A woman's perception on her own body is very important to her, and no matter what anybody says, if she has developed negative ideas about her self-image, it is very hard to change those ideas. Gym membership across the UK is ever rising with budget gyms like pure gym, easyGym, the gym, etc. popping up all over; and although the days where gyms were 'sweaty testosterone boxes for males only' is on its way out, there remains a huge gap between male and female gym memberships with about 2 million less females than males gymming (i know it's not a word) or taking part in regular exercise.
A study by Sport England aimed to get to the bottom of this finding, coming to the conclusion that 75% of women are put off exercise for fear of what others think, this is something that I have seen first hand. When I was at university, a female friend of mine would often tell me she wants to come to the gym with me, however, she would follow it up by saying she's scared, and that there's too many guys there, etc. This, my beautiful female readers is what we call in psychology, an irrational belief.
This irrational belief fits into the ABC model which starts with an (A)ctivating event, then one's (B)elief about this event, and then the (C)onsequences of this belief. Let's put it into context; so you're actually inside the gym and some guys walk past you laughing (activating event), you think 'they're laughing at me, I'm not coming here again' (belief) and the consequence of course is that you do not attend the gym again and your fitness suffers. However, that B, that belief is an irrational thought leading to a negative consequence. That belief may or may not be true, however, how different would the consequence be if you had said to yourself that the guys were laughing at a joke they'd made between themselves, nothing to do with yourself?
It is simply human nature to catasrophise and create these negative beliefs as self-defense mechanisms, however, much of the time, if we can change our thinking, then we can create positive outcomes in terms of our fitness and many other aspects of our lives that we seem to not be succeeding in. You are a limitless being able to do whatever you put your mind to, just gotta change those negative beliefs.
Have an amazing week,
Fragrance Rich Team
xx
p.s. Sport England created a campaign to get women more confident in their sporting abilities, the link is: https://www.youtube.com/
I promise it's good.