You Are a Koi Fish

It’s been a while since I’ve written, and I have no excuse. I can tell you I got busy, but I would be lying. Although I WAS busy, I could have found time in the day to share my thoughts with you. Did you miss me??

This got me thinking about motivation. Training and staying in shape is just a small piece of the puzzle of what keeps us motivated in life, and without a motivating environment chances are you will get nowhere. You will be fat, broke, and miserable.

I recently read somewhere that Koi fish are even MORE motivated by their surroundings than humans. Apparently a Koi fish’s growth is completely proportional to it’s environment – if you stick a koi fish in a tank it will only grow 2 inches, but if you let it go wild it will grow up to 2 feet!

Think about how motivating environments apply to humans and training… do you hang out with a group of friends who are constantly going to dinners and drinking? Do they keep ordering and ordering? Do these people work out?? If your friends are constantly going out to dinner it is going to be extremely difficult for you to exercise portion control when you get back home. If these people are constantly drinking it is not only going to influence you to take in extra worthless calories, but will also make you lethargic and lazy the next day.

Conversely, are your friends constantly doing something active? Working out, hiking, biking? Are they big on hitting the farmer’s market once a week? Is Whole Foods their favorite place on earth??

After I learned about these Koi fish I took a look at my own environment and realized that even a seasoned workout junkie like me changes with environment. For the past month or so I have had a small rotation in friends that have caused me to drink beer and eat burritos more often than I would like. Some of these burritos happened to be the size of a small child. Therefore, although I kept my training on point I have still put on a couple of pounds. In the grand scheme of things, no biggy – I know exactly how to get back on track. However, it opened my eyes to the severity of influence from my environment.

This lesson of motivation should be applied not only to training, but to all aspects of your life. Do you hang out with people that are supporting you in furthering your career? Do they help your relationship with your boyfriend? Are you dressing like you belong on an episode of Jersey Shore because your friends are?? The Jersey Shore thing is obviously an exaggeration, but still no matter how strong you are the level of influence from your environment is staggering.

So do yourself a favor and start hanging out with a couple of girls who are constantly at the gym, don’t drink much, and have cute clothes.