The Case for Making Fitness Fun
If you’d rather hear this post than read it, check out this video:
Too long has “fitness” been an uninviting and exclusive “cool kids club,” that looks down upon anybody who isn’t willing to “sacrifice” or “bleed” to reach their goals.
While that may work for some of us, some of the time — I’m going to present a case for why fitness should be something fun and enjoyable versus grueling punishment.
- It helps us get better at knowing ourselves, and therefore also at pushing ourselves. Nothing builds confidence like being completely aware of who you are and what you’re capable of
- We acquire skills faster when we enjoy what we’re doing. The quicker the skill acquisition, the quicker the results.
- The more we enjoy what we’re doing, the easier it is to stick with. The more consistent we are, the more progress we’ll see — with less perceived exertion than if we were telling ourselves that just getting to the gym is a feat worthy of celebration.
- When we enjoy our training, we’re less likely to overcompensate with a big cheat meal afterward because we’ve felt like we’ve earned it. When we’re internally motivated, we don’t seek as many external rewards. The reward is the workout itself, because it makes us feel great (if we let it).
Now that we’ve seen what we’re missing out on when we take all of the negative connotations away from whatever fitness means to you, what can we do to actually make it fun?
It’s actually pretty simple.
The first thing is to understand that the work you’re putting in — both in the gym and in the kitchen — are all leading you closer to where you want to be.
Every decision to show up or not — to do or not do — is your vote for the kind of life you want to have. That can be stressful, if you want it to be. But it can just as easily be a game that you play. — the more good decisions you make, the more “points” you have toward your goal.
But what it ultimately comes down to is our beliefs around fitness.
Yeah, I know how corny that sounds, BUT…
Our beliefs create our perception of reality…
And in our every-day lives as humans…perception is reality.
Just like magic and monsters and Santa Clause were all “real” when we believed in them — so too can you enjoy the process of building your fitness into what you want it to be.
We can try every workout under the sun until we’re blue in the face, but until we address the underlying issues that prevent us from enjoying the experience of cultivating a strong mind and body — we’ll never go very far.
Mindset is the foundation. With empowering beliefs, the list of what we’re able to accomplish becomes a whole lot bigger than the list of things we can’t.
Fitness is about empowering you to be the best you can in other areas of your life, not about beating the crap out of yourself so you have nothing left to give to those other areas.
