Lifestyle
A good coach will push for success
By Brian Foley from Activate Fitness
A famous former Kerry Footballer was once credited with saying: “There’s only six inches between a pat on the back and a kick up the arse” - and he was right!
Quite often we defer to platitudes rather than harsh truths.
I recently came across a young coach who wanted to please everyone, and you know what they say about wanting to please everyone? You end up pleasing no one.
This coach’s heart was in the right place for sure and wanted to be liked and keep clients happy, but by telling everyone they were “doing just great” and never having a hard chat with clients, it transpired no one was making progress.
You see, a good coach’s responsibility isn’t just to tell you how great you are, even though encouragement and positive reinforcement are of course vital.
Sometimes you need to be told it’s your fault or, sometimes you need to be told, you need to work harder, so let's do this instead. Perhaps a problem with the modern world is we’ve become too conditioned into taking offence and only wanting to hear good things about ourselves, but that really serves no one.
Would you rather be on the receiving end of a kick up the arse and get told the reality of a situation and start making some progress towards solving it, or just continue to receive the pat on the back and never solve the issue at hand?
If any of the below sentences apply to you, they may seem harsh, but you may need to hear it:
* It’s your fault if you are overweight.
* It’s your fault if you are unfit.
* It’s your fault if you aren’t where you want to be in life.
Once you stop looking for someone else to blame, stop accepting the meaningless pats on the backs from toothless guides, then you can start to strive for what you want.
This may come as a shock to some of you reading this.
After all, I own a gym that we like to call “the happiest place in Killarney”, but you see, being a happy place isn’t all about telling everyone they are great all the time, sure, if someone works hard and achieves something they previously couldn’t, well then get ready for that pat on the back! It’s time to celebrate!
But you don’t achieve happiness by just accepting the status quo and being pleased, placated and rolling over and having your belly rubbed. We’re also in the business of changing lives, and that doesn’t happen with pats on the back alone.
If you want to get results, if you want to get fit, if you want to succeed at something, you sometimes need that kick up the arse, and a good coach knows when it’s time pat or kick.
If you’re ready to have an honest conversation about your health and fitness and start to make meaningful changes to your life, schedule a free consultation today by visiting our website: www.activate.ie.
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