We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Abigail Ladd. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Abigail below.

Abigail, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. If you had a defining moment that you feel really changed the trajectory of your career, we’d love to hear the story and details.

I started my business in 2018 as a part-time job to supplement my teaching job. Fitness has been my part-time job since college, but it was always working for someone else. I never thought I would be the kind of person who could run their own business, let alone a successful business. Wildly ADHD, an exceptional procrastinator, and someone who has never been very “detail-oriented,” I was sure I was incapable of becoming a business owner.

But when I started my eating disorder recovery, I struggled to find fitness spaces that were pro-movement without being pro-dieting or riddled with the disordered rhetoric of “earning” food and/or working out to make your body smaller.

I love movement. I always have and I had no idea how to reclaim movement as something separate from dieting or weight loss. I was on my own. So, I decided that I was going to help others by becoming certified and specializing in how to make movement a sustainable, shame-free, joyful addition to people’s lives, regardless of whether you are recovering from an eating disorder or just looking for a better way to move. This became the mission for my business Abigail Ladd Coaching.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I have worked in fitness spaces most of my life. Starting in college as a lifeguard and swim instructor, spanning all the way to today where I am now a group fitness instructor, yoga teacher, personal trainer, health coach, and business owner.

And though exercise has always been a part of my life, my relationship with exercise and food wasn’t always healthy. Since my 20’s, I struggled with an eating disorder, which inevitably created a disordered relationship with exercise. I cycled through every diet on the market, until the only thing that worked was not eating. I also cycled through all the fitness trends, until the only thing that worked was hours of intense workouts. None of this made me thin, it just tanked my health.

When I began the complicated journey of eating disorder recovery, I also had to rediscover a healthy relationship with movement, which is not an easy task in our fitness culture of “no pain, no gain.” There are no road maps for movement recovery, and most trainers don’t know how to handle it because a lot of them operate on disordered ideas about food and fitness.

With no resources, my movement recovery was a slow, winding process, which involved a bunch of setbacks, mistakes, self-compassion, creativity, and resilience.

After going through it on my own, I decided to make it my life’s mission to help others do the same. Abigail Ladd Coaching is dedicated to helping people make sustainable changes to their lives by healing their relationship with food and movement and finding joy in movement again! I am dedicated to making fitness spaces more inclusive, welcoming, and completely shame-free. Everyone deserves access to high-quality health and fitness instruction!

Any advice for growing your clientele? What’s been most effective for you?

My number one growth strategy has been focusing on providing individualized client centered care. Most of my client growth has come from client referrals or referrals from healthcare professionals who work with my clients and have seen the positive effects of my coaching.

There is no one-size fits all approach to building a new relationship to movement. Though my clients might have similar goals, how we get to those goals and approach movement is completely individual because my clients are individuals with their own unique stories and experiences. I partner with my clients to build workout routines, schedules, accountability structures, and many other resources to support them. Yes, I have developed many tools and strategies, but my clients success is always front and center. So if I have to pivot or change to meet their needs, I’m in. We’re a team.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

had to unlearn the idea that “anything worth doing, is worth doing well.” Let me explain, because people are usually surprised by this. I am an expert procrastinator because I always want everything to be “perfect” or “ready” before I start. Doing things well, implies the need to be proficient at them. Waiting to be proficient was an wonderful way to stall my deams.

For years, I was taking course after course on how to run a business without actually trying to run my business. Then my good friend, who has a long career in marketing, gave me great advice. She said, “Truly, anything worth doing is worth doing half-assed. You just have to try things and you’ll learn as you go.” This was a paradigm shift. As a recovering perfectionist, I still have to remind myself that learning on the job is how everyone does it and as long as you have a clear mission, you’ll get to where you want to go.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.abigailladdcoach.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/abigailladdcoach/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/abigailladdcoach

Image Credits
Desiree Blasius at Electric Honey Photography https://www.electrichoneyphotography.com/