Caring for your fitness and health can feel like a very lonely mission. Only you can change your nutrition habits. Only you can change your movement habits. Only you can change your mental and emotional wellness habits. These are all true statements; no one else can do it for you.
But, how you engage with those around you can have a big impact on your health and wellness choices. Your interaction with others can help motivate you to make choices that move you toward your health and wellness goals. This can lessen the load of always relying on self motivation.
More specifically, actively supporting someone else on their path to a healthier life or to reach fitness aims can have wonderful upsides for you. Maybe your friend could use an accountability buddy to keep them on track as they prepare for their first 5k. Maybe a friend could use your moral support cutting back on alcohol. Whatever the scenario, putting effort toward someone else’s journey can help you on your own journey.
There are many ways this can work.
Put Yourself in an Environment Where You'll Find Others to Support
We’ve touched on this before in this blog: there is power in who you surround yourself with. Finding a community of people who have similar goals is really helpful. This puts you in contact with other people who can support you, and who you can support.
We are often more motivated to show up for someone else than we are to just show up for ourselves. Being in community with other people on a health and fitness path provides you with lots of opportunities to learn, and to share your knowledge. You can be the motivator.
Wherever you are at in your wellness journey, you have knowledge and experience that can help someone else. Putting yourself in a position to be a source of knowledge is motivation to learn more, and that learning will benefit you, too.
When others see you as someone to turn to for guidance and support, this is also an opportunity to serve as a role model. If you want to help others, setting a good example that they can follow has a big impact. This will help spur you on to implement and maintain your own healthy choices.
Feel Uplifted By Volunteering
Volunteering is another avenue of supporting others. Giving back brings about it’s own feelings of achievement and satisfaction. Helping make something happen that benefits other people bolsters your own sense of wellness. It also produces those feel-good feelings that boost your energy and lift your mood.
When you’re working from a place of uplifted energy, it’s much easier to make better choices for yourself. It can serve as a positive feedback loop: good energy begets good energy.
The Benefit Of Helping Others When You're Feeling Down
We all go through periods when we’re not feeling our best. Maybe it’s an injury. Maybe you’re going through a rough patch emotionally. Or maybe you’ve strayed from healthier habits and you’re just not feeling great about yourself. Life throws everyone curveballs.
In those times when you’re not feeling your own best, it can help to focus on being there for someone else. Focusing on assisting someone else in their goals can jolt us out of our own challenges: distraction is a useful tool from time to time.
Helping someone else is also an opportunity to experience a goal setting process without having the pressure or stress of going after it yourself. You can soak up the good vibes that are generated by scenarios when someone is bettering themselves.
Even when you’re not at your best, that good energy is available to you. You can celebrate the joy in someone’s else’s success: after all, joy is joy.
A Final Thought
Motivation can come in so many different ways. You don't have to generate it all yourself. Supporting other people’s wellness and improvement can inspire your own. And, as an added bonus, it really does just feel great to know you were able to help someone else on their own journey to better themselves.
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