Feeling Lost as a Fitness Professional? A Method to Mapping Your Future
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Feeling a Little Lost?
I always tell young fitness professionals that exercise science related degrees (in general) are a blessing and a curse. In one hand, most of these degree paths allow you a lot of freedom! Aside from some specialties, you can pretty much change your career path all the way up until you graduate since several fields in exercise science have tremendous overlap in course work and practical application. The downside is that too much choice can make people feel overwhelmed and unsure of what decision to make in fear of making the “wrong one”. The analogy I use to conceptualize this is like going to a restrqaunt that has an enemporpus menu! It’s wodnerful that there are so many amazing options, but it can be hard to pick what you want to eat. Another metaphor I use is that of writting an essay. Imagine for your final exam in English 101 you have to write an essay and there’s no prompt, so you can write whatever you want. This essay gives you lots of freedom but it can be very difficult to get started. Below I’m going to outline some strategies I’ve utilized for myself and young fitness professionals I’ve mentored to help them jump start their careers.
Your Life’s Purpose
A mentor of mine, Coach Lucas Woody, always emphasized the importance of knowing your why! Think of your why as your purpose, your personal mission statement, the reason you do what you do! Not to get too philosophical, but I’m a firm believer that if you don’t have a clearly defined why, it’s going to be very difficult to move forward not just with your career, but with your life. Your why doesn’t need to be extremely complicated or grandious, it simply needs to make sense to you. There are several ways to outline your why, I will use one practical method that I’ve found extremely helpful over the years, and that is IKIGAI. IKIGAI is a Japanese concept that stands for life’s purpose. It’s a tool to help you outline your why, which can help you find a career path. The way IKIGAI works is you find the intersection of 4 primary dimensions of being.
Things you love: What brings you the most joy in life? Is it traveling, exercise, cooking, or spending time with loved ones? This is about what you love, not what you’re good at. You may love playing golf despite not being the best at it.
Things you’re good at: These are your skills and talents. You might be a good cook, or a great public speaker. Perhaps you excel at a particular sport. Remember, the focus is on what skills you have, not what you’re interested in. You may be great at math despite not really enjoying it.
Things you can be paid for: These are things you can make a living from. Using the previous example you may be great at public speaking, but that doesn’t mean you can automatically make a living as a great speaker like Tony Robbins . Find out what skills can help you get job and acquire income.
Things the world needs: The world is subjective to you. Your world could literally mean “the world” or it can be your local community. This dimension looks at skills and talents that are required based on demands around you. For example, the world needed a plethora of top healthcare workers during the COVID-19 pandemic. Perhaps your community needs a positive role model for its youth, or a dependable construction worker to repair a broken city.
These Dimensions (as shown by the Venn-Diagram above) have 4 major intersections.
Passion: When you combine the things you love with what you’re good at, that’s your passion! This is something that motivates you deeply.
Profession: The intersection of things you’re good at and things you get paid for forms your profession, Think of this as a solid job or potential career.
Vocation: The things you’re paid for and what the world needs is your vocation. Vocation, unlike a profession, has an element of purpose in it, meaning it’s a higher level job that ultimately aligns with what those around you need.
Mission: The things the world needs and things you love forms your mission. Your mission is what you set out to do in the world.
At the intersection of these 4 dimensions, you find your IKIGAI, or your life’s purpose. Now, this isn’t an exercise that will immediately spit out in plain writing “do this”, but it gives you a couple of concrete ideas as to what your why is, which is an extremely powerful concept to narrow down. I would recommend trying this exercise on your own and seeing what you come up with. What I notice with the students I mentor is I start to find reoccurring trends and when we brainstorm the possible intersection of these concepts, a sense of calm and understanding begins to form for them. With those concepts you can then research potential careers that match with your IKIGAI.
Passion Vs. Purpose
Once you’ve mapped out your IKIGAI you’ll want to take some actionable steps towards determining what you should do moving forward for your career. One thing I want to emphasize however, is the distinction between purpose and passion. In general conversations, these two words are used interchangeably. It’s important to understand the difference between these words because both have value in your ultimate decisions regarding your career.
