I have a personal training client whom I adore, but who for a long time continually made me mad. He was submitting himself to our sessions together, but I couldn’t quite fathom why, as he seemed to really hate the experience. Which made me feel horrible for putting him through it. Which made me mad, because why should I feel horrible??
So we bickered, incessantly. It was a tug of war, with me trying desperately to get him to invest in what we were doing, and him seeming to try everything he could do to distract himself from what we were doing. Until I finally took a minute to think about this man and who he really was. A brilliant mind, idle. This is a former Dean, a scientist and science professor, a man of mind. A habitual thinker. And it occurred to me that what was really getting in the way of his investment in what he was doing wasn’t so much a bad attitude, but that he didn’t know how to invest his MIND in the physical activity. This man’s mind and body were very much two seperate entities to him, and while his body set about doing these uninteresting repetitions, his mind was searching desperately for something to occupy it.
So I set about making sure I gave him clear directives for what to engage his mind with during each exercise – these are things you need to think about and why - and stressing the mental component explicitly, instead of simply asking him to focus. I began to turn my attention towards actively focussing his mind instead of simply expecting him to. In short, I stopped taking his behavior personally, I figured out what was in the way, and I actively helped him move the obstacle.
His work outs have improved tenfold, and we are getting along pretty famously.
How much better would all of my relationships be if I could remember to start with the assumption that people generally have good intentions and do the best they can unless there is something in the way?
July 1, 2008 at 4:51 pm |
Great food for thought! If we could only all remember that people are not all just like us…. and that’s OK!!! You love to exercise and challenge and connect with your body—- he probably loves to read and challenge and connect with his mind. But we need to love and accept the differences in others because thats truely what makes life interesting! I love the way you accepted and conquered this challenge…its a lesson for us all.
July 1, 2008 at 5:18 pm |
Totally agree. I often find myself saying: “If I say something, and it can be taken two ways, and one of those ways seems hurtful, I meant it the OTHER way”. But when we’re in the middle of something painful, it can be easier to just interpret everything as mean.
July 1, 2008 at 5:57 pm |
It also just goes to show you that people are different. What he needed was different than what other clients need.
July 1, 2008 at 8:12 pm |
Hey, Nick…wait just a minute here. I appreciate your insight and your support, but I don’t want to be misunderstood – I believe we are all responsible for what we put out there. If the roles were reversed – my client was the trainer and I was the client – I would seriously need to look at what I was doing to piss off my trainer so much. Looking dismal, rolling my eyes, hissing, and distraction tactics are not cool, even if they aren’t intended to convey anything personal. My trainer might be off track in taking it that way, but given what I’m putting out there, it would be understandable. I might want to communicate a bit more clearly, is all I’m saying.
July 1, 2008 at 9:27 pm |
Mark, I think you are right and I’m glad you brought it up – it is helpful to remember that everyone is different, that everyone’s needs are different, and to consider how we can best accomodate those needs (while, of course, not compromising ourselves!).
July 2, 2008 at 12:59 am |
Oh, totally agree, he’s basically forgetting the reason he’s there in the first place!
Guess I should have been more clear: it’s similar to how we often see things solely from our own perspectives… and what seems obvious from one perspective is baffling from another. Once you figured out his perspective, you knew how to address the situation.
I wonder if he ever gave YOUR perspective some thought?
July 2, 2008 at 1:30 am |
Thanks for this clarifiaction, Nick – it can be really hard to step out and look at things from another’s perspective when emotions start to run high, but I agree it’s a really important thing to try to do.
As for my client, I suppose only he can say if he spent any time thinking about my perspective – I think perhaps it didn’t bother him as much as it did me that we bickered the way we did. I know he never intended to hurt my feelings and would have done something about it if he could have figured out how.
July 7, 2008 at 4:04 pm |
I love this blog entry of yours. It really relates to something I try to work on. I really like how you did that with your client.