Book update.
And a reflection about stepping away from the action.
Hi, I hope you're well. I've finished another round of revisions. Along with this Navigating Fitness update, I'm sharing a reflection on the importance of stepping back to gain perspective. Sorry for the delay, but I transitioned from a part-time job to a full-time one, which, while flexible, requires much more time and attention. But the point is I'm still working on the book, and I love transitions.
Whenever I experience a change in my life (personal, professional, or even recreational), I gain a deeper perspective that I can apply to my writing. Whether it's in content, context, or format, transitions are a positive thing.
When I went from being at the center of the action as a personal trainer to being an instructor for a health and wellness career program, I felt a shift in my perspective. Not that I actually changed (my job was still related to health and fitness) but I felt that not having to think about how to sell to survive made a huge difference. This distance helped me write without fear of losing clients. However, this had happened to me before.
I had the same feeling when I went from working at a gym to training independently. I could write more freely about the dark realities of fitness culture without fear of losing my job. But I realize now that I felt that way not because there wasn't a boss who would fire me or clients who would call me crazy but because I put distance between myself and the action. This shift gave me more clarity.
The same thing happened to me with this new job. Although it's not fitness-related, it has helped me view content creation from a new perspective, further removed from the noise. This transition helped me reflect more deeply on how to structure the book from a non-fitness perspective and with less fear. Each transition helps me make the book more mine than before and more authentic. But don't worry because the book is not undergoing many more transitions.
As I mentioned at the beginning, I just finished another review, but what I didn't mention is that I handed the book over to an editor to help me structure it better. I have to wait a few weeks to receive the report with an edited version and recommendations.
The next, and hopefully last, full review will be about comparing the publisher's version with my own and finding a middle ground. To give you context, I've already seen a snippet of the new version of the first chapter, and while it reads professionally, I feel like my voice is a bit lost. I understand there are rules and strategies for making a book more engaging, but I still want it to have that conversational approach that sounds like the reader and I met at a party, and we are just talking. I don't want it to sound preachy or overly serious. However, the idea of ​​sending the book for editing was to find perspective, and since this is a self-publishing project, I have the final say.
Anyway, this is a long-winded way of saying that if you're interested in my book, Navigating Fitness, don't think I've given up. I'm just working on it. I'll leave the noise for later, except for sporadic updates like this one.
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Here is a video presentation about the book (in case you haven't seen it). If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment below or email me at booknavigatingfitness@gmail.com.
Until the next update,
Juan