Can you believe it’s been a year?
Part of me feels like it’s been a month, and most of me feels like it’s been a decade.
I’m sure I aged a decade in the last year :)
A year ago this whole COVID thing really started ramping up here in Maine.
This was the week that businesses began shutting down for what we thought was going to be just a couple of weeks.
Boy oh boy, I don’t know if it’s good or bad that we didn’t know at the time it was going to be like how it actually was over the last year.
There’s so much to complain about over the last year…
I can talk about how hard it was running a business over the last year…
I can talk about how Megan spent days in the ICU for what was probably COVID, and I got a call from the doctor at 2:00 am and he said “we’re going to do everything we can to save her.”
I can talk about how we processed more membership holds and comp’d months over the last year than we did in the entire length of our business.
I can talk about how my team is tired, tired of giving everything they can and still feeling like it’s not doing anything.
I can talk about the nightmare stories we’ve heard from clients over the last year, whether it’s from those who work in healthcare and saw it all, clients who run small businesses, or those who had family members get COVID.
It’s important to acknowledge, for most of us reading this e-mail right now….
The last year was the hardest year of our lives.
But…
There’s been so much good.
We were able to service our clients fully online for three months, including coach-led workouts, accountability coaching, and virtual socials like Trivia nights and Bingo nights.
We added a whole new “arm” to our business that we now call STREAM, our virtual offering.
We ramped up our accountability coaching, 1:1 check-ins with clients off the gym floor, talking life.
We added our 1,500 square foot outdoor workout space that will allow us to professionally lead outdoor fitness classes for years to come.
Although we’re still down about 20% from “Pre-Covid” and have a lot of rebuilding to do, we were able to lead the industry in some of the best practices and best retention rates.
Our team has stayed fully employed, and we’re so grateful we have not gotten to a position where we have had to do layoffs.
We had clients that got some of their best results over this last year.
We had clients drop 10, 20, and even 30+ pounds during the quarantine.
Maybe it was the increased frequency of workouts, maybe it was the extra accountability the coaches were able to provide, or maybe they just had more time to focus on themselves.
Either way, whether it was weight loss, performance improvements, or attendance increases we still helped a lot of people live better lives over this last year and that’s something we’re proud of.
There were also a lot of lessons learned.
We continue to learn how important communication is.
We continue to learn how to balance change with certainty.
We changed so rapidly over the last year in order to just keep up, but there were a few times changing too fast bit us in the butt and we learned from that.
Overall, it’s been a year to remember for sure.
I balance the constant stress to rebuild and “get back to where we were” with the gratitude of just how well most of us still have it after a year like this.
Either way, there’s still work to be done, we’re not out of the woods yet.
However, as more sun shines during the day, there is light at end of tunnel, and that give us all some hope.
Thank you for being on this rollercoaster of a journey with us, especially over this last year.
1% Better.
Dedicated To Your Success,
Doug Spurling