Why does exercise suck?
Why does exercise suck? Its easy, its sweaty, its hard work and you feel sore afterwards. If you’re reading this, you were probably like me, not one for sports. I had no real skill set apart from being average. But what I lacked in skill I made up for in determination and imagination. I enjoyed running in fields, making forts, in short playing from sun up to sun down – I had fun. For most folk, “Why does exercise suck?” well its because it feels like work and lets face it we get paid to work not have fun. Here is the secret, we all have experienced fun, we have determination and imagination its just all been usurped from our physical pasttimes and we need to regain it.
As a fitness instructor in the regular fitness programs I often found that folk would say, “I can’t do that,” I believe they meant to say that they could not see themselves succeed or they would feel foolish attempting to develop a new skill. Mind you, when folk are emotionally involved in a decision making process they can do anything. I refer to this phenomenon as the Aspect Avatar, as it is an Aspect of who they are that manifests itself as a behaviour. Its done all the time, randomly. Imagine what we could do if we had direction.
Aspect Avatar – Mental acuity: Aspect Avatar – a persona manufactured by a participant to challenge their own concept of reality. To develop desired beneficial personal traits.
Cognitive Behavior Concepts define the ability for participants to develop desired skills sets to deal with behavioral issues. By using these concepts we can hack our natural behavioral learning paradigm to assist on the path to total wellness. The rub however is that we need to have emotional valence or in other words feel the emotion and more often than not fantasy fills that gap nicely.
By embracing the concept of escapism, to imagine, to dream allows a person to believe that “What if?” can become “I am”. When we imagine, we have the possibility to change how we feel about a situation. We change our perception of reality and our physiology follows suit.
In each of us we can find an “Aspect” of our personality that resonates with the way that we perceive our reality or situation. Some when in our mental development we associated self-limiting or self-liberating behavior with certain situations. If we were to concentrate on the aspect that allows us to develop a self-liberated approach to our goals we have a better chance at staying the course.
If we create an Avatar to represent this “Aspect” and give it a name, dress it up, give it a history, an identity we can slip into. We can call forward that powerful Avatar/Identity when we need the extra motivation. This fantasy gives us an emotional connection which in turn aids in creating new emotional memory. For example, the following scenario may have been experienced by many of us at one time or another:
You have a plan organized, a time to start a fitness program with friends or perhaps a regular work out date looms later on in the day. For this reason you do not wish to start or take part. At this point to overcome your disingenuous inner voice you would call forth your Aspect Avatar with all the positive attributes you have installed in him/her and allow them to motivate you instead.
When creating your Aspect Avatar for fitness training, stay positive and choose a character that you believe has attributes that will assist you completing your training.
To make the Aspect Avatar a much more ingrained trait you will have to focus on the personality that you have created whilst completing the exercise prescription. The task may also be associated with other evoked memories but that is up to you and what you contemplate whilst you train. Remember that you have to be in your target-training zone, be breathless and able to converse. Your body will be awash with the adrenaline and its use as a memory fixer. Eventually your Aspect Avatar will associate with the task and allow you to ride along.
This concept is simple and like many simple things often overlooked. I will leave you with a question. Have you ever noticed in a training environment that the most successful students mimic the attributes of their chosen idol. Your Aspect Avatars attributes or characteristics are part of your own personality; we are just promoting them to the fore and assisting in developing a self-liberating emotional state. Furthermore, your Aspect Avatar is your idol and it will never let you down.