Danielle, you tell me I shouldn’t clock in because I don’t want to know how many hours I work in the gym each week. What if there’s really nowhere else I’d rather be?
I get it. I’ve also been there. For a few years, three of our four kids did cheer, tumbling and hip hop (it made for long and stressful competition days, but it was awesome.) Our fourth was a teenage boy who spent most of his free time with friends and dad. So, for years the gym was the only place I wanted to be. I loved every second of being there.
I didn’t stop delegating myself out of the gym in those years. I remember thinking, “I don’t WANT to work myself out of the gym, but I know I’m supposed to be delegating, so I’ll do it and then figure out what to do when people no longer need me (shoulder shrug).”
Just a year or two later, life had changed a lot. Our middle son moved from cheer to football. Our daughter – just a year younger than him – made the high school cheer team and had games on Mondays. Our youngest developed a love for swim and joined the competitive swim team. All three were still involved in the gym, but it was no longer their whole lives. I finally realized why I had spent all that time delegating.
Though I wanted to be at the gym and missed it when I wasn’t there, I also wanted to be at swim practices, football games and pep rallies. As much as I didn’t want to miss nights in the gym, I also didn’t want to miss my kids’ activities.
Maybe you don’t have kids. That’s OK. I met a few ladies a few weeks ago who own a gym. We talked about their future goals. They want to have families one day. That’s going to require them to systemize, hire well and delegate now.
After all, it’s probably hard to swipe right and get someone for a date on Thursday morning at 9 a.m.
Do you ever see those super cute gym owners who have headphones on their babies on the carriers at competitions? I am always so impressed by them. I also know their lives don’t look like that every day. Babies do not live on the gym schedule. They get sick, they get fussy, they have needs that have to be met in ways that aren’t easy. That means if you ever plan to get married and have children, you’re going to need those systems in place.
But Danielle, I don’t need to do all that yet!
I know. I know. It’s hard to think about babies if you don’t even have a date for this Friday night. If you’ve heard me talk about systemization and delegation though, you know I tell everyone one thing: It’s going to be more work for awhile before it’s less work.
To the ladies I spoke to a few weeks ago, I said, “I can get you out of the gym most nights of the week, but you need to give me two years of hard work to get there.”
That means you have people in the gym who aren’t going to call you because Suzy’s mom is mad.
No one is going to call you when Wendy ate a full pizza before practice and vomited all over the mats.
You’re not getting interrupted because Jane’s dad is mad the competition schedule isn’t out yet.
It may not take you two years. These ladies had some other areas they were working through structurally and rebranding that they wanted to complete. I estimated two years of hard work for them. For some people, it’s less because they’re at a different point in their businesses.
Imagine you don’t start doing this until you have a reason to be out of the gym a few nights a week. Then imagine it will take you a year or two to get there.
What will you miss in that time…the time it takes you to make the changes you need to make?
No one wants to be at a swim meet and have to look up from their emails or text messages to see their kid has been waving at them from the pool deck for five minutes trying to get their attention.
So, let’s say you take my advice and you delegate yourself right out of a role at the gym. What now?
- Now you can coach any teams you want knowing the rest of the gym is under control.
- Now you can take vacations or attend the conferences you’ve been too afraid to attend for fear of leaving the gym.
- Now you can pick up a hobby and make a few friends that have nothing to do with the gym (this is healthy!)
- Now you can get back in shape again and meal prep (that was one of my goals!)
- Now you can fill in for a staff member when he or she has a great opportunity (I don’t do this often, but knowing I can is freedom in itself.)
Just because you delegate yourself out of the gym doesn’t mean you’re not the major driving force of the gym. It just means you now have freedom to do the stuff in the gym that you want to do – not the stuff you have to do.
