Mindsets to Master for Gym Owner Success
Most gym owners that I work with think:
Marketing tactics
Sales conversions
Membership retention
Are what they need to focus on to grow and scale their gym. But, as a fellow gym owner myself and mentor, the number #1 thing that is holding most gym owners back is:
Mindset
A gym owner can develop skills to grow their gym and build systems to scale, but their mindset and limiting self-beliefs will always hold them back.
Here are the Top #3 Mindsets to Adopt for Success in your Fitness Business:
Abundance Mindset
When I opened my first gym, I saw other local gyms as 'competition'. I thought the market was overcrowded and saturated, which put me into a 'scarce' mindset. I didn't believe it was possible to grow and scale my business to the levels I wanted.
This was a story I was telling myself, a limiting belief holding me back.
My mentor at the time was a successful gym owner that I looked up to. Because I had a scarce mindset, I asked him a question, and he taught me a lesson:
"We both run gyms in the same area; what happens if we compete for clients?" I asked him
He responded:
"Mate, we both only need 150 x clients to thrive. We both live in a city with just under 2 million people. If we can't reach our goals, we have bigger issues than worrying about each other..."
That statement broke my scarce mindset and opened my eyes to opportunity instead of scarcity. Now that I have developed a Growth Mindset, I have scaled to six gyms in the same city, all of which are surrounded by other competing gyms. I also coach other gym owners in my area to succeed.
If I had maintained a scarce mindset, I would have been too afraid to scale my fitness business to this level and become a business coach.
Infinite Mindset
When I opened my first gym, I was always racing toward a 'finish line' where the race would end when I hit a specific member goal. I would see other gym owners as competition, running the race against me.
I had a 'finite mindset'. If I were ever to finish the race, I would take my foot off the gas and become complacent.
After reading Simon Sinek's book The Infinite Game, I changed my mindset from 'Finite' to 'Infinite'. Instead of seeing myself in a race to the end to be the best, I switched to seeing myself in an endless pursuit of improvement.
I was no longer comparing myself to other gyms; I started comparing my gym to itself, aiming to be a small step ahead each week.
This switch in mindset propelled us to new heights in the business.
"Burn The Boats"
As a personal trainer working out of a commercial gym, I was still working a second job as a financial safety net.
If my personal training job went quiet, I knew I had my other job to help provide for me. I didn't realise it then, but this 'safety net' kept me from pushing that extra 1% harder to grow my fitness business.
But when I opened my gym, I knew I would have to go 'all in' and free myself from the safety net of my second job.
I 'burnt the boats' and moved forward with my vision without a Plan B. I knew I would have no backup plan if my gym didn't succeed.
This new 'infinite' mindset made me push harder as a gym owner than I had in my previous role as a personal trainer, and I went from one to six gyms over the next eight years.
I have developed many skills to become a successful gym owner, but my mindset has been the most pivotal part of my success.
That is why, when I mentor fellow gym owners, I focus just as much on their mindset as I do on skills and strategy.