Shannon’s Journal: My Story

Working out has always been a love/hate relationship for me. I love the feeling you get when you finish a hard workout, but starting the workout is the hard part. You see when I was little I played a sport every season, so there was never a down time that I wasn’t “forced” to be active. Again I loved how I felt after a brutal conditioning session for soccer, but the key part was that I was forced to be there and I didn’t have to plan it on my own. When I went to college I was a tad bit nervous that the drive to stay fit and workout would go away because I didn’t have sports anymore. To be honest it did for a little bit. I found myself lost a bit when I would go to the gym, so I would just walk for 20 minutes and call it a day. It was nowhere close to the same intensity as my practices/games. It wasn’t until late into my freshman year that I researched different workout plans and really started to take initiative to increase the intensity of my workouts. I have always been a pretty stressed person, and it was around this time that I realized that the stressed seemed to melt away as I was working out. I would get out my head and just be in the moment. It was time I set aside just for me and nothing else could get in the way. I was in the best shape of my life both mentally and physically my senior year of college.

Once I graduated and got my first teaching job is when I believe things really started to take a downward spiral. I was so excited to start my new career, but it was a tad more demanding than I thought it would be. I by no means thought that it was going to be easy, but it felt like I was doing everything wrong and there seemed to be little to no help along the way. With all that being said, I stopped taking time for myself. I completely stopped working out and my diet was terrible. I would always feel nauseous at work and would hardly eat or drink anything and by the time I got home around 7 I would be starving and eat like entire pizza myself. This continued for about my first 2 years of teaching and I gained almost 50 pounds. I was disgusted with myself and it almost made everything even worse. Every time I tried to go workout I felt discouraged and angry that I let myself get this way and I tended to give up.

Then there was one day where I knew I needed to change, not just my lifestyle, but the job that helped push me into this lifestyle. That was the day that I signed up for the NASM personal training course and exam. I wanted/want to fall back in love with working out and this seemed liked the perfect option. It wasn’t that I didn’t like teaching all together, I just think I didn’t mesh well with the settings that I was in. Being a personal trainer would not only allow me to continue teaching others, but also give me a better life as well.

It has taken me about 2 years to finally work up the courage to start this website/blog. I created so many obstacles for myself and constantly talked myself out of it. A big part of my personality is fear of failure. Knowing that I could fail at something scares me so much that I tend to never try in the first place. Well it is time that things change! It is time that I stop doubting myself and take charge of my life and do the things that scare me the most, because who cares if I fail. I will just learn from those mistakes and become a better person for it! (I keep repeating that speech in my head so that I stay strong! Lol). There is never going to be a right time to start something and if I keep listening to the negative thoughts in my head than I might never fulfil my dreams.

I am at the start of my journey right now, which is one excuse for putting off my dream of being a personal trainer. It took my sister telling me that it is never too early to start something you love. I will find people that relate to me and want to hear my story. So that is exactly what I am doing. No I am not in perfect body builder shape (hopefully soon tho!), but I am human just like you all are and you can join my path to becoming a healthier, happier, and physically fit person through a runliftbalance life!