I know there is a lot written for this blog post but it is the final one so let lets finish up strong.
On my way to school this morning I drove next to a car with a Yeah Bro sticker on their car, which not only put a huge smile on my face but also made my day. To most of you it is just a sticker but to me it is my first legacy. Yeah Bro is a downhill mountain bike competition that I created at Sun Peaks when I was working there as the Assistant Event Coordinator almost three years ago. Instead giving out big ugly trophies that are only good for collecting dust, we gave out stickers of the race name so riders could put on their bikes to show off their participation in the race and support the event. All participants got white stickers and those who placed top three got gold, silver and bronze ones. When I ran it, it was a fun competition where everyone was cheering each other on and everyone took home a prize. I found out earlier this year that they held the 3annual Yeah Bro this past summer. So I have my first legacyJ
So training has been good but slow this week. I made it to 11 miles on my Sunday run on the outdoor track. Three more miles to go to hit the half marathon distance mark and then I just have to make it come comfortably. I was a bit late for swimming on Monday but still got in a 2.25km swim. I throw my hip out of alignment on Tuesday and spent Wednesday morning in physio and met up with a trainer to work more on creating that new program. I ended up taking it easy Wednesday and just passing around a football with a friend and taking some on him in the soccer net. It was so much fun to just play around in the sun like a little kid. Thursday I did a new crazy leg stability workout that I am still sore from and trained a friend in the evening. I love training people, pushing them to their limit and helping them realize that they are able to achieve more than they thought.
This passion to assist others training incorporated with everything I’ve learnt through this study has got me thinking about continuing my education onto completing masters in Sport Psychology or another degree possibly. This is kinda a scary thought for me because I’ve already devoted so much time to my current studies that I am just finishing. It’s not that I don’t enjoy tourism or what I’ve learnt while completing my Sport Event Management Diploma, part of a Surf Studies Diploma and a Bachelor of Tourism Management, it’s more that it’s adding to the knowledge I’ve already acquired. It’s almost like I am craving to live in a state of self actualization, helping other people become all that they can be. My parents were very positive people growing up. My dad taught my brother and me to, “Try to touch the heart of every person you meet in a positive way.” So it’s got me thinking maybe this is what I am suppose to do.
I am always learning something new and which constantly evolves my personality, my values and where my future is headed. Who I wanted to be 5 years ago or even last year is not the person I want to be not now or in my future. So the question is who do you really want to be?
When I was young my teachers use to ask us, what role model we wanted to be? It was taught in the school system that who we wanted to become was suppose to mean duplicating and completing with an existing persons success. I have caught myself many of times saying I want her stomach, her legs, his attitude, etc but that also portrays that what I have isn’t enough. The more I did this to myself the lower my confidence got. I was unhappy in my own skin and was looking at the wrong things to fix the problem such as image. Yet no matter what I did I wasn’t able to see beauty when I looked in the mirror. This dissatisfaction was more than skin deep it went to my core and I’ve had to learn its true origin to find happiness in who I am. It is only when you come to terms with your true strength and weaknesses that you can really decide where it is you want to grow.
ACTIVITY ONE: WHO DO YOU WANT TO BE?
I would like you to have another look at your goals and after reading the following three paragraphs reflect on them and break them down even further, to understand what it is you truly looking to achieve.
A wise man recently shared with me a theory about extrinsic goals being connected to intrinsic desires. He used the analogy of an athletes working toward winning a trophy. You have to ask is the trophy really what you are looking to achieve or is it the respect of an audience, the acceptance of your peers, the excitement of your parents, etc and yet that’s still not what you are looking for. What you are probably looking for is the emotion that you receive as a reaction from these external parties approval of your success. If you were to receive the trophy but not the approval from these external parties would you feel you had the same level of success and accomplishment or would you feel any different then you did before you crossed the finish line. It is because of this that these intrinsic emotions are the true goals. Once you can define what these emotions are you can understand other ways to create them, removing the extrinsic influences from scenario.
We’ve talked about fitness as a release in hard times and sometimes it is just that. There are other times we use it as my ongoing escape, aiding your ability to avoid dealing with reality. There are times in my life that felt like my world was falling apart and the only thing I had any control of was in my training and so I found a away to make my training everything I was about. I mean I looked great, lol and it got me through but it took me a long time to let go and deal with the aftermath of the events that had happened in my life. I can recognize now that I was more than a short break to clear my head. I used it to escape from life.
If you goal is just to get skinny when is enough going to be enough. Defining your goals understand how you measure reaching your goals. This way you can determine if it is realistic, you can measure your steps along the way and you can celebrate when you get there.
