The other day I was on Facebook and I clicked a on a video that a friend posted. This blog isn't about that video, I don't even remember what that video was. Anyway, Facebook did that annoying thing it does now where it goes right into another video. The second is the one I'm going to talk about. That video was by Kevonstage (I don't know his actual name). He's a comedian that usually posts videos from some room in his house or in his car. Anyway, I like Kev so I let the video play (also probably because he was talking about his personal training session). This particular was in his car and it was titled "Start Before You're Ready". I quickly realized that the video wasn't going to be funny but I kept watching. He talked about how people wait for the perfect time before they begin something. He basically says there is no perfect time and you need to just start. I'll link to the video at the end of this.
Well this video reminded me of a couple of things. The first being all the times people in the gym have told me they need to get in shape before they could start training with me. This has happened multiple times. And it's not like these are people that I was putting on a full court press on to buy training sessions. These people would come up to me unsolicited and tell me once they worked out more they would then pay me to work them out more.
The other thing was something I do during sessions. In between sets I'll ask the client if they are ready? When the client is a newbie they may say they're not ready to get started exercising yet. That's when I quickly explain that "are you ready" isn't really a question, it's my way of saying it's time to get going again whether or not you're ready. (Written out that sounds mean; I promise it doesn't come off that way in person...I think.)
These things, even though it probably doesn't seem like it, have something in common. Excuses. The person telling me they have to get into shape before they start training is making an excuse. In the case of my training sessions, I'm taking away the excuse of the client saying "I'm not ready yet".
You definitely need to make preparations to do stuff. I'm not saying you should be jumping into things completely unprepared. I'm saying that if you find yourself repeatedly saying "I'm not ready yet" then it might be time to ask yourself if you're making excuses. If you're waiting for every detail to be perfect you're probably going to be waiting for a long time.
Starting is often the hardest part. And the longer you wait, the harder it will be to start. So take Kev's advice and start before you're ready.
Here's a link to the video: https://www.facebook.com/KevOnStage/videos/242642343059263/
It's kind of long but the first few minutes are definitely worth it.
