Almost eight years ago, God put it on my heart to become a personal trainer and gave me a vision to open a gym of my own. I knew this gym had to be different from anything I had ever seen. God clearly told me He wanted this to be known as a place for the community to come and find healing and purpose in their life. On March 5th of this year, I saw a glimpse of what God had promised so many years prior when I received the keys to my first personal training facility and Never Settle Fitness finally had a place to call home.
As you can imagine, there have been many obstacles that had to be overcome to get to this point, but this past year has been by far the most difficult. In April of 2015, I was let go from my job at one of the top personal training facilities in Indianapolis. I went from making a respected income that took me two years to build from the ground up to being unsure if I could pay my bills that upcoming month. I soon realized that losing my very cozy job was the exact push I needed to fully pursue my purpose and truly begin to experience God’s best for my life. In that moment, I had a choice: I could view my circumstances as a burden or a blessing. I chose to view it as a blessing and soon realized what a gift from God it was. The road has been everything but easy, but I trusted where God guides, He provides.
Soon after I lost my job, I started transferring clients over to my cramped, 800 square foot apartment gym and began rebuilding everything I had lost. My husband, Nate, was thrown into the fire by being forced to obtain his first client while still in school and began to build his business and client base from scratch. Training out of our apartment complex wasn’t ideal, so we began searching for something more, something to call our own.
In September of 2015, Nate and I received news that would change our lives forever. We found out that we were expecting our first child! As exciting as this news was to us, it opened our eyes to the risks involved in opening a gym, and we quickly began to doubt God’s promises in our lives. We became filled with fear and even contemplated not pursuing our dream because of the possibility of failure. What if we lost everything with a baby on the way? How would we be able to provide for our child? I believe these were legitimate concerns, yet I know that fear does not come from God. So, we continued to trust Him. We decided that the pain of failure could never hurt more than living a life of mediocrity. I look forward to telling our child one day how mommy and daddy stepped out of their comfort zone, took a risk, and how God remained faithful.
Our temporary arrangements at Penn Circle Apartments turned out to be a more permanent home for nearly one whole year. While Nate and I spent every day building up the NEVER SETTLE Fitness brand inside the gym, my brother and business partner, Jeremy, recorded long hours behind the scenes from negotiating proposals to handling the finances in order to make sure we all would be successful. After seven months of being told, “no,” we signed a lease for a 2,300 square foot facility at 8345 Clearvista Place Suite 500 in Indianapolis, IN. Nate and I were so pumped when we finally got the keys on March 5th.
The location is perfectly located off I-69 and I-465 nearby the busy Castleton Square Mall. Even though the space itself was in rough shape, we knew this was where we were supposed to be. It was dark, dirty, and beat up, yet we could still see the beauty in it. That’s when the fun began! We started patching holes in the walls, fixing leaks in the roof, and sterilizing the place from top to bottom.
Soon after, we held our first event at the new facility, and it was definitely one we will never forget. Over 75 people gathered in the unfinished space to participate in a floor signing. Nate and I promised to pray over every single name written on the concrete floor and ask God to bring healing to their lives, whatever that looked like for them. It was important to us to recognize God as the foundation of our success as well as acknowledge all of those who supported us along the way. After the event, we hit the ground running and were able to brighten the space with some fresh paint and install premium, athletic rubber flooring and turf. It finally looks and functions like a gym, but not your typical cookie cutter facility. You won’t find any heavy, bulky equipment at NSF. Instead, we practice and preach functional training through use of free weights, soft, plyometric boxes, ropes, and slam balls. As of March 21st, our phase one of build out is complete, but this is just the beginning. We still have major improvements planned including a complete remodel of the bathrooms.
Never Settle Fitness is officially open for business and accepting new clients. We want you all to join us on this journey and share in the blessings God has given us.