You skip a workout and the guilt shows up almost immediately. It feels like you've failed before the day has even started. Somewhere along the way, exercise stopped feeling like a choice and became another thing you should do.

What if that's not about discipline at all?

A simple realization after returning to strength training led me to question something I'd never considered before. Maybe exercising isn't always about health. Maybe, for some of us, it's another form of people pleasing.

That question opened the door to something much bigger. People pleasing doesn't only show up when you say yes instead of no. It can quietly shape the routines you follow, the expectations you carry, and even the identity you've built around being the person who always does the "right" thing.

Sometimes the most freeing thing you can do isn't becoming more disciplined. It's giving yourself permission to question the things you've always believed you should do. You might discover that what you've been calling discipline was never really yours to begin with.

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Hello, welcome back to Beyond Awareness. I had this epiphany or realization this morning. And it's kind of a crazy one. So I hope that you keep an open mind as you listen to this episode. But my realization is that I think most women are exercising consistently out of people pleasing. And

Here's why. And I'm really curious if you can resonate with all of this, or maybe none of this. Either way, I would love to hear from you. But here's the thing that happened to me this morning. I exercised, but I exercised with being very aware that I actually took a year and a half off of structured workouts. And I did that without any guilt.

Any shame, zero judgment. It felt great. And really what happened is I woke up many mornings a year and a half ago. And I was just like, I don't want to work out. And before that, it was just I was delaying my workouts and I kept, you know, working into the time that I told myself that I was gonna start my workouts. And then it was too late. And then I kept skipping it and

There was a lot of judgment with that. But then once I realized, wait, I just don't want to do this, and I gave myself the permission to not work out. It ended up being a year and a half where my main movement was just moving with my son each day. So sometimes that was like Danny Go, or we do have the next playground right now. So that's been super fun to play. Or now that it's summer, we've been playing outside. Not gonna lie, winter months were quite sedentary.

However, lately I've had this motivation to start lifting out of pure desire to really get stronger. And it's because I've been seeing a lot of research, and my twin sister, who's a physical therapist, has been telling me that women over 35 should really be lifting weights for bone density and just truly like longevity. It's just lifting is like.

the number one best thing that you can do for women over 35. And I'm like, all right, I've got a five and a half year old son. It's just something that I'm I'm prioritizing now. And exercising truly feels like something I want to show up for. And so I started again. I'm so excited. I I joined ladder and I'm just loving that style. They fly by. And so anyways, I did that workout this morning. And then I was driving and

I was thinking about my workout hiatus and I realized, or really was thinking, how much of women exercising consistently, like thinking of that population, how much of that group is exercising out of people pleasing? Like how many women are actually exercising because they're in the headspace that I'm in right now, which is, you know, you want to exercise and you genuinely love it. You genuinely love.

what it's doing for your body versus exercising because it's something that you should do, because it's expected of you, because you've always done it, you know, all of these things. Because you maybe don't like your body, because of all the reasons I worked out beforehand, really. And honestly, I hope the number is smaller than I think. Like I hope maybe I'm wrong. And a lot of women exercise because they love it. But for those

That feel like it's something that they should do is exercising actually people pleasing. And the reason that my brain jumped to people pleasing specifically is because if they don't genuinely want to do it, right? So if these women don't genuinely want to work out, they're doing it in my mind because everyone else is, right? They're trying to fit in, or it's the comparison trap, and therefore they're pleasing other people.

Or they are exercising because their partner might find them more attractive. They might tell themselves, and I'm saying this because I can relate to it, that they're exercising to look good for their partner and to feel good for their partner. But I just want to point out that there's a difference between wanting to feel good in your own body for your partner and wanting your partner to find you more attractive. So

Which one is it for you? Or maybe you're exercising because you feel like you you have to, right? That should. And no matter with all of those examples, when exercising is a should and a responsibility, something literally on your to-do list, it makes your mental load heavier. So now we're talking about people pleasing and that mental weight. And so before I go on, just take a quick poll for yourself.

