September 15, 2014
A few years ago I was home from work having lunch when my son knocked on the door. He is married and lives 60 miles away. Why was he here at this time of the day?
He had some bad news. His dad (my husband) suffered a heart attack while cycling up the coast and had died instantly. At 54 I was now a widow. My husband was the financial provider and just short of retiring with a full pension. Now what?
My first priority was to figure out where I wanted to live and how I wanted to live. If I was to keep my home (which wasn't paid for) how was I going to pay the monthly mortgage? I was working as a personal trainer part time and a physical therapy aid. I knew I needed to make changes in my income to survive.
For the first two years I converted a back room in my home into a rental. This extra income could help me out while I transitioned into making personal training my full time job. In the meantime I got a job as a physicians assistant to help with consistent income. That first year I worked 50 hours a week hoping it wouldn't last too long. I began learning to market myself better, letting people know my background and basically getting the word out about my availability as a trainer -- I had been working part time as a personal trainer for five years.
I am a rather shy person and do not like being front and center anywhere, but if I was to be successful I had to acquire some of those skills as well. One day at a time I told myself. I committed to adding a new habit regularly such as purchasing for my business, learning a bookkeeping program and adding equipment to my existing supply that would help me expand what I could do with clients in their homes.
I added training sessions at another gym and added new skills that I could use to help my clients and make me a better trainer. Slowly, gradually, I acquired more clients and a reputation. Nine months ago my roommate got married and I was able to change her room into a workout studio where I could do training at home. One and a half years later after going full time as a personal trainer I have reached that goal. Covering the mortgage, teaching classes, training clients and even having time to hike, bike and run the trails in my small town. Without persistence and belief in myself none of this would have happened.
Don't Give Up, Don't Ever Give Up
"My greatest point is my persistence. I never give up in a match. However down I am, I fight until the last ball. My list of matches shows that I have turned a great many so-called irretrievable defeats into victories." -- Bjorn Borg
One the most inspiring speeches I've ever heard came from North Carolina State basketball coach Jim Valvano. Perhaps you've seen it. He was terminally ill with cancer when he spoke at ESPN Espy Awards to announce the creation of the Jimmy V Foundation for Cancer Research. The motto of the foundation is a phrase he used to tell his players: "Don't give up, don't ever give up." In his speech Valvano talked about it in terms of enthusiasm.
When I started writing this blog entry I gave it some thought and realized that "how to be persistent" was not an easy topic. There are websites with bullet lists on how to be persistent and, to be honest, I think you need to already have persistence do all the things on the list. Setting attainable goals can certainly help to get in the right frame of mind to be persistent. Small successes can snowball into real changes. But I'm not sure that persistence and goal setting are always the same thing. I think, to a large degree, persistence stems from an attitude.
We all have it somewhere inside us. Accessing it is often the issue. There are plenty of stories of people who took no for answer early in life and didn't follow their passion -- only to come back to it as a 2nd career when they discovered the drive they had all along to make it work. What was missing before? Often times I think it was the belief in oneself.
As a trainer I think this is a key component to making progress with fitness and health. And it turns out that many people who think they aren't up for the challenge of becoming more fit and more healthy haven't really faced the question of their own determination. It often comes as a personal news flash.
As far as my story, there are definitely people who've overcome greater odds. It isn't so much about the size of the challenge but about the inner strength that can take you anywhere you want to go. I believe we all have this in us if we only choose to access it. Maybe that's why we admire people who achieve long happy marriages, overcome difficulties in life and not let challenges stop them. Patience and persistence comes with no guarantees. What they do teach us is that there is value in working hard and knowing over time it's all worth it.