In a way, it’s sad really: So many intelligent, educated, hard-working, and conscientious individuals contact us and walk through our doors trying to find a personal fitness coach and failing before they even get started.

It’s not the pursuit of the answers and bettering their health & well-being that’s the sad part. It’s how misdirected, disillusioned, and confused they are most times that tugs at our emotional heart-strings. The truth is, these are extraordinarily capable people: wonderful parents, business executives, accomplished athletes, entrepreneurs. All of them, succeeding and thriving here in the burgeoning Silicon Valley, chalk full of so many high-level health resources and accessible outlets to boost their quality of life. And yet, the majority of them legitimately struggle year after year with finding a healthy balance of nutrition, exercise, and well-being. If this all seems depressing to you, I get it. Trust me though, there’s a silver-lining if you’re patient.

Why do they continue to FAIL?

Simple answer: Because they set themselves up for failure...by establishing a succeed or fail mindset around their health and fitness. Nutrition and exercise are just two components of the bigger picture and it seems people are constantly trying to win at both. The problem with attempting to achieve some sort of high score is that people expect a reward right away. When they fail to achieve the high score right away, don’t get the quick fix, or find out one-size-fits-all doesn’t fit them, they get discouraged. You can guess what happens next.

Optimal health and well-being shouldn’t be based on an end goal...an “arrival”, a pass, or a fail. It should be a manifestation, or by-product, of the efforts directed by an individual throughout their journey to understand what optimal health and well-being is for THEM. Choosing an expected outcome that isn’t rooted in an acute level of self-awareness is a treacherous pursuit. Basing a health & fitness program on anything short of an individual’s current position, and a closely aligned level of awareness specific to that position, can be equally perilous.

The problem isn’t that these rational and resourceful people don’t have enough information; it’s that they have too much. Consumers face the prospect of wading through an over-abundance of constantly changing, often misinterpreted, and/or unsubstantiated information on EVERYTHING health, fitness, and nutrition.

As an owner of a gym with personal trainers, our approach to over-coming this dilemma has evolved. We develop our personal trainer to become less of an information-provider, and into more of an information-interpreter. Assisting our clients with making the best decisions for them based on the client’s current health- status, abilities, limitations, goals, etc. often is about helping them make sense of all the information in front of them. There’s lots of noise and it’s not about what’s right or what’s wrong, what’s good or what’s bad, or what’s better or what’s best. It’s about empowering a client to put their preconceived expectations aside and instead focus on whether or not the input THEY’VE chosen legitimately makes sense for THEM.

 What’s the beauty in all this failure?

With increased awareness comes a comfort in understanding WHY the failure is happening or has happened. All these successful parents, business executives, athletes, and entrepreneurs understand the power of surrounding themselves with people who have experienced and overcome failures to ultimately fail-forward...to learn and succeed the next time. Embracing the opportunity to study the failure and augment one’s approach alongside practiced counsel, an informed and experienced personal fitness coach, is what these extraordinarily capable people are ultimately doing. That’s pretty cool...and in a sense...the beautiful consequence of failing. Cool because we become better information interpreters. Beautiful because people fail-forward.