77. When The Right Choice Stings

The decision that protects you can be the same decision that makes you feel sick to your stomach. If you have ever set a boundary and then spiraled with guilt, doubt, or the fear of being “too much,” this conversation is for you.

I’m pulling back the curtain on what burnout really looked like in my fitness coaching career & I share what finally clicked for me.

You’ll hear the bigger arc too, from leaving corporate America, going all in on personal training, burning out under an online coaching grind, stepping away into construction, and then coming back to the gym with a different lens. 

If you’re ready to protect your peace, trust your gut, and build a healthier work-life balance without losing your heart, listen now. 

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Disclaimer: This show is for education and entertainment purposes only.  This is not intended as a replacement for therapy. Please seek out the help of a professional to assist you with your specific situation.

Transcript

Welcome And Core Question

SPEAKER_00 0:07

Welcome to the Unbreakable Mind and Body Podcast. I am your host, Tiana Gonzalez, a multi-passionate creative, storyteller, and entrepreneur with a fierce love for movement. This is our space for powerful stories and actionable strategies to help you build mental resilience and elevate your self-care practice. Together, we will unlock the tools that you need to create an unbreakable mind and body. Welcome back to the show. I am your host, Tiana. On this episode, we're going to talk about how making the right decision for yourself can still feel really bad and what to do about it. Now, I work as a fitness coach. I do in-person one-on-one training, and I have started a brand for this podcast, and I'm working on some things behind the scenes. But I want to tell you the basis, the foundation, the root of everything that I do is in the interest of helping others. And that is exactly what got me in trouble in the past. Because the truth is, I want to help everyone. If I see a person in need and there is some way that I can make their life easier, that I can make their life a little bit better, that I could potentially show them a new route, a new path, a new way to do something that could get them to the end game or get them to that result just a little bit faster or with a little less pain, I'm gonna do it. But that's that's what's cost me a lot in the past. That's what made me feel burnt out when I had my fitness business back in the day. I left working in corporate America after working my way all the way up the corporate ladder, making six figures, having a lot of autonomy, but having to be available 24-7, 365, including holidays, weekends, and in the middle of the night for emergencies.

Leaving Corporate For Purpose

SPEAKER_00 2:14

And I walked away from all of that to pursue this passion that I had to help women to get out of their own way, to make better choices for themselves, to not make the same mistakes that I made by doing extreme diets and multiple competitions or rigorous routines that wound up giving me a host of health issues. But I digress. Because even though that was my passion and that was the thing I was I feel, I still feel not felt, I still feel I'm put on this earth to do, at some point when you're feeling like this is burning me out, I'm exhausted, I'm fatigued, you have to ask yourself is it the industry that you're in? Is it the business model that you're working with? Is it your clients? Or maybe is it you? And that's not always comfortable for us to sit with, for us to face, right? But it's an important place to start thinking and to start taking notes and to really get down into the deep and dirty, sometimes messy and painful work that we need to do in order to make ourselves better and to move forward. Now, I made the the shift into working in fitness full time in 2013, but there was a period of a few years where I was working in corporate America and doing fitness on the side, doing fitness on the weekends. I got my personal training certification. I took some courses, I learned about Facebook marketing, and I was all in by April of 2013. I was all in on fitness. And unfortunately for me, even though I had the best of intentions, I was my own worst enemy because I did not know how to advocate for myself. So when people would text me at all random hours, I felt obligated to answer them right away. When I

People Pleasing In Business

SPEAKER_00 4:28

was doing discovery calls, or if it was somebody in person and we were talking about pricing, I would feel guilty and feel like I had to offer a discount. I had a hard time with sales because I felt uncomfortable discussing my pricing. And I always wanted to make adjustments or compromises or give discounts or, you know, tweak the terms and conditions that I had already established. And when I was alone and working on my business, these things felt amazing and great. But then when I was client-facing, I didn't feel really comfortable just yet. And I felt like, you know, I owed it to other people. And in some instances, I really bent over backwards. Now I learned pretty quickly that the only person that could make these changes was me. But I didn't know how to do that, and I didn't know how to do it in a way that I would still maintain integrity and respect, but not jeopardize my reputation.

