WORKOUT MOTIVATION - How Physical Training Develops Your Character
I love sports, workout and motivation. I don't claim to be an expert and to be doing it all correctly, but I love movement and physical activity. It’s important that we take care of the well-being of our mind, feelings and also the body. I’ve been writing a lot about mental development, but what about the simple issues of the body?
It’s important to stay healthy and fit, because our physical well-being also has an impact on our emotional and mental well being. We shouldn’t live just in our heads, but also in our whole body. The body is real and therefore important while thoughts and feelings seem so fleeting and intangible. Besides, regular physical training and workout motivation can teach us much about discipline and willpower which are incredibly important mental virtues for personal growth.
Different Body Types
There are three body types: ectomorph, mesomorph and endomorph. Ectomorph is long and lean with quick metabolism. That’s what basically I am, quite slim with really little fat on me. Mesomorph is the middle one of the three body types. It finds it easier to build muscle, can be lean and muscular at the same time and has natural athletics build with well-defined muscles. At last, endomorph is stocky build, wider body with more muscle but usually also more fat storage. This body has the best strength advantage but also has problems to stay lean due to its very slow metabolism.
Now, I’ve always wanted to look athletic and build muscle. I’m happy with my form, but I also try to gain weight and have a very hard time with this. But I’m on my way and moving hopefully in the right direction. Besides, I like staying fit so I'd continue training even if I hadn’t had any specific body goals in mind. It’s about body maintenance anyway, so physical effort will always be part of my life. Because I love doing what I do, workout motivation has never been a big problem for me. But many people do indeed have a problem with self-motivation and physical training is not everyone’s cup of tea. Therefore, you might wonder: how do you stay motivated?
The key to self-motivation
The answer to self-motivation is: don’t do that! Motivation might give you energy, that spark that you need at the very beginning. But you can’t be motivated at all times in all things for the rest of your life - it’s hard. But training requires consistency and regularity. So what do you do? The answer is: you develop a habit out of our intention and goal by doing what needs to be done, regardless of whether you feel like doing it or not. You just listen to your will power and disregard the laziness of the body and the doubts of your feelings. Trust me, it’s easier than it sounds once you establish a habit, and this takes me to the main point in today’s video.
Establishing habits for workout motivation
Whatever you do in life, whether it’s personal goals at work, with your family, character development or workout at home or gym - you need to establish right habits that will push you through everyday and let you achieve your goals. It’s really just pure psychology: you do something once, twice, three times, many times, and you get used to that new activity. The new experience, the new way of doing things sinks from your consciousness into your subconsciousness and becomes a part of your inner being. In this way you establish a habit, and the sum of all your conscious and unconscious habits basically make up your character.
It’s the same with physical workout. You might have a specific goal in your mind, e.g. building mass, or losing weight and you might know what to do. But then when it comes to actually going to the gym or do the home exercise, you become lazy or start making excuses to yourself, or you lose yourself in another activity just to avoid training. That’s your body being lazy and trying to exercise control over the willpower of your mind, although your mind wants that thing.
In this case you need to train your will power which is an ability of your mind, of your intellect, of your mentality, of your thoughts. What you think in your consciousness will ultimately define your behaviour. That's why you need to think yourself into the correct habit of doing what you want to do and not get sloppy or lazy for trivial reasons.
Physical training develops character
In our example you would still go to the gym even though you didn’t feel motivated, because your mind established a habit that you need to go and do that specific thing. At some point you wouldn’t even need motivation, you would just do it, in the same way as you brush your teeth every morning and evening. You just do it, because that’s what you do - simple. With well-established habits you might have bad conscience if you skip your training. All those aspects of your character such as will power, motivation, intentions, habits - it all comes down to pure psychology which is the working of your consciousness.
As you can see, training and taking care of your body through strenuous effort has serious impact on your personal development. In this way you develop will power, determination, endurance, consistency, discipline - these are great and extremely important character traits. If you feel that you miss some of those traits in yourself, you can use workout and physical training to refine your body along with the character.
Essence of meaningfulness
You could take these insights and project them on other areas of life: relationships, career, friendships, personal projects. In all those things you need to have will power, determination, discipline and all those other virtues so that you can succeed in life and feel that you’re progressing somewhere. Remember, taking some kind of burden in life and holding responsibility is the essence of meaningfulness. I hope that the simple example of physical workout motivation can help you understand why you need to make the effort to gain valuable things in life that are truly meaningful. Feel free to spin this concept further and apply it to whatever area of life is important to you. I guess, my message on workout motivation and character development has been made clear enough in this article.
There’s still so much that can be said about fitness. It’s a science in itself and to get the physique you want, you also need the right nutrition. That’s why you have to do your research and also test how your body reacts to your diet and the exercises you do. Whatever you do, stay fit and healthy and be nice to people.
Let’s get physical!
BLOGGER: HUBI
