Building Confidence

Confidence is key when interacting with other individuals. Starting off, I was the least confident individual. Telling people what to do, or how to change their movement to improve it was so difficult and I almost felt rude.  But shadowing a personal trainer, you had to. I couldn’t overcome this; it took me days or even weeks until I was able to acknowledge and assist a client to improve. Making sure you’re not overly confident and overpowering is a very difficult attribute to master. Especially in the gym environment, the characteristic of confidence is everywhere in both males and females whilst training. But these clients relied on my supervisor and me to communicate and assist them correctly with exercises and movements so that they would not injure themselves. Communication comes with confidence as by having good communication skills it allows me to support my clients the best I possibly can with my supervisor. In a study, 56% of the participants supported that vocal encouragement improves performance (Davis, K. M., Sandage, M. J., Plexico, L., & Pascoe, D. D. 2016). I understood and knew the correct form for many movements in the gym, but it was gaining the confidence to assist someone else carrying them out which came with time, and patience. After a number of sessions with the same clients, I started to get to know them and understand their individual goals therefore my supervisor would allow me to assist and structure a session plan with his observation.  

I gained the confidence to carry out my own one to one session plan with one of the clients whom I had met at the beginning of my work experience. The first time was nerve racking and I felt embarrassed and anxious in case I performed a movement incorrectly. I kept saying to myself “I do this every day” “I enjoy and love training”, but in my head this was all wrong. I finally did it – I was carrying out my own classes and my own session plans, obviously with the assistance of my supervisor but he believed in me. And he believed that I could gain the confidence and do it. I had nothing to be worried bout, I had to just gain the confidence in myself and increase my own knowledge. Every client is different, and every client has different goals and aspirations, but being their personal trainer allows you to be apart their journey.