Excuses, Excuses…
As you all know all too well…Eighty percent of people still do not exercise consistently enough to enjoy any health benefits. And clients come up with a ton of excuses as to why they’re not sticking to the program. Over the next 5 weeks I am going to share the most common stumbling blocks to exercise and ways you can communicate to your clients to help them overcome them. Now there will be NO MORE EXCUSES!
I don’t have enough time.
If your clients are having trouble finding time to exercise, they are not alone. A perceived lack of time is one of the most common excuses for not starting or for quitting an exercise program. But it really does not wash. We have clients who manage large businesses, clients with 6-8 children and clients who seem to do it all. How do they do it? They make health and fitness a priority in their life. When life gets rough, exercise is usually the first thing to go when, in fact, it should be the last. Exercise is the glue to mental sanity when life becomes chaotic.
Somehow, when other people need your client, their needs tend to end up on the back burner. Someone at work asks them to complete a project, their spouse needs their attention, their kids need some quality time, their friends are asking you why they have not called, and they have got a to-do list that extends well into the next 6 months. You can see how easy it is for your clients to convince themselves that the morning workout can wait until lunch and then until after dinner. Or maybe tomorrow and finally, “I’ll get back on track next month!” Commitments, responsibilities and the demands of work, family and social life are always going to be there. When your clients allow their own needs to become second to everything and everyone else, they will end up the loser.
Research, in fact, shows that people who exercise are more productive at whatever they are doing. Translation: Your clients will be able to do more when they are in good shape. As for believing exercise is a huge time commitment, even 10-30 minutes a day, if done consistently, can result in health benefits for your clients
Have your clients make an appointment with themselves, just as they would for a doctor or dentist or a meeting with their boss. That way, when someone asks if they can meet at 5, they can honestly say, “Sorry, I’ve got an appointment. How about at 4:00?” Scheduling fitness into their life is why personal trainers have become so popular. Now, they are accountable to you as their trainer as well as to themselves.
Convince your clients to stop putting it off! You’ve probably heard these before. “I’ll start exercising right after New Year’s…in the spring…right after I’m finished with this huge project…once the kids get older…once the kids leave home…after I’ve retired…” Stop making excuses. Now is the time for your clients to start because there will always be things competing for their time. They can choose to make exercise a priority in their life now or wait until they’re forced to make it a priority. Have you ever heard of the saying – People who cannot find the time to exercise, will be forced to find the time for illness? We take our health for granted until we get sick. People who swear they do not have a minute to exercise, and then find themselves hospitalized for bypass surgery and out of commission for weeks, soon recognize that the extra time taken to exercise would have been well worth it! The message is clear. Unless your clients take care of themselves now, one day they may find themselves unable to take care of their business, family or any of their other interests.
Another helpful strategy for overcoming the time obstacle is to have your clients sit down and record how they spend their time in a typical day. Have them then go through the list and identify any time wasters. It could be the television or computer or perhaps there is someone at work who constantly interrupts them making them less efficient. Help them determine how they could manage some of these time wasters. For example, if someone at work takes up a portion of their time, have your client make it known that from 10:00 until noon they are not to be interrupted so they can focus on some important projects. Your clients will discover that they do have time to exercise – they just need to restructure their schedule to make sure they have time for the important things in life.
We have heard all of the excuses and we will help you help your clients overcome them all! Stay tuned for more next week!
PRODUCT SPECIAL: This “5 Week Overcoming Obstacles & Excuses Series” is just a small sample of the type of information we provide in our Client Programming Systems & Forms Package. This package comes with all of the client programming systems we use to create the best and most consistent training sessions for our clients….and it comes with all of the client forms we use everyday….and it comes with our Fitness Results Manual! Get 20% off our Client Programming Systems & Forms Package by entering promo code CSF20 at checkout. That is almost a $200 savings that you don’t want to miss. We will even put $600 toward the full Business of Personal Training System if you decide you need the full deal after purchasing the Client Programming Systems & Forms Package!
