I have always loved school. I enjoy learning. I wish I could just be a fulltime student, but that’s not financially possible. Still, even as a non-student, I read a lot, do tons of research, all in an effort to learn something new, or learn more about my favorite subjects and activities. I just really enjoy learning new things, processing new information.
I believe that most people don’t share my love of school. They look at school not as a way to learn, but as a means to an end, a way to get a piece of paper that will allow them to get a better job, make more money.
People who look at school like that focus more on completing tasks — getting that papers or project done — rather than learning. They really don’t care if they learn, as long as they complete the tasks that allow them to collect the prize at the end. Of course, some learning cannot help but happen along the way, but it’s coincidental.
They have an ultimate goal for school, and that’s to get a degree. Once the goal is completed, well, that’s enough of school. Why do you think many professions have requirements for continuing education? Gotta force people to do it, because they won’t do it on their own.
So what does this have to do with fitness?
The nice thing about fitness is that a goal-oriented approach can work — at least for a while. Staying focused on completing tasks — hitting it hard every weekday 10:00am to 11:00am, for example — can help keep you in good shape and get you to your goal, whatever it is: losing 50 pounds, getting down to a 32 waist size, being able to do 300 pushups.
But what happens when you reach the goal? What happens on the other side? Too often, the fitness training stops, and, yup, we all know what happens after that. The fitness level gradually deteriorates, and we end up where we were before we started … or worse.
This fitness goal orientation is easily illustrated by a phenomenon I have noted recently because of my participation in Facebook.
Facebook has allowed me to follow people as they announce “I’m getting married in 9 months,” then, quite often soon thereafter, “I’m on a diet” or “I’m working out”.
This is great! Anything that motivates you to get into shape is okay in my book.
But I wonder how many of those people, motivated to look good on their wedding days, continue their fitness quests after the big day.
The problem is the goal. Once the goal is reached, what is the motivation to continue the behavior that was geared toward reaching it?
Fitness really has no end goal, it is an end unto itself. Sure, you can — and I do — have targets that get and keep you motivated. My most recent one was a strong desire to finish Insanity. Did it.
Now what? … Exactly. I could just quit, knowing I finished Insanity, and feel pretty good about that. But that would not keep me in shape.
So, it seems to me that while fitness can and should involve goals, we shouldn’t focus on those goals as be-all-end-alls. In fact, we should guard against this mindset.
Fitness is really a lifestyle. The goals are short-term pieces of a lifelong plan to get into and stay in shape. Use them, but don’t make them the primary focus. Keep your eye on your goals, but try to focus instead on fitness for fitness’ sake!