Helios welcome our new coach and rugby fanatic, James Middleton to our team, with his first retreat this September (10th-15th) to the Greek paradise of Mykonos. With fun, relatable and honest approach to fitness, we caught up with James for some inspirational tips to stay motivated throughout summer.
Helios: James, how do you keep yourself motivated?
James: Enjoyment has to be number one. If you don’t enjoy something, finding motivation to do it become much harder. That said, even if you enjoy it motivation is still sometimes hard, no one is motivated all the time. I always say “actions comes before motivation”. Sometimes you’ve just got to get up and do it and the positive energy you’ll receive from achieving that will then build and turn into motivation. You can have the most perfect plan in the world but without action, it’s worthless.
Helios: Solid advice! Do you have any client transformation stories that stand out for you?
James: The big one for me is one female client in particular. For years she had been struggling with her weight, with her confidence and sticking to any kind of plan that she could enjoy and sustain. She came to me and we had a big chat before she started (as I do with all my clients to fully understand their situation and journey) and I coached her for several months. She made tremendous progress but equally had up downs and struggles. She eventually left as felt she was in a good position to do it alone and 6 months later she has made the biggest transformation of herself, both with her weight but also her strength, her mindset, her lifestyle. It’s incredible and made me so happy!
H: What else has kept you busy over the last few months of lockdown?
J: My live workouts! I’ve been doing live workouts on my IG, 5x a week for 3 months and that’s kept me pretty busy. But I’ve been able to build such a great community from it and I’ve got something in the pipeline to be able to continue that on a greater scale! Aside from that, I’ve been doing up my house as I figured I’m going to be spending a lot more time here so why not make it look good ha!
H: Why did you want to join the Helios team? Have you done retreats before?
J: I’ve done a few retreats before and I loved them. The combination of being away, in the sun, training, meeting new people and exploring new places is so appealing. I’d seen Helios before and know a few trainers already doing the retreats – the feedback and pictures I saw from them was enough to win me over. It’s a great company with a great ethos and I wanted to be a part of that.
Feeling motivated? Carry your motivation through your home workouts with James' favourite pumping playlist: here. If you need a bit of a push. join him for one of his daily IG live workouts over on his page.