ACTIVITY TWO: HAS THIS ALTERED YOUR GOALS AT ALL? You can give just a yes or no answer, or you can share how they have changed.
This was my last blog posting for this research paper. I am so thankful to everyone that has contributed anything to this study and so excited to go through all your comment to gather my findings. It will be a lot of work but it will be so worth it. I have all of you to thank for the success of my research and for sparking my curiosity enough to inspire me to seriously debate going for a masters in sport psychology. I hope you have leant something new about yourself and that it will help you in your future. I will do my best to periodically update the blog to share how my training is coming and my success as I achieve my goals. I hope that you all do the same. I will be silently rooting for you throughout your training and would love to be there to cheer you on as you cross the finish line in the future.
ACTIVITY THREE: HAS PARTICIPATING IN THIS STUDY HELP YOU IN ANY WAY? If it has taught you something new, clarified your goals, inspired you anything please let me know.
You have the ability, control and knowledge to do anything so go do it.
I had never thought about the person that i want to be. Over the last 10 years or so, i have been focusing on what kind of job i want to have, where i want to live and who i want to let into my personal life. I guess that, as anybody else, i just want to be a happy person. However, my sources of happiness are changing constantly. In other words, what used to make me happy 10, 5 or 3 years ago does not make me happy now, and what makes me happy now, will, most likely, not make me happy 10 years from now. I think that, as many people, i have been looking for happiness in external factors- looking for happiness outside. However, over the last 2 years, i have been slowly shifting my view about where happiness should come from. I think now that true happiness should come from within, and external factors will only bring temporal and superficial happiness. In that sense, i must admit that most of my motivation to exercise is to achieve short term goals such as being ready for an expedition or the satisfaction of feeling like i did something beneficial to my body and health. On the other hand, i know that people who exercise regularly have a better chance to live a longer life and have a better quality of life. Knowing that I am creating the right circumstances for me to live a long and good quality life makes me more content with myself and therefore happier. That is my other motivation to exercise.
ReplyDeleteReflecting on who i want to be and my intrinsic motivations to exercise has not changed my goals.
Participating on this study has helped me reflect on my real motivations to exercise. Thanks for the invitation to your blog. I hope that my participation was helpful. Good job with the blog by the way. Have a good summer.
This is such a hard question. I think I want to be two things:
ReplyDelete(1) Someone who is happy living for myself and not needing other people's approval, and who follows her own conscience without worrying about the outcomes.
(2) Someone who focuses on other people's feelings instead of my own and is generous and patient with other people. I don't want to be self-absorbed.
The idea about extrinsic vs. intrinsic rewards, and that what we are really seeking is the emotion behind the reaction we get, was really profound for me to read, and considering all of this has really made me think about my fitness goals. If I want to lose weight primarily so that I can look better, then what am I really looking for? Other people's positive feedback to make me feel better? It is a very good point that I need to be finding ways to get those emotions from myself, rather than depending on the positive evaluations of others. And for me, when those positive feelings do come from within, they don't have anything to do with the way I look, but instead with the way I act and think and treat other people. I don't want to be a vain person who ever lets myself get caught up in the games that people can so easily fall into playing to capture each others' respect or admiration. Instead, I want to focus on doing the right thing and treating other people well. The problem, though, is that this only leaves me with my secondary reasons for wanting to get into shape, like my blood sugar problems and the vague sense that I will live longer and get to do more cool things and spend more time with the people I love if I work out than if I sit at the computer all day. It's a lot harder to motivate myself toward these diffuse, long-term goals than it is to motivate myself to lose 10 pounds so that I can have the cheap, quickly attainable thrill of somebody thinking I look better in a swimsuit. Women are socialized to believe that so much of our power comes from the way we look, but I don't want to fall into that trap, so I need to find some other way to motivate myself that isn't just about cashing in on some of the power women can have when they look "better."
I have learned a lot and reflected a lot as a result of participating in this project. I want to thank you, Anisa, because you have been really honest and have shared a lot of yourself through this blog, and that has encouraged me to be honest, too: both to myself, and publicly, to the people who might be reading this. I'm going to try to keep the things I've thought about throughout this process in mind as I try to keep motivating myself to take better care of my body. I think you should definitely go to grad school, because you have found something you are passionate about. Like you said, all your educational experiences add to each other and change the overall shape of who you are, such that you want different things than you did in the past and you see different kinds of contributions you could make to the world. I didn't "find my calling" until I was already deep into a master's program, so I know what it's like to surprise yourself when you realize you may want to take a new direction. When I look back now, though, I can't imagine ever doing anything else. Keep learning about things that fascinate you and keep doing things you love, and I think you will eventually end up in a job that doesn't feel like "work" at all.