Fitness from Fear

Memories are links to the past that have the power to influence the future. During one of my meditation sessions a strange thought popped into my head. What is the motivation to continually push to the physical limits? While my answer in the past was “because I can.” This simply was not good enough. I came to the conclusion that fear is the motivator. If you have a health scare, you will exercise to detach yourself from feeling sick to be “healthy.” This obsession to run away from sickness will simply have the opposite effect leading to illness or injury if discipline is not displayed. Athletes are no different. In the case of sports we train to avoid hardships. Whether you did poorly at an event, or simply didn’t compete to expectation, it all goes back to a fear of failure. Once this programming is put in place it is all consuming. A simple fear of failure will have you continually pushing yourself to avoid the pitfalls that you think exist. Fear has you stressed out over missing workouts, stressed out about looking a certain way, stressed out about being at a certain level, or worried what other people think you should be. This strive for perfection will consume your life eventually leading to the pitfall you are trying to avoid. If you continually sharpen a knife, before long it will become dull. It’s none of your business worrying about what other people expect of you. If you continually think this way you need to look in the mirror to solve the real problem.