Today we’d like to introduce you to Makayla Anisa.
Hi Makayla, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstories.
in 2016 I had gone to college to become a registered massage therapist and doing that I fell in love with Fitness. As I learned more about the biology and the functionality of the human anatomy I began to be more interested in the training side of things. Learning about how the muscles work and the exercises that can be done to promote strength & also change how you look.
This was extremely interesting to me & I began going to the gym in early 2018. I soon fell in love with training and it quickly became my passion as well as my safe space to deal with things I had going on in life. I’ve struggled with my mental health since I was a teen. I also struggled a lot with body image and self-worth. I had always felt really uncomfortable in my own skin & was very insecure about how I looked.
I struggled with an eating disorder for the majority of my teen years and this completely destroyed my relationship with food and myself. But when I found the gym, it helped me. It made me realize food is needed to grow muscles, it made me understand what living a healthy & balanced lifestyle is. Instead of feeling worse about myself, I started feeling better. I began to heal my relationship with food and my body.
As I learned these things, I thought for a while about sharing them by posting my passion on social media, but I was too scared to do it for fear of judgment and lack of support. But after I wrote my board exams for registered massage therapy, I finally decided to just DO it. I will never forget that day. So then began sharing my journey in late September 2018 on Instagram with my small following of friends and family.
I was posting new workouts & fitness tips & sharing my life online. I began gaining traction on Instagram and by March 2019 I had reached over 100,000 followers. I continued learning & sharing more of my experiences online in hopes to help to inspire and helping others who could relate. I worked as an RMT while also doing content creation, both at a full-time pace.
At first, I could handle the workload, but as my online presence grew I began to struggle to juggle both careers. In 2021 I left the amazing job I had working at a clinic as an RMT & began to pursue content creation as my full-time career. I’m so beyond grateful to be able to do what I love every single day.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
It definitely hasn’t, I’ve had my fair share of struggles. But the struggles are what made me who I am so I’m grateful for that looking back now. I didn’t have a lot of support in the beginning, social media was new & people didn’t really understand it. Honestly, I barely understood it myself. So I was learning as I was going with absolutely no guidance.
I, unfortunately, had some bad experiences in the beginning because I didn’t know my own worth and the value that I brought to the table. So I was used a lot by companies and had some bad experiences with that. But it helped me learn a lot!
I also have struggled with my mental health. The gym has been a large coping mechanism for me but during the Covid pandemic, Canada was on extreme lockdown for a long time and the gyms closed. I had to find other avenues to manage my anxiety & depression, especially because my mental health got a lot worse in 2020 and that was definitely a struggle for a while as I’m sure it was for the majority of people as well.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
I do content creation full time and I also own my own business! I’m currently working on several projects… one of which I can’t talk about yet but the other is a fitness app! It’s been in the works for 2 years and I’m so excited to be able to help so many women with their fitness journey!
I’m known for my fitness & healthy lifestyle tips, but also for preaching balance! I like to say I’m not your typical “influencer” because I post a lot of real and raw content. I like to show that social media isn’t real life. I think it’s important to share content that shows the reality and not just the highlight reel. My content is about my life and my life is far from perfect!
I’m the proudest of the amazing group of people I get to share my life with and inspire every day. I’m very much the kind of person who likes to help people. So knowing I get to help even just one person every day through my content makes me so beyond happy!
What do you think about luck?
I honestly want to say it plays a large role. Solely because of the fact that social media is an algorithm so it basically is “lucky” if something goes viral. I also got into social media and content creation right before TikTok became a thing, so I also think that was lucky to have built the start of everything from Instagram which doesn’t really happen anymore!
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/makaylaanisa/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCL_UQjkhxl27RGXxiZRhQow/featured
- Other: https://vm.tiktok.com/ZSxvGUEY/
