It seems everywhere I look there is a health competition currently one or about to start in the Clarence Valley. We have the Biggets Loser in Grafton, Xplodes Biggest Leaner, Peak Health/Crossfit Yamba's Your Best Body Challenge and The GYM's (Yamba) 13 week Body Challenge. There maybe more, these are ones I know of without searching for others.
All of these are competitions (except maybe THE GYM's) have the aim to improve peoples fitness and health in one way or another. This is fantastic that there are so many of these competitions but if you look deeper into it there maybe be a down side. How many of the participants that have signed up this year for these competitions have signed up previously? I am sure the answer would be a very high rate. Whilst these sorts of competitions like the biggest loser attract large numbers of participants most are not first timers and most will unfortunately go back to theie unhealthy ways after the competiton is over. So why is this.
It may came back to the reason they are in it. They may not be fully committed, they may be wanting change but there reasons are not strong enough to completely change. They can commit for a few weeks but then that's it, they fall back to their old habits. The saying goes if something is important enough to you, you will find a way. If not you will find an excuse!!
When people are signing up for these competitions they have good intent, and they are motivated for a short instance, however the kind of motivation could utimately decide if the succeed or if the fail. There are two main types of personal motivation, Intrinsic Motivation and Extrinsic Motivation.
Intrinsic motivation is driven by the individual themselves, the are driven by themselves and not by external pressure. People are motivated as they want to change within themselves they have a geniune interest in what they are doing.
Extrinsic Motivation contradicts intrinsic motivation, this type of motivation comes outside the individual, motivation is present as there are things like prizes or money on offer. Competitions are extrinsic as it encourages people to beat others and to win, not to simply enjoy the intrinsic (self pleasure) rewards of an activity or challenge.
The question is this, how can health and well being be a competition? It shouldn't be. Remember I am not talking about sport here, I am simply talking about health, fitness and general wellbeing. I see many people enter competitions like the biggest loser or some challenge and they are only extrinsically motivated. They will be likely to fail, only those intrinsically motivated that enter, truely doing it for themselves and could not care about any external factors are the ones who will succeed beyond the competition.
To address the above issue Hybrid has developed a Kicking Goals 8 week challenge. It is not a competition, you are not required to be weighed, measured, anaylised, you are simply required to make goals that are important to you. There is no timeline when you can begin, it is your commitment, we are here only to guide you once you have made that commitment to yourself, a commitment that is a result of intrinsic motivation. Kicking Goals is around anytime you want to start, when you finally decide that something is important to you and you are ready to do what you need to do to achieve it then come see us and set some goals to kick.
Good luck to all those entering the local challenges. I hope you all prove me wrong and make lifelong changes, not just changes to win a competition or compare yourself to other people.