Dairy of a Personal Trainer: Goodbye Retail

Since the age of sixteen I’d been working in a large retail company. That’s eleven years. As soon as I left school I began the job hunt, within two months I’d landed a job at the company I’d be with for eleven years. By 2018 I was embarrassed, I hated my job and saw no way out. Something had to change.

By time 2017 had wrapped up I was a depressive wreck. My band was breaking up, my family had moved away, I’d ended a train wreck of a relationship, a friend had passed away, I was broke all whilst spending thirty nine hours a week in a job that did literally nothing to fulfill me mentally or even financially. It fucking sucked! It was at this time that I began training again, I don’t remember consciously make the decision to begin exercising but something drew back into the gym. Thank God it did though. By January 2018 I had already dropped some weight and begun the application process to start my personal training diploma. It was from there working in retail really started to become hard work.

As soon as I began working on something that would take me out of the retail game my focus on the job really began to suffer. I mean the job was already mind numbing as it was, but knowing there was light at the end of the tunnel… Damn, that became frustrating. I wanted to leave in an instant! I’d also come to a point where I was thoroughly embarrassed by the job. Well maybe that’s unfair, I was embarrassed with myself. Here I was at twenty seven years old, working on the counters with a silly white mesh hat, taking orders and woefully clock watching all day. I didn’t want to tell people what I did for a living. There’s nothing wrong with that job at all, but god damn I felt like I’d truly let a large chunk of my life slip by. Man, did that fire me up!

It wasn’t until mid July 2018 that I was able to hand in my resignation. I remember the day clearly. I awoke early on a Monday morning, my day off, to find waiting on my email account a job offer to join a large gym as a Personal trainer. Boom! I’d done it! One big massive wave of relief hit me, a sensation that had never been experienced before. Now I could finally move forward with, for the first time in my life, my career! Giving my notice into the supermarket was such a joy, I practically skipped into the store. Although I was sad to be leaving some great people behind I knew this would be the right move to make.

Unfortunately I had four more weeks of retail to endure…

I’ll save that story for the next installment.

Daniel Hipkiss

Diary of a Personal Trainer: Education

I never went to university. After finishing college the thought of doing three more years in education made my stomach turn, going to prison seemed more appealing than sitting in another classroom. 

I’ve always had a problem with classrooms though, my energy can be through the roof but as soon as you sit me down behind a desk with a teacher… All that energy seemingly disappears and the wheels begin to fall off. One time my previous employer sent me on a course and holy hell! Genuinely, I thought I was going to die of boredom. Do not ever put me in a room with somebody passionate about filleting salmon ever again! If I remember rightly I had to stab myself in the leg with a pen just to stay awake. It barely worked. 

So me and the standard form of education don’t quite get along. I’m bit of an arse like that though, you want me to learn something? Not going to happen. I want to learn something? I’ll read every single piece of information available, watch all the documentaries I can and practice said information as much as possible. Fitness was something I wanted to learn about. My only fear was that as soon my passion became something I undertook as a course the energy and excitement would wither away. Thankfully that didn’t come to pass. 

I’ll be straight with you, completing the workbooks for the course was not hard, The questions were really there just to make sure I  actually read the original content as well as understood it. The only real struggle came internally. You see when you’ve got a teacher or tutor breathing down your neck you’re going to, or should, get the work done in a certain amount of time. With a course being entirely non classroom based, apart from ten days, this meant I had to really motivate myself to get the work done. Doing the work was easy, getting myself to do it… Not so much. For years I’d been half arsing pretty much everything that didn’t involve a guitar, bad habits were ingrained with my attention span shorter than Danny Devito. Actually getting off my arse and removing these traits were the real test. 

The deadlines were vague and a little bit too far into the future for me to feel any sense of urgency, I was literally given a year to do something that upon reflection could’ve been done in three months. I feel like I thrive on urgency, you’ll see what I mean as this series goes on, urgency means having no time for complacency, self doubt and procrastination. Having no time for those three things is good. 

However I did have time, sometimes that’s not a good thing. Fortunately some motivation was at hand, my retail job had become unbearable and I needed out as soon as possible. So on my days off work I would spend time at the local library cramming in as much work as possible, I thought I’d hate it but actually it was quite the opposite. Rarely did I actually want to sit down reading textbooks on energy sources and filling in workbooks, who really does? However, much like exercise, once I’d gotten into it I became enthralled even to the point of forcing myself to stop. 

There was this feeling that I’d overcome a personal barrier, being productive gave me a mental boost. Sticking to my plan and getting the work done felt damn good. 

Though one thing remained… The practical assessments. 

Daniel Hipkiss 

P.s. Hi mom!