Rhea, 20, based at the Hive gym, Ely, Cambridgeshire, has been named as YOUR Personal Training’s PT of the Month for August. Here, she shares how she found her dream job!
Rhea says: “I’m so excited to be recognised as YOUR PT’s personal trainer of the month. I’m a newly qualified PT and this has really reinforced my belief that I have chosen the right path.
“I’ve heard other people say that if you find a job you love, then you’ll never do a day’s work – I’d previously doubted them, but it’s now happening to me! I simply love going to work and spending time with my wonderful clients. I’m so much happier in general and this is largely because I now enjoy what I do. I feel better, I look better and I have a much healthier work/life balance – what’s not to love?”
After leaving school, Rhea did a course in childcare at college. Unfortunately she hated it, and when she was 16 she ended up working in McDonalds. During her time there, she worked her way up to shift manager, but she never really enjoyed the work. She says: “Working at the fast food restaurant was long hours, it was unrewarding and I never wanted to go to work. The pandemic and the lockdowns were a welcome break from it.
“It was during this time that I started to build my own home gym, buying weights and equipment I could work out with. When I was working out, I used to imagine what it would be like to train someone else. I think that’s because from an early age, I used to dance and compete in ballet competitions. I always liked the discipline of dancing and felt that working out and weight training had a similar ethos. When the world opened back up again, I really didn’t want to go back to McDonalds, so I took a job at Centre Parcs with regular nine to five hours to give me time to complete my Level Three PT Qualifications.
“I found the training really interesting and wanted to start using my qualification immediately. When I saw the YOUR PT job come up, I leapt at the chance, as I already knew the gym and was familiar with its location, its facilities and even some of its customers.”
In the two months that Rhea has been working with YOUR Personal Training, she has managed to gain 17 personal training clients.
She says: “It’s been an amazing couple of months – but I wouldn’t have been able to do it without the support of the YOUR PT team. I’m only young and I have always worked for a large organisation who paid me monthly. Going self employed was a big deal and I was extremely anxious about doing it. But I describe my YOUR PT regional manager as my ‘work Dad.’ He has been there to offer advice and guidance. He’s an experienced PT and has really spent time building my confidence. We’ve talked about the admin side of being a PT, how to speak to potential new clients and how to build my business. Ideally, I’d love to be able to grow my business up to around 30 clients – but even now, I am working half the hours I did at McDonalds and earning more.”
Rhea says: “Even though I am a fully qualified PT, I’m not going to stop learning. I work with a lot of female clients and I’d like to specialise in pre and post natal wellbeing. I’m already looking for a course to upskill me in this area.
“I’m just so happy I took the plunge and gave up that steady but boring job. I’ve found a job and a sector that I love. In the future, I’d love to be able to run my own gym and to have a group of PT’s working for me. I’m so happy that I can see how my career can develop in both the short and long term.”