Encouragement

Within the last few weeks I have gone back to a gym I haven’t been to in a while to take up some spinning and yoga classes as a means to replace my running. To those of you familiar with the gym and group exercise scene, you know what I mean when I say I have been getting the “looks” from the regulars. I used to love going to group exercise classes all the time, they are a great way to keep yourself accountable and have somebody put together a good workout for you. But since finding my lovely running group and Crossfit, I stopped frequenting those classes as much.

So in the last couple weeks I have gotten many of those looks from people, since I am now a “newbie”. I am a pretty hyper aware person, so I could tell that people were a little irritated that I maybe took their usual spin bike and that they were looking at me with their judging eyes. Oh the judging eyes, my favorite. One woman next to me in spin class last night even said out loud to the instructor- “New people are already starting to come in before January! You better start taking it easy on them!”

Now… there was literally 5 people in the entire class including myself, and it was VERY obvious that the other 4 knew each other. Really Lady? Did that make you feel better to say that? I just smiled to myself , if only she knew.

Honestly, people like that piss me off. And let me be clear, it is not because I personally feel judged. The LAST place I feel judged or insecure is in a gym, that is my haven no matter where it is. What pisses me off is the many people I know who are afraid to take that class or join that gym, because of people like that. This is why you hear people making goals to lose weight so that they CAN join a gym. It is so contradictory, but I get it. They know they will get those “looks” for being new and inexperienced. They know it will be hard for them. They know they might finish last, or be the slowest one there. But that should NOT matter.

Back in January I wrote a post about this subject entirely, you can read it here. I won’t repeat too much of what I already said but what I will say is, let’s make a point to encourage each other. I am sure you feel a sense of pride because you are always at the gym, always in class, etc. But that pride should not be turned into you being cocky. None of us are better than anybody, we are all just on different paths. Use your motivation to inspire others.

Just because I have run a marathon, does not make your goal to run a 5k silly. Not even a little. Just because somebody else can lift twice as much as I can, does NOT mean my personal records are worthless. It is all relative, we are all on our own journey.

And during those times you do still feel that judgement, just remember that 99% of the time those who are judging others for whatever reason…are insecure themselves.