Are you exercising for yourself and that genuine desire to be strong and to look good for yourself, to feel good for your partner, to live longer and to be healthy and whatever reasons? There's so many reasons. Or are you doing it out of a should and subconsciously, I truly believe it's like unconscious, for somebody else, whether that be a person or society? And there's no shade or judgment either way.

Just checking in on yourself. And if you can't relate to this people pleasing as or sorry, exercise as people pleasing example, I just want to share that people pleasing goes so far beyond saying yes when we want to say no. I often think, I mean, even in my brain, when someone says, Are you a people pleaser? that's typically the first thing is like, they overextend themselves.

But again, this was just so thought-provoking. My own thought was thought-provoking, where I was like, wait, this habit of exercise can be people pleasing. And people pleasing hides everywhere. So, yes, in your workouts, but also in how spotless you keep the house. In the cupcakes or the cookies that you're baking at 9 p.m. for a party or maybe for your kids' school.

That you actually could have just store bought the next day or Instacarded, my favorite thing. It's also in your people pleasing is in your Monday meetings when if you slowed down to think about it, you'd rather only have meetings on Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday. Right? People pleasing shows up in so many different areas than just saying yes when you want to say no. And if you actually put yourself in the shoes of thinking of doing things differently.

Like, what if I actually stopped exercising because I don't want to? Or really just doing the opposite of whatever's hitting home for you. Like, what if I stopped cleaning my house so spotlessly? Right. You pr might have a little bit of anxiety, like a little flutter or a ping of fear, a lot of like what ifs, or my God, I could never. What you so many things probably floating around in your head. And I know this because I did.

When I first slowly stopped exercising. Like I said, like I was going from exercising five to six days a week pretty intensely. Like think Sean T workouts, dripping in sweat, to not wanting to anymore. And I felt immense weight around that decision and immense weight around just the realization of I don't want to. Like,

What does that mean about me? I I was the person that was fit and active, at least, you know, from the outside. Who who am I if I don't do this? If if exercise isn't a part of my morning routine, right? There was so much I had to unpack around that. Right. And so there's a level of fear and you know, all the emotions, anxiety, maybe overwhelm, panic that you have to process and

discomfort that you have to face when unlearning this really. But the end result is having your own life back. It feels so good right now to be exercising because I want to and to take rest days when I want to. Right now when I'm exercising, my consistency is three days a week, which is lower than what it used to be. And some weeks it's two days a week.

Some weeks, it's four days a week because I'm just listening to my body, but it's just foreign to me, truly, to be in this headspace and mindset. And again, I'm hoping a lot of women are here and it's just like I'm catching up with everybody else. But I have a feeling that a lot of women are where I was. And I want you to know that A, it might be people pleasing, but B, getting to the other side is so liberating.

So that's what you can think through with me this week is where else in your life do you have habits or routines or even desires that are actually subconsciously they've been people pleasing. They're stemming from a place of wanting to please others or just compete with the Joneses. And I think most importantly,

Who would you be if you let yourself want what you actually want? Maybe a daydream. Like, what could that life look like? And get past, like, just put your fears to the side. It's okay to have those fears that's naturally going to come up when you change anything, especially something about yourself. So we're not even going to talk about processing that right now. So those are valid. And then look past and say, okay, but what if this was my life? What could come of that? How

How would my life look? And who could I show up as if I loved my body, no matter what shape or size? Who would I be and how could I show up every day if I just was confident in how I led my team? Right. Whatever it was, whatever areas you feel like you are doing something for someone else, what could it be if you if you didn't? If you just led with what you truly wanted and how you want it to feel.

That's what I've got for you today. Thank you for coming on this journey with me. I'm truly curious if this resonates and if you feel like you've been exercising out of people pleasing or not. So either way, reach out to me on Instagram at Samantha.s.says, on Facebook, I'm at Coach Samantha Hawley or on my email. all those links are in the show notes. So reach out to me there, and I will see you on Thursday.