If you love what you do, you’ll never work a day in your life. Isn’t this more or less the dream of every muscle nut? Being able to focus all of their time on achieving their peak goals, while sustaining their lifestyle through their career? Or say you’ve just gotten your degree in exercise science, or masters and you’re asking yourself: Now what? What can I do with this accreditation? Has COVID ruined any chances of me finding a career in the fitness industry?
If your thought process goes this deep into a spiral of nonsense, you should stop going through that route. Honestly, if you’re interested in getting a job in the fitness industry, and even better, succeeding in it, it all boils down to asking yourself two very important questions. What do I wake up in the morning thinking about? And, What keeps me awake at night? Have you found that both of those questions lead to the same answer? Then congratulations, you can develop a career out of that!
The Sky’s the Limit
Say you love the gym ambience, all those weights clinging and the general vibe of the weight room. If you have a great personality you can make a career out of training other people! If you love all about programming a meal plan and finding out just how our food consumption can change our mood, performance, and weight, you could enter the fitness industry as a dietitian. If your dream is to turn someone massive into a freak of nature, there’s a place for you in the fitness industry as a strength and conditioning specialist!
Or maybe you want to go solo? If you’re great on camera and have an entertaining personality, you could develop your own fitness brand. You literally only need a phone with a good camera, a mic, and your own personality to carry your content.
Love researching and constantly advancing our knowledge in the fitness field? Why don’t you make a career out of being a scientist? Or maybe you wouldn’t want the scientist path, how about formulating for a supplement brand? There are so many areas in the fitness industry, and you’re allowed to take your own piece of the pie.
Breaking Down Into Elements
If you’re just about ready to go out and do what you wanna do, pump the brakes for a little bit and read just a tad longer. You need to have a system in place. Just like the weight room, you can’t just go in and start lifting randomly. You’d risk injury, and possibly ruin your chances of continuing in this field! First things first, you’ve probably been told before that if you’re looking to get into a career in the fitness industry, the first thing people will look at is your credentials.
Your credentials WILL get you noticed, but after that it depends entirely on you. It’s an access point, as in it gets you through the front door. Even if you don’t have a masters or PhD in the field, if you’ve proven yourself through your experience and personality, nobody’s going to ask you about your credentials! If you worked extremely hard in school, got all the good grades, and then finally graduated with a Bachelors or Masters – yet when somebody hires you and you end up sucking at that job, they’re gonna fire you in a heartbeat.
Think about it this way, if you’re hiring for a role, do you want someone who has a broader knowledge on all topics, or someone who’s hyper focused on one specific thing? That’s the difference between an undergraduate and a graduate degree holder.
What Makes You Valuable?
Take this as a piece of advice that transcends the fitness industry and can help you in your career regardless. There’s this statement floating around that a lot of aspiring entrepreneurs misunderstand… “You should be so good that they can’t ignore you” This prompts a lot of people to toot their own horns to the extent where they stop caring about anybody but themselves! You are only successful to the extent that you can bring value to other people. Not to you, not to your industry, not to your work… To other people.
You should set yourself aside and see how you can bring value to others. If you only know technical terms and are able to scientifically explain a concept in a way that’s 100% correct yet nobody understands what you’re saying… Your value to society would be considered very low, and you probably won’t have a very successful career.
You’ve got to think, how can I bring value to any given person? Here’s a more grounded idea… If during our Articles and Videos we “help” you by explaining the precise connection between the brain and the muscle, does that help you in any way in applying it to your training session? You should work on bringing value to others, and others will take care of you when you do that.
Let Your Personality Do the Talking
Human beings have been interacting with each other since the moment they were born. Subconsciously, we know when someone cares about us, and we know when they’re faking it. Even if you, for some reason, become so good at faking a loving and caring personality, the ball’s going to drop sooner or later. You need to be someone that cares about people, and you need a personality that showcases that. Furthermore, if you’re at any point not working on yourself, then you’re letting yourself down.
You need to be constantly improving and understanding new knowledge, the more people you help, the more you succeed in this field. You can fill any of the job opportunities that we spoke about up top, yet unless you realize you’re your own personal brand and that you need to work on promoting it, you’ll never go far in your career.
If It Isn’t In 5 Words Or Less, I Don’t Want It
Nowadays, people have become so used to getting what they want instantly. We’ve got microwaves, instant coffee, fast food, and everything in between to encourage that mindset! Even with debates, people only care about that one sentence that summarizes all points, even if an opposing argument is stronger yet longer! And nowadays, people only give you a few seconds of their time to impress.
Yet you have to realize that this applies to you as well. If you’re feeling entitled because you’re used to getting everything at the moment you want it, you should know that your career is probably going to crash and burn. A career takes time, you can do what you love as a career, yet to build compensation and for it to become a significant moneymaker will take a long time.
We hope this helps you get into the correct mindset when it comes to finding success in the fitness industry! We’re looking forward to becoming colleagues, as well as seeing you next time you need any help.