Tire Kickers And Hard Clients

SPEAKER_00 5:36

Now, there are people in this world that sometimes we took we call them tire kickers. They, you know, want to take everything for a test drive, they want to pick your brain, they want to ask a million questions, they have so many concerns, worries, and issues, and you know, they're not really sure. And so they run you through the gamut, they make you feel like you have to jump through hoops in order to get their business. And the reality is, those are the exact people that are going to be the worst clients, they're the most difficult. And once you do this for a while, you realize that if it was that much trouble to get them to sign up, they didn't see the value, and they're going to be a difficult client to manage. And nobody wants to deal with that. But again, when we're talking about taking personal responsibility, is it the client's fault or is it yours, or is it a combination of both? I would say it's a combination of both. So it took me some time. I was definitely answering text messages at hours I didn't want to. I would jump through hoops to try to reschedule people at the 11th hour. I would feel guilty at times if I had to charge somebody for a late cancel. It took me a very long time to realize that respect is more important than being liked. And I didn't understand how when it came down to, let's say, uh a dentist appointment or taking your car in for service or meeting with your accountant for your taxes, you wouldn't cancel those appointments at the last minute and expect not to pay a penalty. But with your personal trainer, somebody who is actually in whose intentions are to help you live a longer, healthier life, you could just drop them like no, like it doesn't matter. And that really bothered me. It I always took it personally, even when I knew I shouldn't, I did. And I found myself frustrated repeatedly for weeks and then months and then years. And here's the thing I could identify pretty quickly if somebody was going to be a challenge or if they were going to allow me to coach them and that they would be coachable and be willing to at least change a little bit in order to get what they really want. So even knowing this upfront, I would still sometimes take on people because I needed money, I needed to pay my bills, I needed to grow as a trainer and get more hands-on experience. We call that clinical time.

Why In Person Coaching Matters

SPEAKER_00 8:24

You know, there are a lot of coaches, sidebar, there are a lot of coaches in the online space who have actually never trained anyone in person. And I have a bit of a problem with that. I didn't for a long time, but now I do. And you know what? I am allowed to change my mind once in a while because there's so much value in training someone in person, really understanding the dynamic, how to navigate challenges. Sometimes people come into a session, they had a really rough day. Sometimes they come in, they had an emotional day, or they're going through a hard time in their personal life, something at work, something with their family, something with their kids. You just never know. And you have to be able to read the room. And that is probably one of the most valuable skills you can have as a coach and as a trainer, because you could have the best workout planned, but if they're not in the right headspace, or if the gym is crowded, or if equipment is being used that you need to think quick on your feet and make substitutions for, if you don't have that skill set, you're gonna be thrown for a loop. You're gonna be standing there, twiddling your thumbs, trying to think quick and look unprepared. And that could be bad for you in the long run. That could be very costly. But

Burnout And Feeling Isolated

SPEAKER_00 9:40

going back to knowing that maybe my feeling of frustration and burnout with Fit by Tiana, which is my old business, and what to do about it, I just knew I needed change. It had gotten to a point where I was working at a CrossFit gym. I was working a lot actually. At that CrossFit gym, I think I coached 15 classes a week. And then I had my a few one-on-one in-person clients, and then I had a ton of online coaching clients, and I just felt so isolated all the time. I felt like I spent 99% of my time alone, and I wasn't being fulfilled in a way that served me. So I was doing the work that I loved to do, but there was just something about it that was making me really unhappy. And I felt like not only was getting leads and doing discovery calls and then turning a lead into a client challenging, but then also keeping clients. So in online coaching, it's very common that people jump from coach to coach to coach to coach, and it would infuriate me because it some of those types of people do not give anything enough of a lifespan to really see what's working and what sticks. And if they're always jumping ship and moving on to the next thing, what does that say about their ability to trust themselves? I think it says a lot. So I found myself in this place where I was like, okay, I'm really burnt out. I don't know what to do next. I feel like I'm out here on this island all by myself. I'm working from home when I'm not at the CrossFit Gym, and I'm tired of this. I need to be around people. So I thought the best solution for me at the time, and oh, by the way, I was like very on a very, very, very tight budget. So what starts to happen when I find myself feeling that way, it's hard for me to be creative. But if you're in the online space, you need to be creative because you have to create content in order to keep a presence on social media. Even if you do paid advertising, you're putting payments behind your content. So you're draw drawing leads or driving leads, I'm sorry, to your funnel in order to get them into your system somehow so that you can eventually talk to them, get them on a call, see if they're a good fit, see if they're interested in working with you, and then move forward from there. And it was this vicious cycle that I just could not seem to crack.

