Practice makes better practice

I remember when I was in the ‘conscious incompetence” stage of my martial arts training. (If you’re not familiar with the Four Stages of Competence, check them out here.) We had a set of grappling moves called the Great Escapes that we would drill fairly regularly. When I started, they seemed to have so many intricate parts that I thought, “I’ll never get this down. I don’t see how anyone ever memorizes this.” Then one day, it just clicked. And they were all in there.

In Chicago, I had set up a stable, successful life. I knew a lot of people, a lot of people knew me.  I knew where everything was and I knew where to go if I needed something. I knew I would have to start over when we moved to Nashville and that there would be some big learning curves and adjustments. I had a couple extra curve balls thrown in, but overall I was on the upswing before the pandemic hit, then we all had to make some adjustments. The whole world was on a new learning curve.

My heart rate from my last race before the pandemic hit. This is the kind of “uncomfortable challenge” that I’m comfortable with.

Before all of this happened, I thought I was pretty good on a computer. I thought I had a handle on social media. I also was lucky enough to remain employed by two of the fitness centers I had been working at before the pandemic hit. Of course, I started adding virtual options to my personal business as well. Both places I worked for began encouraging/requiring more and more virtual participation from their instructors once it became clear that we were going to be home for longer than initially anticipated. I also spent a lot of time on my computer working out integrating virtual payments, virtual emails and video capabilities onto my own website so that they were user friendly.

Those first few weeks were incredibly stressful. Many of us felt that we had to get business online immediately and perfectly in order to stay ‘in the game’ and be remotely successful. After all, there were all of these people who were already doing the virtual thing so perfectly! (And many who were doing it for free, how do you compete with free?) I will say that I realized pretty early on that we were going to be doing this ‘for a while’ and that I had more time than I felt like I did. This helped ease my mental stress sometimes, but a lot of the time I couldn’t help freaking out. There was so much to learn.

Aside from learning the logistics of the programs, there was the actual marketing and promoting. Now, I have taken many courses on marketing. I know the ins and outs of it, I know the principles behind it. Selling myself as a brand has never been something I’ve been entirely comfortable with. I never wanted to be that ‘pushy’ person who spammed people’s inboxes with information about my services. It’s something I’ve always known that I needed to improve, but I’ve also almost always been employed by someone, so that I could put more focus on the club or the studio. Anyone who came to me personally found me organically. I was lucky enough in Chicago to have a wide network, so organic connections were frequent. 

Doing workout or nutrition videos for these fitness centers to send out to members was comfortable for me. People would watch them if they wanted to, so I didn’t feel pushy, and I was promoting the gym that I worked for, which felt natural. Doing live classes was a technical learning experience (I learned a lot about Instagram this year) but having previous experience in theatre and film made this part easier for me than it was for a lot of trainers who were used to a face to face experience and personal energy to feed off of. What was difficult for me was the promotion, the call to action, the posting pictures of classes and workouts after the fact. Hey, look at me! Come to my classes. Train with ME. It just felt so pretentious. 

One of the places I work at had us do a challenge. They provided us with templates to promote ourselves and asked us to do it on our own social media. This was outside of my comfort level. I post kitten videos and sunset pictures on my social media. Yes, I have a Facebook page where I do post fitness stuff, but I didn’t do it on Instagram. My friends don’t want to see me tooting my own fitness horn. This just seems weird! I made myself do it anyway.

After talking to a few other trainers who were involved and who were more social media savvy, I decided to split my Instagram into personal and professional. I linked the pro Instagram to the pro Facebook so that I could automatically generate content to both. At first, I was worried that it would be ridiculous because there would be so little content. “Maybe I should generate a bunch of content and then go live?” Even as I thought it, I knew that was just another procrastination tactic. So I threw up one post on both personal pages, letting people know that I was going to be splitting the fitness stuff out, that wouldn’t be double posting, so feel free to follow both channels. I made a plan for how I wanted my tiles to look, then I went forth. 

Suddenly, it clicked. 

I’m taking pictures during classes. I’m asking students for their handles, making cool shots of them and tagging them in it. They like it, they’re following my channel. I’m taking pictures of myself kicking a bag or doing a yoga pose and promoting my classes and I don’t feel like I’m showing off. I’m just marketing. I’ve got lists of the best hashtags pinned up above my desk for the things that I talk about most. (Kittens, Writing, Blogging, Fitness, Nutrition) A few years ago, I still called them pound signs. I actively refused to hashtag. 

One of the recent photos I took to promote my classes. Not only was I not embarrassed, I actually had a little fun doing it.

I was one of those who refused to get a Facebook account until a website that I was writing articles for insisted that we get a Facebook or an Twitter to promote our content. After a while, I saw it’s merits as a social medium. I was able to keep in touch with a lot more people, see what they were up to, and it became very easy to remember everyone’s birthdays and invite people to parties. 

When I started using Instagram, it was because I loved taking pictures. I’ve always been the picture taker. I loved that I could play with edits and filters and also just take a billion pictures and not have to have them stored on my phone or disks in order to access them. 

Social media may have started out purely social, but it is now an enormous marketing tool. I was trying to use it, yes, but I was in a place where I didn’t have to venture into the parts that made me uncomfortable. And as I always tell my clients, you won’t grow if you’re comfortable. So I’ve been doing my best to embrace the discomfort of the past two years. Some of it I’ve put myself in (which is the easier way to do it) and some of it I’ve had thrust upon me. All of it is causing change. My hope is that by leaning into it and embracing it, that I come out of the other side changed for the better.