Wednesday, February 9, 2011

Self Discipline > Office Health Gimmicks

Subtitle: But it's not like office health gimmicks are a bad thing

UVU is doing this thing called Spring into Shape. (Notice that the webpage is titled Sping into Shape, the letter R being optional, I guess.) It was the topic of discussion on and off today at the office. People were talking about how it was a great motivator, working in groups and stuff to accomplish goals, how the success rate will be higher. (And don't get me started on the UVU goal of drinking eight 8oz. glasses of water. Yeesh.)

My point was that working in groups, in the end, has nothing to do with success, that it's only self discipline. A coworker made the good point that when she was in this group and had to present something once a week, she made sure she did it. It wasn't like it was graded for a class, she just made sure she did it because they met together.

I countered that with, "Exactly, you weren't graded. In the end of things you accomplished what you did because of your self discipline. What if you missed a week of doing your stuff? You didn't. You controlled your time to accomplish what you wanted. It was all self discipline in the end, which is a good thing."

Scottie tonight made the point that it's very empowering to understand this. What we accomplish in life is all based on our ability to work toward something and persevere through difficulties (with Divine Help for eternal good measure).

It's all about self discipline.
And I have great faith in our ability to accomplish our goals. This concept gives me great hope.


Signed,
Vanessa "Aiming to take the theory of it all and turn it into a daily practice" Swenson

4 comments:

Kimberly said...

I took a personality seminar a few years ago at work. Now, there are many incarnations of this sort of thing and none are the end of all work that should be done to understand each other, but I found it to be pretty accurate. According to that, the golds would meet the goal because that's what they do. The blues would feel the peer pressure in the way they talk about groups working. True, it's only self-discipline in the end, but for some people the idea of letting someone else down is worse than the idea of getting fat. The other two groups (orange and green) would not be motivated by the goal or team but would have to find something else to push them along (like being healthier in general).

Anyway, my point was to say that I agree. However, I have more self-discipline when it comes to meeting friends' expectations than I do for getting out of bed in the morning (why running with a friend has worked better for me than running alone).

Vanessa Swenson said...

Yeah, I think the Spring into Shape thing could be really good for a lot of people at UVU, and part of figuring out self discipline is also getting to the bottom of how you can motivate yourself. My friend said that she hardly worked on her project unless she had to present it weekly.

I guess I'm just trying to figure out how to transfer this kind of self discipline when I don't have a normal structure that helps me accomplish things.

rantipoler said...

This is why I do Weight Watchers online rather than go to the meetings. I do it because I want to, not because I'm worried about being sent on a guilt trip by other people. I think it's more rewarding that way, and it helps me have more self-discipline for other things. Besides, who wants to get weighed in front of a bunch of strangers?!

Vanessa Swenson said...

You know, it's funny, because it's the being in a group, etc., that helps my friend out.
Life's a many varied thing.