Master Your Growth

A Guide to Self-Directed Assessment Using Feed-Forward and Self-Monitoring

By Matthew Slack

As a personal trainer, your personal and professional development doesn’t stop once a workshop or a certification is completed. True mastery comes from becoming self-directed, taking ownership of your progress, monitoring your own performance, and continuously improving without the need of external validation. Ownership is the route to becoming autodidactic, to becoming the driver and not the passenger of your journey that’s your life. This is how we create our good life, at GoodLife FITNESS.

This guide introduces self-directed assessment as a practical tool for personal trainers at GoodLife FITNESS. It shifts the focus from traditional “assessment of learning” (external judgment of past performance) to “assessment for learning” (using feedback to guide improvement) and ultimately “assessment as learning” (where you actively self-monitor, reflect, and adjust your own practice).

The Feed Forward approach (Goldsmith, 2003) and structured self-monitoring tools, embedded in the PT Black Belt Program on goodlifebc.ca, make this shift actionable and sustainable.

Why Self-Directed Assessment Matters for Personal Trainers

Self-directed assessment empowers you to:

Identify strengths and gaps independently, without oversight from your Fitness Manager.
Use future-focused input to make immediate improvements for yourself and your personal training business.
Build metacognitive skills, thinking about your thinking, and thinking about how you think, to become a more effective, confident coach and personal trainer.

Research shows that when learners, including professionals, engage in self-assessment and reflection, they develop greater autonomy and lifelong learning habits (Knowles et al., 2011; Earl, 2013).

In personal training this translates to greater training efficacy for clients, which leads to higher client retention, and ultimately significant career progress.

Step-by-Step Strategy Implementing Self-Directed Assessment

Use the Feed Forward prompts on goodlifebc.ca and the PT Black Belt Program to build this habit, shifting from extrinsic motivators to self-directed intrinsic motivators.

Shift to Feed-Forward for Assessment ‘For’ Learning
Traditional feedback often focuses on past mistakes, which can trigger defensiveness, adults have rather fragile egos and tend to instinctively respond to criticism by being defensive, protecting their self-esteem and sense of control (Fenwick & Parsons, 2009). Instead, feed-forward prompts like “What two suggestions for the future might help you achieve a positive change in [behavior]?” shift the focus to actionable ideas (Goldsmith, 2003).

Feed-forward focuses on future possibilities.

Your action plan:

After every client session and/or training and development workshop (completed by your FM or PTDM), pause for 2–3 minutes before bee-lining it out of there.
Ask yourself (or a peer): “What small change will make my next cueing/spotting/programming/session even stronger?”
Write one actionable suggestion.
Apply it in your next session and note the result, or apply it moving forward with each client and reflect on how the changes have impacted your sessions and your clients.

This turns external input into forward momentum, building assessment for learning where feedback directly impacts improvement.

Build Self-Monitoring Habits for Assessment ‘As’ Learning
Assessment as learning means you become your own assessor, tracking progress, reflecting on evidence, and deciding next steps (Earl, 2013).

Your action plan:

Use the PT Black Belt levels as checkpoints. At each level progression complete a quick self-monitoring check-list:
- What did I do well in recent client sessions?
- What ‘new’ learning from certifications/workshops, have I applied with my roster?
- What one area needs attention? (cueing complex lifts, mobility, cardiovascular training, etc.)
- What feed-forward suggestion will I test next week?
- How will I measure success? (client renewals, easier understanding of complex training concepts, self-rating scale 1–10 of sessions/ Personal Training GoodLife Standard 5-Star Sessions)
Keep a simple journal or digital journal on your phone (Work OneDrive, Notes App on phone, etc.) to log these reflections weekly.
Review monthly: “Am I progressing toward my ideal ‘future’ self as a trainer?” Adjust goals accordingly (determine next courses to take, pre-frame your fiscal playbook, road map next level advancement)

This fosters metacognition—knowing what you know and don’t know—leading to true self-direction (Knowles et al., 2011).

Integrate Tacit Knowledge and Reflection
You already possess intuitive skills from years on the floor (e.g., reading a client’s energy or adjusting form instinctively). Surface this tacit knowledge through reflection: “We can know more than we can tell” (Polanyi, 1966, p. 4).

Your action plan:

After a session, ask: “What felt ‘right’ without having to think about it? How can I explain and repeat that?” (autotelic experiences/ being in a state of “flow” feels just like this. When things feel seamless and timeless try to reflect on “what” made it feel that way)
Use feed-forward to turn intuition into explicit strategies. Some of your best abilities are reflex. Identify your intuitive behaviours and break it down into your own strategies.
Align this with Malcolm Knowles’ assumptions of adult learning: adults bring rich experience as a learning resource, prefer problem-centered learning, and are motivated internally (Knowles et al., 2011). Your self-monitoring honors that by making development relevant and self-owned. You are being the wheel.

Track and Celebrate Progress

Set micro-milestones (“Apply 3 new feed-forward ideas this month”).
Rate your confidence/self-efficacy monthly (Bandura-inspired scale: 1–10).
Celebrate wins—share successes with your team at your club and build up the feed forward mindset.

Getting Started Today

Visit goodlifebc.ca and review the PT Black Belt levels.
Pick your current level and create your first self-monitoring entry.
Run a feed-forward session with a fellow PT or Fitness Manager this week, or on your next 1-on-1 meeting.
Reflect: “How did focusing on the future change my approach?”

This isn’t about perfection, it’s about consistent, future-oriented growth. By making self-directed assessment a habit, you’ll not only improve faster but also model the mindset for your clients, who are paying for your services to become their “future perfect selves.”

References
Earl, L. M. (2013). Assessment as learning: Using classroom assessment to maximize student learning (2nd ed.). Corwin Press.

Fenwick, T. J., & Parsons, J. (2009). The art of evaluation: A resource for educators and trainers (2nd ed.). Thompson Educational Publishing.

Goldsmith, M. (2003). Try feedforward instead of feedback. Journal for Quality and Participation, 26(3), 1–3.

Knowles, M. S., Swanson, R. A., & Holton, E. F. (2011). The adult learner: The definitive classic in adult education and human resource development (7th ed.). Elsevier.

Main, P. (2022, October 24). Bandura’s social learning theory: The Bobo doll experiment. Structural Learning. https://www.structural-learning.com/post/social-learning-theory-bandura

Polanyi, M. (1966). The tacit dimension. Peter Smith.