Your Fitness: Do it for your Friend’s Friend’s friend

Being giving to others is feels great, but what about giving to yourself? Turns out, they may not be so different.

When you give to other people, it can help improve your mood and make you feel better. But did you know that there are similar benefits when you make improvements to yourself?

In this blog post, we will discuss how you can give the gift of fitness to others by giving it to yourself.

Consider that the way you life your life, and the way you treat your body, is affecting your friends and family more significantly than once thought.

In the book, Connected: The Surprising Power of Our Social Networks and How They Shape Our Lives by James H Fowler PHD and Nicholas A. Christakis MD PHD, we learn that we are influenced by not only one, but by three degrees of separation. In other words, How we feel, think, and act can be affected by how our friend’s friend’s friend feels, thinks, and acts.

The author writes, “Our own research has shown that the spread of influence in social networks obeys what we call the Three Degrees of Influence Rule. Everything we do or say tends to ripple through our network, having an impact on our friends (one degree), our friends’ friends (two degrees), and even our friends’ friends’ friends (three degrees). Our influence gradually dis- sipates and ceases to have a noticeable effect on people beyond the social frontier that lies at three degrees of separation. Likewise, we are influenced by friends within three degrees but generally not by those beyond. The Three Degrees Rule applies to a broad range of attitudes, feelings, and behaviors, and it applies to the spread of phenomena as diverse as political views, weight gain, and happiness.”

This book has been a favorite and one of the reasons I decided to become a personal trainer in the first place. It reminds me how important it is that if I want you to successful in your fitness journey, I should do the same.

Here are three more direct things you can do right away for yourself that your friends and family could benefit from:

1. Get an education: learn something new about nutrition or fitness

2. Be consistent: do your best every day

3. Share: what you learn/love with them so they might seek to experience it too

So when you talk about something useful you learned during your workout, when you show up on time every day to your workout, or share what you enjoy about a new recipe you’re trying, so too might the world.

The next time you are feeling down, or struggling to find the energy to workout, think about how your actions might be affecting those around you. And don’t forget to give back to others by helping yourself! Remember that when you smile at the world, the world smiles back.