Thirteen years ago. July 2005. I, as a fresh faced, facial hair free 15 year old, started my fitness career with work experience at Blackheath Rugby Club. 

It seems a ridiculously long time ago...

It’s great to look back on those days - my enthusiasm probably made me a massive pain in the backside, but I absolutely loved getting stuck in - obviously the stuff in the gym was my favourite. Pretty much ever since that year, I've been working or studying in the field of health/fitness/nutrition.

There are people who've been around a LOT longer than I in the fitness industry, and in comparison, I'm just a wee baybay. But in my time, I’ve seen a lot of things come and go.

There have been tons of fad diets, gimmicky training programs, and an unholy amount of pills, powders and potions making all kinds of miracle cure claims.

I’ve also seen a LOT of personal trainers come and go. I'm gutted that people that I've come to know and work with fall out with the industry that I love to be working in.

But there was actually a time when I didn’t think it was going to work…

I'd just finished university, and was applying for post graduate study to various different places, and found a great PhD project to get involved in.

However, despite it on paper being a great opportunity - the privilege of being a leader and expert in your field and the opportunity to travel around the world, I was going to be paid absolute peanuts for the following 3 to 5 years.

Not only that, but looking around at jobs in elite sport, the being paid peanuts looked like it was going to continue after the 3 to 5 years of study... the pay wasn't at all reflective of the fact that you hold a postgraduate qualification which you'll have worked your socks off for, and possibly ended up in debt to get hold of it.

So straight out of uni, I put on hold the idea of doing a MSc, MRes or PhD and worked as a PT. It wasn't exactly what I thought I wanted to do long term at the time, but after a while, I could see I that I could make a real career out of it.

But, it didn’t just happen on it’s own.  A bit like how getting in shape doesn’t just happen just by joining a gym, or by paying a load of money to your coach or trainer ;) 

I kept wanting to get busier and busier, training more clients and hitting targets, and ended up doing this for a good few years.

HOWEVER, these goals I was going for weren’t MY goals. Not that they were bad by any means. But achieving them wasn't exactly what I wanted.  I suppose they satisfied my basic NEEDS, but nothing more.

I needed to set a goal that actually meant something to ME, and I needed to “attach” a big enough why to it so that I'd actually stick to the plan, and ultimately, achieve it.

This is why I encourage my clients to have their own WHY when working with me. It helps them frame their goals in the right way, get them to stick to their program and not let life get in the way of achieving their goals.

Anyway, I’ll never forget the time spending hours building my website from scratch and developing a system where I could coach others online. My "why" for doing this was that I wanted more reach to the people I could help (the internets is pretty big now, don't you know) and I wanted to take complete ownership of my own business.

Whether I did well, or not so well, I wanted it to be down to me and be completely accountable to myself.

Not only this, but I was determined to succeed doing the thing that I love. I didn't want to have to change careers.

I don’t share this to try and blow smoke up my own backside - I just want to get across to you the importance and POWER of setting meaningful goals.

Helping others achieve their goals is one of my favourite parts of what I do.  In fact, if you check out my Instagram and Facebook pages, you'll see recently I've put up some great "before and after" pictures of my clients. Not that visual physique changes are the only worthwhile goals, but I'm sure you'll agree, they've done pretty well!

If there’s a goal that you’d like my help achieving in 2018 please hit reply and let me know.