WHAT?

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I attempted this project in two ways, one far more successful than the other. I planned to engage in fitness on social media as a content consumer and creator on TikTok, and train clients online. This project was not only to do those things for the sake of doing it, but I wanted to apply what I learned from my previous honors experience in Feminist Philosophy to my training and content philosophy and trial run whether I could be a content creator/trainer/corporate worker all at once as I do co-op. Therefore, my reflection mostly lays with how I accomplished all of that, not solely the tangible items.

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SO WHAT?

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I wanted to see what I could achieve with fitness as a career while balancing a corporate full time job.

Unfortunately, I came to figure out that what I could do was not very much. I struggled every day with finding time to create content. After commuting from work, running errands, going to the gym, and just taking care of daily tasks, I found it difficult to find the time to actually put into making content as well as seeking out additional personal training clients. I had one client who I communicated with nearly daily, talking not only about her workout program but her goals, her obstacles, etc. Though I failed in getting more clients in quantity, I built a high-quality relationship with my one client. We had trained before in the past but it was in-person, and transitioning to online training was difficult for the both of us as it lacked the same amount of accountability for her, and it took a lot of technological hurdles to get over for me. One conversation we had particularly strikes me as impactful, as she talked about how frustrated she was with not being able to be accountable for herself or make it to the gym. As I promised myself and others to be a feminist trainer that leads with empathy and does not use guilt and shame tactics, together we unpacked why she felt that way and why it's okay to sometimes take a break from fitness or put our goals on hold when we have other things going on. 

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While I was talking about her, it had parallels to my own life. I failed in doing what I planned to do (create TikTok content-- though I developed a list of content that I wanted to make and even wrote scripts for the educational content, very very little filming and posting actually occurred). I realized however that it is okay that I didn't accomplish everything I set out to do, because I managed to accomplish so many other things in this time. I started my full-time job hunt (which is a full time job in itself), I had many coffee chats with people at work (which is a fear I finally got over!), I traveled the world (I've traveled/flown every weekend since January 10 except for twice, including 3 new countries!) and thus learned so many new cultures and learned how to face my fear of traveling by myself, I overcame so many boundaries that I previously had that although I technically failed in terms of the honors requirement, I accomplished so much. And in terms of my project, I did still post a few TikToks and most importantly I had such a quality experience with the client that I did have, that I'm confident that I can move forward with new clients and overcome their adversities with them.

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I also still have my website in the works and have worked on my mission statement and ethos for my personal training business; I will update this page when it's complete with the link.

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NOW WHAT?

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My lack of completion with the TikToks and getting more clients was not due to disinterest but simply not having the time to fully dedicate to it because I wanted it to be perfect and not with a lack of effort (and for TikToks, not having the courage to film in the gym). I plan to continue this project (and update my website on a separate page) when I do accomplish this. I am dedicated to eventually getting this off the ground and though I failed in the time period that I set for myself, I refuse to believe I've failed at this effort completely. I have a long list of ideas for what I want to post, how to get and retain clients, and other strategies. I've had a hard time balancing everything I want to do, but I do think that post-grad (and once I finally settle down in a location finally instead of moving from place to place) that I will have the time and therefore the effort to dedicate to this passion project. While I did dedicate an adequate amount of time to the strategy, I need to dedicate more time to the execution.​

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SAMPLE OF WORK

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Here is a workout I most recently assigned to my client. I chose to showcase this because of how much went into getting to this place (though for privacy, I can't show exactly what those steps were, but they were both physical but also mental). We are in between training phases of hypertrophy (muscle building/size) and heading into a strength phase which will be her first time in a strength phase. This training block went through a lot of changes to adjust to what equipment she had, what she liked and didn't like, etc. Her strength increased tremendously throughout these weeks and I am incredibly proud to show this workout knowing where we began back in February. ​

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