The Fitness Business School – Get Out of a Rut

Full Transcript

Hey, Pat Rigsby here. And in this episode, I want to talk with you about how to get out of a rut. I think we all have to navigate this at some point or another, and I like you deal with falling into ruts from time to time. And I’ve got a process that I go through that I know helps me, and I think it’ll help you as well. So let’s get to it.

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Hey, Pat here. And I want to talk with you about how to break through how to get out of a rut. It’s so easy for us as business owners to fall into that. We see what’s in the media. We see the, you know, we’re, we’re faced with new challenges or uncertainty, you know, almost every day, right now it’s easy in normal circumstances to fall into a rut from time to time. And now it’s probably easier than ever. So how do we break out of that? How do we not let this snowball on us? And I think of this kind of back when I was a college baseball coach and when I was a player before, you know, how do you not let one bad game turn into a bad week, a bad month, a bad season, not let things snowball on you. Well, I’ve got a few questions that I take myself through and just really kind of allow me to see my business through a different window. Allow me to maybe recalibrate, reset, and restart. And so I want to share those questions with you and help you use them as prompts to break free of any era you may be in now or when one comes up in the future.

So the first question that I asked myself is how can I make this simpler? How can this be simpler than it is right now? Some iteration of that, because let’s face it. We tend to over complicate things. We tend to, you know, we went, when we struggle, a lot of times we go into study mode or research mode and we, we start to look at all these different opportunities instead of that, making it simpler for us. It makes it more complicated. We don’t know what to do next. So for me, I tried to go the opposite direction in my business. I look for simplicity in my coaching with clients. I look for simplicity. So the first question I always go to is how can I make this outcome? I’m trying to get this result, this goal that I’m trying to achieve, how can I make this path that I’m on towards it simpler than I’ve been making it. Now, the second question is to get me unstuck and it’s, what can I do right now to move me forward? What can I do in this moment? I don’t mean planning for a bigger, bigger event, and I’ll get to something along those lines and moment, but okay. If I have 10 minutes right now, what can I do to at least inch forward and gain some momentum? It can be as simple as sending out a text message to a former client or confirming an appointment with somebody. It could be sending out an engagement email to try to generate some interest or making a post on social media. But momentum comes from action. Not the other way around. You don’t have momentum to generate action. You take action. And that creates momentum.

So I always ask myself, what can I do right now in this moment? The next could be is a question that just kind of spurns my creative thinking and it’s, how else can I get the result that I want? Usually I know in my case, and probably in yours too, we get stuck in doing the things in the way that we’ve always done them. We have an approach that we use time and time again. And maybe it’s based on the fact that it’s worked in the past. Maybe it’s based on the fact that we’re comfortable with it, but if we’re in a rut, it’s not working right now. So how else can I get the result that I’m looking for? You know, if the result for you is increased revenue and the fact that you can’t deliver group training right now has stopped you other other ways to get revenue into your business. There are other ways to serve clients in a win, win value exchange.

So how else can I get the result that I want now, part of the trick here is understanding the result that you actually want. And in the example I just gave the result may not be, Hey, how do I have 30 people in a group training session? The result may be, how do I help people in a profitable way to make my business healthy and allow me to have the impact and income that I want deserve? So if that’s the result, how else can I get there? And then what can I do? This is kind of the bigger picture when this is the one that I wrap up with what is one step I could do today to move towards my ideal business. And the reason I use that kind of language is I’m a big proponent of building your ideal business building business that you want to own the business that allows you to have the income impact, income, and lifestyle that you really want. Probably the reason that you started a business in the first place. And it becomes very easy for us to drift away from that. It becomes very easy for us to kind of just get into this day to day rhythm of doing things that are very tactical and they’re not strategic anymore. So I think what this does is allow me to think about, okay, where, where do I really want to go here? You know, what is my ideal business and what is one move I can make today to move towards that now where that’s different than the, what could I do now? What could I do now is very tactical. It’s just, what can I do now to generate some momentum by taking a quick action? What is one step that I can take today to move towards my ideal business? Well, that’s more strategic. That’s getting back in line with why you’re doing this in the first place to kind of remind you, because when we’re in a rut, let’s face it. Sometimes we’re like, why am I doing this? Why do I have this business? This isn’t what I really signed up for. Well, if we get back to the business that we want to own, the people we want to serve the culture, we want to create the impact, the income, the lifestyle, all those things that we’re seeking, what is one step that we can take today to move towards that? It allows us to feel like we’re recalibrating and getting back on track, and we may have drifted away from that temporarily. But now we feel like we’re more back in alignment with where we wanted to go previously. So those are the questions that I asked myself to get out of a rut.

Honestly, they helped me tremendously. And you know, sometimes all it takes is walking through one or two of those and I’m kind of moving forward, but I’ll still go through all four of them just to make sure that I’m kind of pulling the rope in the right direction. I’m not just doing something to kind of get my mind off, whatever was distracting me or dragging me down previously. Now everything’s back kind of online. I’m moving towards where I want to go. I’ve got some momentum.

I feel like I’ve simplified things enough to really keep moving. And it also helps me kind of get some laser focus. If I am going to have to go do some research or study and look for different ways of solving problems, different ways of approaching where I want to go. It gives me clarity. So I’m not just taking the shotgun approach and feeling, feeling like I’m overwhelmed with too much information. I can be more precise and laser focused and get the right information. So there are some tips for breaking out of a rut. There’s certainly the things that have helped me. I think they’ll help you to.

Thanks for listening. I’m giving away a bundle of my bestselling books, the ideal business formula, the fitness entrepreneur handbook in the path. All you have to do is go to patrigsby.com/podgift to get it. Also, make sure to subscribe to The Fitness Business School with Pat Rigsby so you don’t miss an episode and you get yourself on the fast track to creating your ideal business.