Remember Why You Started

by Melissa Charlton

When you open a business, you learn a lot about yourself. What you care about, what you are willing to do to be successful, and what you are not willing to do. If you have the wrong people around you, it’s easy to slide into behavior that doesn’t align with your core values. With the right people around you, I think it actually helps make you into a better person. 

That’s my hope, anyway.

I started my personal training journey back in 2005, because I was frustrated with my own fitness. I was an aspiring actress, bartender and self-proclaimed Gym Rat. I spent most of my gym time on the elliptical and doing crunches, trying to stay small in a world that rewarded that. I also kept getting hurt. I was 30, and thought I had bad knees and shoulders, even though I had never done anything to injure them.

I met a personal trainer, Jeremy, who didn’t talk down to me, didn’t try to impress me with a crippling workout, and he also didn’t let me continue on my hamster-wheel cardio routine that kept me in pain. After a year of working with him, I was ready for a career change. Essentially, I wanted to be him when I grew up.

The journey has been tricky! Yes, I was a gym rat, but I was never athletic and I’d never studied movement or exercise science, so I had to learn everything from scratch. But when I got my first client, I knew I’d made the right decision. 

In our first session, I learned I had a knack for understanding biomechanics, and that people who hire a trainer are looking for more than just sexy muscles. They want a partner who will stand by them on their fitness journey, who will keep them motivated, and who can help them understand what’s not working so we can fix it together.

Twenty years later, and I still love the people-side of this business more than anything else. It’s why, when faced with the opportunity to stay online with clients after the pandemic, I knew I needed to open a studio instead. Because even with long commutes, months when the leads dry up, hearing feedback that could make me defensive if I don’t want to grow, and even when losing a loved staff member to new opportunities, the honor of helping change lives is so much more important than the comfort of playing small and safe. 

My “why” is all of you. The clients, the trainers, the support staff. All of you are the reason I keep going, especially when things inevitably get hard. 

So as the new year begins, I want to ask you to look back at your own “why”. Is it the same? Has it changed? Why did you start and what keeps you motivated on those days when life gives you too many challenges?

Melissa Charlton

Founder, NASM CPT, GGS Menopause Specialist

I am inspired by my mother, who gave it her all to give us a better life. Leaving a bad marriage but still needing to raise four children, my mom did everything she could to make ends meet. This meant learning new skills and working 16-hour days, constantly wearing herself down and pouring from an empty cup. She’s my hero, but she’s also my cautionary tale.

Now I'm a mother and a business owner, and I owe it to my son and my community to prioritize myself while I build a business that supports women just like her. I consider it my honor to teach you how to take better care of YOU. So you can be the leader your people need. Proper self-care makes it possible for you to give the best of you, rather than just the rest of you.