Reply To: Exercise 9: Adopt a Challenging Belief
Adopting a new belief
I’m realizing that I have a lot of beliefs I’d like to change, including the one I wrote about practicing in class. However, I want to continue to work up to that one and other more challenging beliefs. This week, I’m stepping up a bit, though I’m confident I can be successful.
Ever since transferring to the University of Maryland (UMD) in 2021, I’ve been tinkering with my exercise routine. I’m glad I have, but it’s led to inconsistency and changes in my fitness that have led to unwanted underlying emotions. The last time I had a regular routine was around this time last year when I was training for a marathon. Then I got hurt and haven’t found the same joy and motivation to exercise regularly. Of course, before I started running pretty seriously, I was in maybe the best shape of my life, having just spent a summer biking every day (one day, I even ran 2 miles after finishing a 100-mile ride — shoutout to Jeremiah). Before starting at UMD, I was in love with resistance training and running; I weighed around 160 pounds (now I’m barely 130), and was as strong as I’ve ever been.
I enrolled at UMD with the goal of increasing my knowledge of the human body to help others reap the benefits I was feeling from my own exercise habits. My goals changed pretty quickly as I found my place as a college student; I was exposed to the inequities of public health, social/cultural/historical ties to sports, sustainability, and nutrition. More importantly, I began seeing the intricacies of all these things, plus many other factors, that when combined, contributed to individual, community, and global health. I had always wanted to help people, but I don’t think I fully embodied that goal until I realized all these things. I realized that if I truly wanted to help people, I had to rethink my priorities and strategy.
I saw (and still see) exercise as a crucial and impressive preventative medicine, but when I connected the dots that there was SO much more to the story than just going to the gym, I couldn’t disconnect them. Almost everyone around me wanted to become a physical therapist (I did, too when I first started) or go to med school. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with going into medicine, but it seemed to me that I could be more helpful by working in public health, education, psychology, nonprofits, or something else. Now a couple of years later, I’ve connected many more dots, hence me working on sustainability leadership. In that time, my habits and interests changed alongside my perspectives and understanding of the world. The gym became a smaller part of my life while yoga, running, meditation, and cycling came in and out, sometimes together, sometimes separate. Sustainability became a big part of my life through the Sustainable Ocean Alliance at UMD, as did social justice in many forms. In short, being “fit” was no longer important to me. But, it actually was and still is. I just let it slip and have been justifying its absence (when it’s been absent) ever since.
Despite its intrinsic importance to me, after falling “out of shape” relative to my gym-bro days I’ve struggled to be fueled by intrinsic motivation. I’m always comparing my physical appearance and strength & conditioning to my past self or others. It’s frustrating to be incapable of running half the distance or lifting half as much weight as I previously could. I received a fair numbers of compliments when I was “in shape” so I think I unconsciously tied it to my identity. Now that I’m not in amazing shape, I feel like I’m letting myself and others down. Even though I know the science and have plenty of good reasons to exercise, I’m often held back because the extrinsic motivators dominate my psyche. I started going to the gym because it was a fun way to spend time with friends and I enjoyed learning and getting stronger. Today, many of my workouts are plagued with thoughts about being weak or comparing myself with everyone. I’m like kids who had their intrinsic motivation to draw/color clouded by extrinsic motivation.
I saw the exercise for this week as a perfect opportunity to do something about this. I wasn’t wildly successful, but I’m happy with the results.
Using the 4 steps, here’s how I guided my belief change for this week:
1. When I exercise, I think about how I used to be so much more fit and strong, and I believe that I’ll never get back to a level that I’m proud of. This makes me feel hopeless, sad, defeated, and insecure. And thus, I end up stopping my exercise early or not starting altogether.
2. I’d prefer to feel content with myself as I am and optimistic and excited for the opportunity to get stronger.
3. I’ll believe that when it comes to my physical fitness, I can be better than I was yesterday and enjoy the moment, as I did when I first started.
To clarify my new belief, I didn’t think about literally being better than I was the day before. It was just a new way to think about it. Rather than worry about who I was a year or two ago, I could think about who I was yesterday. The idea wasn’t to do 21 push-ups today if I did 20 yesterday. Rather it was to deliberately reflect on what I could do to “be better” than the day before. That may mean one extra push up or it might mean no push-ups and just yoga instead in order to recover and regrow damaged tissue.
Did I feel more able than last time?
Yes and no. By design, it was a more challenging belief to address. As you can tell from what I wrote above, it has intricacies far beyond just exercising. It’s tied to my personal well-being and feeling of worth. Plus, I’ve been telling myself a similar story for years: that I won’t get back to my previous fitness level. That said, I found success as I did last week, I’m sure because of the first exercise.
Did the skills start taking root?
Yes, I have several more beliefs in mind that I would like to change and feel confident my skills to do so are improving. I think the new belief I came up with this week could be improved to be more effective for me. So, I still have plenty of room to get better at the process.
What did it feel like?
It felt great! Empowering, fun, exciting, motivating. At times I had the same old “ugh, I’m just lying to myself” type of thought, but by acting on my new belief, it gave me something to focus on instead of the old story about my past habits or lack thereof.
Where and how might I apply my experience to the rest of my life?
As I said, I’ll keep changing beliefs to improve my life. Eventually, I’m sure I’ll be able to use it to change my beliefs about others and larger ideas.