Quitting Fitness For Construction

SPEAKER_00 12:18

So I went back to construction. And for a year and a half, I thought, okay, I'm done with fitness. I'm over it. I'm burnt out. It's not for me. I don't want to do it anymore. I'm tired of coaching people that don't want help. I'm tired of coaching people that think they know what they want, but they actually don't. I'm tired of people wasting my time. And while all of that is true, guess what? By the fall of 2024, I had realized, wait a minute, I actually do miss training people. Because what I had run away from was not training people. It was all the other stuff that came along with it, all of the other stuff that I wasn't able to change, all of the other stuff that I knew had to change, but I felt really guilty about it.

Returning With Stronger Boundaries

SPEAKER_00 13:08

So when I revisited fitness, I was a different person. I had grown, I had changed, and I had a new lens that I was looking at everything through, especially after being treated like crap in not one, not two, but three different construction companies in a span of about 15, 16 months. That's a lot of experience. That's a lot of, oh, yeah, nope, confirmation, this isn't for me. And guess what? Even when I was working in construction and I was working in person and I had to drive out to either the airport for the first company, or I had to go out to these mansions in Connecticut, or I had to go to stores, or I had to go to the office, I was still kind of lonely. Want to know why? Because it's not like the people I was working with were very friendly or striking up conversation or helping me grow or respecting or asking for my input. So in all three instances, none of them were a good fit. So I took some time off and then realized, you know what, I really miss coaching. I miss seeing people in person. And I went back to something that has been one of the best moves I've ever made. But what's different now is the way that I do things. And I had to let go of that myth of like, oh, this is gonna be a clean change. No, you're gonna be presented with the same problems, the same challenges, the same types of people, and you're going to be tested to see how much growth you've actually made. And it is only when you actually execute and do the thing that doesn't feel so great, but you stick with it and you hold out and you give yourself time to just see if there's any fallout from it and if you're gonna be okay, then you know, okay, yeah, that that was the move. So now I'm working in a space that I've been in before. It's the same gym I worked at seven years ago, but I'm different. The way I do things is different. I say no to everything else that is not perfect for me. And I say hell yes to the opportunities that are perfect for me. I know exactly what my zone of genius is. And while I will listen and hear other possibilities, other ideas, I know what works best for me. I know what I'm interested in doing. I also know how I can best facilitate transformation. So, what do I mean

Zone Of Genius And Modeling Change

SPEAKER_00 15:44

by all this? Well, at this gym, there's one-on-one training, there's partner training, there's small group training, there's small group classes, there's large format classes, there's, I think there's a run club. There's also there used to be, I don't know if there still is a cycle group that meets on the weekends. And all of those things are phenomenal and amazing. But I know that working one-on-one is my jam. That's my bread and butter. That's where all of my energy and effort is going. That's where I can help people really come to a place where they can make change. And guess what? If you've been paying attention, you will realize that everything I just talked about and what I had to go through to change how the business worked for me, that is literally a comparison and a parallel to what I'm expecting and hoping and praying that my clients will be able to do for themselves with their health, fitness, and wellness. So, you see, in order for me to facilitate better change, I had to start with myself first and then implement those things and then show people. You model the behavior, you show people. It's not just about talking about it. You can talk about it all day, but if you actually can live it, embody it, demonstrate it, that's a huge differentiator. Now, I've said it on many episodes in the past where I know that I can trust my gut. That also comes with time, age, and experience. One of the greatest gifts you get from growing older is wisdom. That is a gift. Because if you can learn from your mistakes, if you can learn from the past, if you can learn from failures, you can make yourself a better version of you for the future. And that's never a bad thing, right?

