Begin With The End In Mind - Powerful Lesson For Personal Trainers

In this video I want to talk to you about a quote, a very, very powerful quote that you need to live your life by. You need to live your business by if you want to be more successful, if you want to enjoy your life more than you want to have more control as a trainer in the fitness space. This is a quote that was told to me by one of my first mentors and it's something that stuck with me day in and day out and truly by living my life by this, I've been able to take everything to the next level and I truly believe it's going to help you do the same. And now this quote is a quote that is so, so powerful, but so simple. The quote is, begin with the end in mind.

I'll say it again. Begin with the end in mind. Now you might be saying, "Chris, what the hell does that mean? And how's that going to help me in my day to day life?" Beginning with the end in mind. Now, a lot of people when they do things, when they start businesses, when they, start new approaches in marketing or whatever it might be, trying to get leads, trying to get sales, trying to deliver clients, their price points, their packages, whatever it might be. Now a lot of people only think directly kind of the couple of inches in front of their face. And as a result they do stuff, they get active, they do things and they don't get the result that they want and they look back in six months time and they're like, "Shit, this isn't what I want to do." Or, "That's not the result I wanted." Or, "I'm in even a worse situation than I was before I started this."

And they get frustrated. Now, begin with the end in mind, what does that mean? What it means is starting with the end in mind. Thinking about where you want to be, what you want to do, and starting on that today. Now a lot of people are like, "Chris, I want to be an online trainer." Whether they're fresh to Face to Face or they've been in Face to Face for some time, or [inaudible 00:01:53] or whatever it might be. They might be like, "Chris, I know five, 10 years time, I'm not going to be able to do this. The 60 hours on the floor, early mornings, late nights, working weekends and not having much time in the family, never having holidays, all of this sort of stuff. I know in five years time I'm not going to be able to sustain that. I'm not going to be able to do that. I'm not going to enjoy it and that's not what I want to be doing when I'm 50 years old, 60 years old, whatever it might be."

But at the same time they know this, but at the same time they are grinding out 60, 70, hour weeks in the gym or more and they are too busy to look into where they want to eventually be. They're too busy to move down the journey and get to where they want to be faster. They're too busy to start working on it today and they keep saying, "Next week or next month or next six months or next year, I'll do it eventually." Whatever it might be. And this is a very, very common trap and this is the exact opposite of starting with the beginning in mind as, sorry... Beginning with the end in mind, because they know where they want to be, but they're caught in this trap of the everyday sort of hamster wheel.

And they're just focused on that and they're like, "I'm going to do that, and once that takes care of itself, then I'll worry about what I want to do in two years time, five years time, 10 years time, where I want to inevitably be." And unfortunately, if you get caught in that trap, there's no way out. It is like a hamster wheel, and until the day you wake up and you go, "You know what? I'm going to do something different. I'm going to today work on something for next month, for the next six months, for the next 12 months." Whatever it might be. Unfortunately, if you're get in that day to day trap, every morning you wake up it feels like Groundhog day. You're doing the same thing again and again and you're banging your head. You're going, "I can't put up with this forever, but sooner or later I'm going to get out. Sooner or later I'm going to get out."

But unfortunately, if you don't take action today towards where you want to be, it's never going to happen and you're going to wake up in five years' time and go, "God, where did that time go? And I'm no closer to getting out of this hamster wheel trap and no closer to where I want to inevitably be long term and I have no opportunities. I have no options and I have no way out. And that's when people start to feel trapped. They start to feel like they have no options, no opportunity outside of what they're doing, and frustration really, really sets in because they're kind of pissed off at themselves. They're pissed off at this situation and they're pissed off that there's no light at the end of the tunnel.

Now you might be saying, "Well, Chris, how do I do that when I'm busy day to day doing whatever I need to do?" Well, it's about sitting down and taking a minute and going, "Okay, well where do I want to be in two years' time? Where do I want to be in five years time? Where do I want to be in 10 years time? Can I see myself doing what I'm doing today for the next two years, for the next five years, for the next 10 years?" If after asking yourself that question, if their answer is "No, I don't see myself doing this or wanting to do this or being able to do this for the next two years, five years, 10 years." Then you need to start taking action today. You need to do something about it today, otherwise it's not going to change.

It's not going to get better and no one can impact on that other than yourself. And that might mean potentially waking up a little bit earlier or going to bed a little bit later. Or alternatively, ideally if you're already doing early mornings and late nights, is cutting back 10% of what you're doing at the moment and you need to be longterm focused, you might say, "Oh Chris, but that's going to cut back my income 10%." Well, let me tell you, over the next five or 10 years, if you don't do that now and cut back that 10%, in a year's time you might have doubled your income, made much more than that 10% loss. Alternatively, if you don't do that today, a year from now, you're stuck in trap. You get an injury because you burn out or you need a holiday, you need a break or whatever it might be, the income you're going to lose, the impact that is going to happen upon you will be much, much bigger.

And that's what I mean by being too focused on this week, or today, or whatever it might be, and not seeing the longer term picture. And I speak to trainers day in and day out, and taking that leap of faith, look, it's scary, but you need to take that leap of faith because you need to know where you want to be and where you're going and then it becomes very straight forward. But you know, I speak to people who do that and they're freaking out and I speak to them six months after and they're like, "Honestly, the best decision I ever made, best move I ever made. I don't know why I didn't do that earlier. It's crazy. I was stuck in this sort of negative mind frame, this scarcity mentality, assuming that you know, everything was going to collapse on me for whatever reason because I was just stuck in this little bubble."

So hopefully that makes sense. I will repeat the quote. Begin with the end in mind. And so, I guess what I challenge you to do today, right now, ideally, it'll only take a couple of minutes. Think about the day you've had. Think about the week you've had, and ask yourself three questions. Can I see myself doing this two years from now? Can I see myself doing this five years from now? Can I see myself doing this 10 years from now? And unless the answer is yes to all of those questions, if you get one no out of those three questions, you need to start doing something different tomorrow to allow you to get to where you want to be, an exit out of this so you're not [inaudible 00:07:31] this in 10 years time. You're not [inaudible 00:07:33] this in 20 years time. Hopefully that makes sense. Once again, it only takes a couple of minutes. It's very simple question, very simple, straight forward thing, but you will see it's extremely powerful. Begin with the end in mind. Hopefully that helps. Bye for now.