Top 10 Fitness Commandments #5: Seeking Knowledge

What happens when we don’t know what to do? We ask for help, we seek out those who are more knowledgeable than us to help guide us through a new learning experience. We may navigate one of the many social media platforms, or we may pick up a book written by an author who is experienced in the space we wish to learn more about. We begin to ask questions and eventually we begin to feel a little more confident in our ability to live in this new space!

As a child I remember not feeling the upmost confidence in my academic skills as a student. Although I was never held back in school and I did graduate high school on time, I was a slow reader. In fact, in elementary school I was plucked out of my regular class to attend a remedial reading class with a few others students. Put me in math or science class with “smart kids” and my confidence went down the tube. As I look back, part of my struggle was I didn’t understand how to study and I already had a reading comprehension and confidence issue, it likely affected how I responded to certain types of classes. I also was more concerned that people would think I am stupid if I asked questions. This internalized fear of judgement stopped me from asking questions that would have actually help me. Therefore, I tended to take classes I had to take to graduate but did not pursue the more rigorous advanced classes for fear of failure!

The one thing I was good at was physical skills such as sports and inherently understanding my own motor capabilities and my own mechanics of movement. Understanding my body allowed me to be confident in the physical skills required to perform certain tasks. Because of this understanding, I was confident in making physical decisions without a fear of getting injured because I had an inherent understanding over my motor skill set.

When the topic was gym class, lifting weights, health, fitness or diet, I would read magazines and books. I educated myself and began to apply what I learned. This helped build my confidence and thus I had a way of applying what was my intelligence. The more interested I became in the science of health and fitness, and the more mature I became, I faced my intellectual fears and began to steer myself toward the required math and science classes that would help launch me into my physical therapy and fitness career.

Because so much of what we do, can be learned, it is very important that we proceed through each aspect of our lives with a growth mindset. A growth mindset will help build our confidence as we continue to gain skills and build our intelligence on a variety of topics we wish to pursue.

Action Step:

Consider an area of life you wish to improve.

Seek a book(a real book) written by someone in this space

Read it!