finding yourself in a career which you weren’t really cut out for.
If you’ve been considering pursuing this line of work but aren’t sure if you have what it takes, take a look at some of the most critical characteristics behind what makes a personal trainer great. Then you can make an assessment of whether you think it’s something you’re ready to pursue.
Motivational
As a personal trainer, it will be up to you to motivate people with all sorts of different physical conditions. You’ll find that working with a 25-year-old with no injuries with a healthy BMI may be a lot easier than working with a senior citizen who has aches and pains.
It’s up to you as a trainer to help people overcome their failures and conditions and help them find motivation within themselves regardless of their current state.
Motivation isn’t always just about saying something which drives a person to dig deep within themselves. Your tactics will have to adjust depending on who you’re working with that day. A good trainer knows that everyone is different, and needs a different approach to get them to deliver their best performance.
Physically Fit
If you’re going to be teaching others how to be the best version of themselves, it helps if you lead by example. Although there are plenty of trainers who make better coaches than pupils, there are many who agree that you’ll get the best results out of your clients if they look up to you as a leader.
It’s important to know the science behind the techniques that you’re teaching so that you can explain them most effectively.
Patient
It takes an enormous amount of patience to be any kind of instructor. Not everyone has the same learning speed and abilities. Therefore, if you lose your patience or get frustrated quickly, then a job as a personal trainer probably isn’t for you.
Compassionate
To truly motivate someone to reinvent their physical condition and stick to it, you won’t just need passion, but compassion. Being genuinely invested in your clients’ well-being will produce the best possible results that they want and they deserve.
Going into your workouts with your clients without full sincerity and investment in their well-being will show itself through their results.
It’s important to ask yourself whether you’re willing to put your whole heart into your work before starting a career which is all about helping others. Otherwise, you’ll be stomped out by the competition in no time.