There are some things you quit but never quite let go of. Sometimes, quitting is necessary to help reframe your perspective and allow you to return to them naturally. There is no better feeling in the world than doing something for yourself purely because you love it!
After being on my high school cross-country team for three years, I quit during my senior year. It was a shock to everyone around me, including myself. At the time, I thought I was doing it because I was stressed about applying to colleges, and it would add to my stress, considering how big of a time commitment it was. It wasn’t until I decided to go for a run for the first time in almost two years, at the beginning of this school year, that I finally realized I quit for a different reason.
Over time, running had gone from being something I loved doing with my friends to de-stress to being something to check off my to-do list and put on my college applications. By the end of high school, I no longer remembered what it was like to run just because I felt like it.
That was the turning point for me — drawing a key distinction between intrinsic motivation (participating in an activity for enjoyment) and extrinsic motivation (for an external reward) and deciding which type of motivation I wanted tied to certain parts of my life.
I’ve experimented with other forms of working out in the last two years. I’ve gone to pilates and spin classes with friends here at college. I’ve gone on hikes and bike rides, and despite enjoying all of those things, I always felt like something was missing.
On that day in September, when I finally decided to go for a run, I realized that nothing quite fulfills me like running does. I felt the way my feet lifted off the ground as if I was walking on air, the way the wind whipped past my hair, and my mind felt completely clear for the first time in a long time. It reminded me of why I fell in love with running in the first place.
According to the Self-Determination Theory of Motivation, by psychologists Edward Deci and Richard Ryan, people need three basic things in their lives: competence, the need to produce desirable outcomes; autonomy, the need to feel control over our own lives; relatedness, the need to be involved in close, warm relationships with others.
I first started running because it helped me fulfill these three basic needs. It took me to a different dimension where I felt powerful and capable of achieving my goals, in control of my mind and my body, and I could connect with my friends on a deeper level. That multidimensional feeling is called runner’s high (yes, it’s real). And I will never forget that feeling again!
Now that I’ve started running again with the right intentions, I’ve found comfort in being able to do it whenever I want rather than pushing myself to do it with the wrong intentions. Doing it in a new environment with new friends who enjoy it and do it for the same reasons I do, has helped me heal my relationship with running and shift my perspective.
So, the next time you wonder why you quit a particular sport or activity that you loved, ask yourself what reasons motivated you to start doing the activity in the first place; and focus on those reasons, not the ones that replaced them.
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