Fitness motivation – Your only competition

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Your only competition is the person you were yesterday.

One of the most difficult parts about fitness is it’s very quantifiable. You can measure how much, how long, how far, how many, and how fast. These criteria are great when we use them to refer to progress: “Hey I lifted more weight today!” “I went 1/4 mile further!” and “I got one more rep when I thought I couldn’t!”. When looked at in this light how much, how far, how long, etc becomes very positive and a great reinforcement to keep going. These benchmarks give rise to beliefs of “I’m improving”, “I’m on the right track” and “I can do this”. The unfortunate side of these measurements is that oftentimes working out is a social activity. There are other people in the class, in the gym, running on the road, and even in the workout video. Whenever more than one person is taking part in the same event there is an inevitable event that occurs. No matter how much we try to avoid it, in this moment there is going to be some kind of comparison that occurs. “He lifted more”, “she went further”, and even “s/he is a lot more fit than I am”. These are the emotions that give rise to thoughts of inadequacy, insufficiency, and even doubt and frustration. Working out no longer becomes a positive experience and oftentimes this becomes the reason we quit. So how do we fix that? …

The one key principle here is that personal fitness is just that – PERSONAL!! There is one major change that has to take place before you start losing pounds or seeing better muscle definition. That change is from thinking you’ll “never be as good as _____” to “I am doing this for me”. The only person you ever have to compare yourself stares straight back at you whenever you look in the mirror. It doesn’t matter how for, how fast, how long or even how hard. The only thing that matters is that you go. The only thing that matters is that the person staring in the mirror is stronger, faster, better, fitter than the person that was staring back yesterday.

Where will you go today?!

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