How Exercise Changed My Life: The Power of Self-Belief
I’ve always had this nagging voice in the back of my head, telling me I’m not capable, that I can’t achieve what I set out to achieve. Even after achieving something I had put many weeks, months, and years into, I still had this feeling of being unworthy — what is now called imposter syndrome.
The Covid pandemic was tough on everyone and impacted each person in its own unique way. For me, I got out of making exercise a priority in my life. Once the pandemic wave hit and for over a year, I was teaching a daily functional strength training class to my elderly relatives and friends over Zoom. This was an awesome experience and it gave me great joy to help my loved ones and friends strengthen their bodies through basic functional exercises and movements. I even felt a big difference in my strength in the less often trained areas such as the ankles and neck.
But I wasn’t pushing my body…
I knew how impactful exercise could be, but it was a somewhat slow process to get back into the swing of it. I started vigorous exercise, combining weight lifting with running while also being intentional about incorporating more sports with friends into my life. At first, it was tough. Having not trained my body rigorously for several years, I’d be extremely sore even after what I would previously consider a light lift.
Yet as the weeks went by and as my consistency, commitment and conditioning increased, I started pushing myself more and more. I was less sore between workouts. And I felt an immense degree of accomplishment after each workout where I could honestly tell myself that I gave a strong showing on that day.
The impact of exercise
The biggest impact rededicating myself to exercise made on my life, however, was not physical health. There are unending studies that demonstrate the impact exercise has on physical health.
Here are 3 more recent studies that get the point across:
- A little bit of exercise every day is more beneficial to health than exercising for longer at less frequency. i.e. it is better to do 15 minutes of exercise every day than to do 100 minutes of exercise once per week.
- After adjusting for age, sex, and existing health conditions, not being able to successfully balance on one leg for 10 seconds was associated with an 84% increased risk of death over the next 7 years. (This was a study from the British Journal of Sports Medicine that looked at middle-aged and older individuals ranging from ages 51–75: 8% of individuals age 56–60 couldn’t do the exercise, and by ages 71–75, the percentage jumped to 54%.)
- Cardiorespiratory fitness is associated with increased longevity, with the positive correlation of cardiorespiratory fitness on longevity increasing as cardiorespiratory fitness increases. (i.e. the higher the level of your fitness, the higher your survival rate, regardless of age, yet with a more profound effect as you age.) (JAMA)
But the impact of exercise on my life was even bigger than the immense physical health benefits.
So big that I believe in my heart that this practice has changed the trajectory of my life.
So what was the impact?
To put it simply: It was the self-belief it helped me nurture.
By showing up on a (nearly) daily basis and pushing my body closer to its limits, I was proving to myself through my own actions that I was capable. That nagging voice in my head started to change…
“Every action you take is a vote for the type of person you wish to become. No single instance will transform your beliefs, but as the votes build up, so does the evidence of your new identity.” (James Clear, Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits and Break Bad Ones)
How exercise changed my mind (and my life)
When you exercise and push your body beyond what you believed you could do, a funny thing happens: you start to realize that you are capable of overcoming obstacles, pushing through, and achieving your dreams.
For me, I started to see the inevitable challenges in my life as merely obstacles to overcome rather than some insurmountable force that I couldn’t defeat. I started pushing back against the nasty, nagging voice inside my head, realizing that much of what that voice was telling me was lies.
I could sense my thoughts changing in front of my very eyes as I pushed through on a set of squats or onto the third mile of a run. And I could feel my limiting thoughts and beliefs dripping away in the form of sweat running down my face.
And this is where the most powerful impact comes in.
This increased self-belief starts to infect your entire self, permeating into all parts of your life.
You start feeling worthy and less like a piece of sh*t. You start believing in yourself, with tangible proof of your own capabilities and successes in pushing through difficult times. You stop doubting yourself so much.
Your anxiety decreases as you worry less about what will come in the future since you’re more confident in your abilities to handle it when it arrives.
Your good habit with exercise starts to naturally compliment other good habits while reducing bad habits. For example, when you exercise frequently, you’ll be less likely to engage in the bad habit of eating unhealthy food, knowing it will stall and reverse the improvements you’ve made.
When you believe in yourself, everything changes
If you don’t have self-belief, if you don’t deep down believe you are worthy, life will be littered with excuses you quickly latch on to. You’ll stay where you are and never fulfill your dreams and purpose.
You won’t have the persistent determination to push through the obstacles and you may just settle for the easier but unrewarding path of relenting to life, rather than taking life on and making the most of it.
This is the mechanism through which exercise has helped me improve my life. Exercise is a pathway to self-actualization, to living the life you imagine.
It works through increased self-belief. But this isn’t a self-belief exclusively based on affirmations (which are of course important).
This is a self-belief based on actions, based on tangible proof of your own capabilities to push your body out of its comfort zone. Self-belief based on affirmations + actions will always be more powerful than being solely reliant on affirmations.
How to start believing in yourself, using exercise as your catalyst
- Relative to where you’re starting from, start small but focus on consistency. Whether it’s 10 minutes of lifting weights at the gym or a 5-minute run, it doesn’t matter. Start small and stay consistent. If you go too fast too early, you’ll burn yourself out. It’s the small victories that will continue to give fuel to your motivational fire.
- Find an exercise program that fits your fitness level to reduce the mental burden of exercise (and reduce the number of excuses you can make to NOT exercise). [A program I’ve been using is AX1 from Athlean-X , which is inclusive of all abilities, with exercise swaps for the gym and home.]
- Slowly increase your intensity level as your fitness increases.
- Start incorporating more vigorous exercise as your fitness increases. (while is an incredible exercise for both body and mind, there is something about doing more vigorous and difficult exercise that has a profound effect on your self-belief.)
- Combine cardio with strength training, mobility and flexibility work. All are important.
- After you complete your exercise for the day, and especially as the difficulty increases, take a minute to reflect. Reflect on what you’ve just done and how proud you are of yourself for pushing through your limits. Equally so, as you are pushing through the more challenging parts of your exercise, say some affirmations in your head that start with “” As you begin to sweat, visualize each drop running down your face as a negative belief you are releasing from your body and mind.
- Share this pride with a friend or someone else who is on the same journey (which means anyone).
I’m not saying that exercise is the only way to develop self-belief. But it is a powerful tool that can help you to see yourself in a new light and provides a very direct feedback loop to prove to yourself your own capabilities.
If you’re struggling with self-doubt, exercise can help you to start believing in yourself again. It is one of those ultimate life hacks, but it’s not a magic pill. Developing and fostering a true deep-down belief in yourself is a long game and requires constant attention, vigilance, and action.
It’s not easy. It requires a great deal of suffering and struggle. But it may just change your life. And it all starts with a commitment to action and then taking action.
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