The Liminal Space Of Growth

SPEAKER_00 17:33

So it's also interesting when you know what you need to do, but it's not quite comfortable just yet. It's not second nature yet. And there's this gap or there's this space because you're not who you were anymore, but you're also not truly who you're becoming just yet. So we call that the liminal space. It's this in between. And it's kind of like being in limbo. Most people don't like to be in limbo. But if you can learn how to trust yourself enough, learn how to find peace within yourself, even in the midst of uncertainty and chaos. You'll be all right. You will be okay. You will find your way. So, yeah, sometimes it's hard when someone shoots me a text message at a crazy hour of the evening and I don't see it until the next morning.

Protecting Peace With Night Routines

SPEAKER_00 18:34

And guess what? I don't see it until the next morning because my phone goes on do not disturb at a very early hour. I give myself some space, some peace, some quiet to do what I need to do before it's time to start my bedtime routine. I've also mentioned it previously on this show that I'm terrible about falling asleep. So I have to start my bedtime routine super early so that I can begin to unwind. I dim the lights, I wash the dishes, I do the shower, makeup, take off the makeup, brush the teeth, I do my bedtime supplements, I'll grab a book. Sometimes I'll watch a meditation on YouTube, but that is dangerous because then I can lead me down a rabbit hole of doom scrolling, which I try to avoid. I've actually deleted several apps off my phone. I've logged out of various things so that I can't log back in because I have to protect my peace. And if someone texts me at the 11th hour, unfortunately, I stick to the protocol because I have to protect my business and I have to protect, you know, what I'm trying to do here. And even though I love my clients, I love helping them, they also have to recognize that this is a business. And bills don't get paid on sentiments and well wishes, they get paid through income generation. So when you realize that this is a business, it changes things and you don't take advantage of your service providers.

Non Negotiables And Enforcement

SPEAKER_00 20:12

So I said a whole heck of a lot, talked a lot about how I changed the way I do things in business, and really what it boils down to is defining what your non-negotiables are, making sure that you're okay with that, finding the language and the way to embody that and then enforce it. And here's one more thing: if you establish a boundary, but then you're always overstepping it or you are crossing it or you are making exceptions all the time, and they they don't really feel like exceptions anymore. They just feel like the rule, that is your fault, and that is your problem, and that is something that you must contend with. And I encourage you to take a look at yourself and to figure out what your problem is because you deserve to have a great life.

Commanding Respect After Hours

SPEAKER_00 21:04

A friend of mine recently, you know, he got a conference call late at night and we were supposed to have dinner, and he's on the phone, and the call is just going on and on and on and on and on. It was a surprise video call, and he took it after hours, and he did not say anything like, Hey, I have to go now. All right, guys, we'll catch up on this tomorrow. It was not an emergency, by the way. And I have to say, I was pretty pissed because if you let people walk all over you, they will. But if you firmly and kindly say, Hey, this isn't gonna work right now, I can't do this, we'll catch up later, we'll catch up tomorrow, and you give them a date or a time or uh when to be continued, you command respect. And commanding respect and being honest is the kindest thing. That you can do for yourself and for

How To Stay Connected

SPEAKER_00 22:02

others. So I hope you enjoyed this episode. And if you want to stay in touch with me, please give me a follow on Instagram. There's a way to do that. Check the show notes. You'll see you can find all of the ways to stay in touch with me. I have my Instagram handle, my email newsletter, and also a link to my new strength training program called Lift Like You Mean It. I appreciate you being here. I appreciate your time and attention as always, week after week, having a conversation with me. And I'll catch you on the next one.