Enjoy Your Journey

Some of you reading this blog may know that I play guitar in my spare time and I have regular lessons to keep me on track and to learn new and more challenging songs; bit like having a personal trainer really!

Am I any good? No, not really and I am struggling a lot at the moment trying to learn Johnny B Goode by Chuck Berry. So, why do I own 3 guitars and have regular lessons, bearing in mind I’m not very good at playing guitar? The answer is because I enjoy it and I like a challenge and when I finally master a song I get a real kick out of it!

Johnny B. Goode or Johnny B. Great?

This way of thinking about my guitar lessons got me thinking about how my personal training clients might view their sessions with me and their fitness levels in general.

We all work-out, right? Well, hopefully we do!

As you are reading this post I’m assuming you are, at least, a little bit interested in exercising and keeping fit.  So, back to the first bit; we all work-out but we won’t all be Olympic Champions will we? Chances are none of us have ever been close to being an elite athlete of any kind let alone an Olympic one. So, why do we work-out?

Well, there are, of course, many answers to that questions such as wanting to feel and look better, to rehab an injury or improve fitness levels; the list could go on and on.

As a Personal Trainer I know that there is an expectation from my clients that I am fitter than them and can do everything that I ask them to do and so this is one reason why I train as much as I do. The other main reason I exercise regularly is to feel good afterwards! You can’t beat that feeling of finishing a great (or even a not-so-great) workout.  I am also currently training for the Crouch End 10k in May, so that is another reason for lacing up my running shoes again in order to try and run a faster time than the last two years.

Getting the Running Shoes back out!

These are just a few of my reasons for exercising, what would yours be? Possibly something similar to mine or maybe not, it doesn’t really matter what your reasons are as long as you enjoy your exercise and the journey it takes you on. Within my personal training sessions i would like to think that clients get an equal measure of enjoyment and achievement, and  if that’s the case then I’m doing my job well.

If you have been exercising regularly, think back to when you first started; have you improved in the areas you wanted to, have you entered that 5k charity race and completed it?? Did you even have a goal in the first place? If the answer to that is No, then maybe you should think of what your new goal could be. If you are new to exercising you are at the ideal place to set yourself a target of some kind, even if that target is just to exercise twice a week for a month regardless of what that exercise consists of.

So, what has this got to do with me playing guitar you may be asking yourself? Well, I am never going to be able to play the intro to Johnny B Goode as fast as Chuck Berry plays it, however I can keep up with the rest of the song. I’m never going to be able to play any Chuck Berry song as well as he plays them and I’m never going to be able to run a 10k faster than Paula Radcliffe. However, if I can play guitar well enough that i can enjoy it and i can run the Crouch End 10k quicker this year than in the last two years that has to be good, doesn’t it?

I’m off to practice my guitar now, and I will get out for a run a bit later; what will you do to start or carry on your journey today?