The Audience Effect

Today I had a pretty crappy and unmotivated workout session.

I was struggling to complete lap sets in the pool. Each time I stopped at the wall for a short interval breather, I thought about quitting and just having a relaxing swim for the rest of the early morning.

There was no one watching me, I could quit and no one would be there to accuse me of being a quitter! I began to think in my mind just before my hardest set how easy it would be just to stop and relax then. I was ready just to sit in front of a water jet or float around near the waterfall and watch the sun rise.

But then someone else came to the pool! It was another member at the fitness club - I immediately recognized her as this annoying old lady who sometimes steals the machines that I want to use in the gym. Arrrg you aren't going to steal my lane at the pool now!

Straight away I felt a rush and I pushed off the wall to start my 10x Sprint Laps. I felt energy, and a need to sort of show off to her. Wow! What a completely different change in heart...from being alone and struggling versus having someone there watching you and feeling energetic. Is this the human propensity for competition?

I reflected back to my early swimming days and recalled a pretty girl I was madly in love with on the swim team. Sometimes she would swim 5 or 10 seconds in front of me and I would push myself harder to catch up to her so we could share an underwater smile at the flip turn wall as she allowed me to pass.

Thinking about this more, I realized that most of the times I was able to train hard has been when there are other people watching. Like football players at after school practice, with their cheerleader girlfriends watching them....or all the times my mom followed me to a bicycle race or swim meet. I was able to perform better with an audience.

I guess this can even apply to life - like the way Christians believe God is watching them all the time. They tend to be better people and live a better life. God is their audience, and they live to impress God.

Although my end goal is to impress myself with the weight loss...this is a conflict of interest when myself wants to relax instead of work out. This makes my goal in losing 20kg by myself a little bit harder...as I will not be hiring a coach or trainer to watch me and be my audience. Perhaps I can find some sort of community club, or go somewhere with more people around and use this feeling to motivate myself to work even harder and not slack off =)