Passion is something that inspires you. I’ll use this word synonymously with motivation, because it’s a strong emotion that gets you moving. Passion is important, because you need drive. You need to be excited about the things you do to avoid being miserable and ultimately resentful. But (and this is important) passion is not a consistent source of productivity. Passion has highs and lows, being similar to a roller coaster at times. So just like motivation, you won’t always have passion at your disposal. You’ll get overworked, burnt out, and have feelings of wanting to give up.
Purpose, on the other hand is what keeps you going when passion fails. I describe purpose as discipline, or a habits you’ve built over time. You may not always be motivated or passionate about going to the gym every day, or brushing your teeth, or doing your homework. But with an established base of purpose (or discipline) you do what needs to be done regardless of how you feel in the moment. Since emotion isn’t needed for purpose, it can be a very powerful tool for long term success. The downside however, if you have purpose without passion, is that it can make your pursuits feel to sterile. Sure you can continue down a particular trajectory with purpose, but for most people if you don’t pair that with something you’re excited about, it’s going to remove the enjoyment and pleasure out of life. This is why you need both purpose and passion to work together in varying degrees when looking for a path moving forward.
An analogy I use to describe the interaction between purpose and passion is looking for a trail in the woods at night. Imagine it’s a cloudy night, no stars, no moon, it’s pitch black outside and you’re trying to find a path forward. Passion is like a gas lantern, bright and energetic, it helps illuminate the way. So you turn on your lantern but unfortunately there is no path laid out on the forest floor, thus you have no idea where to go. Your lantern is nearly useless as you have all this potential energy and nothing to direct it towards. Your purpose is a clearly defined trail on the floor that leads you to your ultimate destination. However, without your lantern (passion) it’s hard to follow the path that is so clearly laid out for you. You need energy and clear direction to be successful, that is where the relationship of passion and purpose can take you.
Find Out What You Like & Dislike
Once you complete your IKIGAI, you should have handful of examples of what you can do career wise. You can now move from the conceptual to the practical by participating in coursework, internships, and volunteer opportunities that match your interest. One important thing to know is that you won’t like everything you do as you search for what works for you. Often times I find that students wait until their senior year, or worse, when they graduate, to start diving into their career interests. The problem is you may not like your first, second, or even third internship, and the only way to find out is to go out and Do The Damn Thing. It’s powerful to know what you don’t like to narrow down your interest even further. As you start playing with these different opportunities, you should come across one area of interest that really stands out to you.
Never Burn a Bridge
Through your coursework, internships, and volunteer opportunities, you’ll want to ensure you network. Make connections with your professors, find mentors at your internship sites, and keep in close contact with those you volunteer for. Even if you don’t pursue a particular career field, having connections across the health and fitness space is highly valuable. You never know who knows who, and you could be one connection away from a good word on your interview, or a link to a job application, or knowledge about a GA position becoming available. Connections are everything in this line of work, so make sure to be a positive influence in everything you do. Show up early, be professional, ask questions, be engaged, and give thanks for the opportunities you’re given, even if you don’t pursue them long term.
It’s Ok To Change Your Mind
The ultimate fear that a few friends and students have voiced to me is that they start to realize that an exercise science based job may not be for them. They had one idea of what the degree and potential jobs would be like and they quickly get discouraged and disinterested with the course work and job opportunities. I’m here to tell you that it’s ok to change your mind and leave the exercise science work force. Of course, I want more awesome professionals in the field, but if you realize that this line of work isn’t for you, there’s no need to force yourself. Of course, this comes with some consequences such as more school or jumping to another career path, so you’ll need to map out how to successfully make this transition. Hopefully you can refer back to your IKIGAI to help gain insight into what fields you can pursue. Also, consider speaking with the mentors and connections you’ve made for some advice. Know that a true mentor will always want you to be successful, regardless of what domain it’s in.
I hope you’ve found this method of mapping out your career path helpful! Please let me know your thoughts or ask any questions in the comments section below.