So the honest truth is, I am a nerd.  I can’t go to sleep at night without reading.  My happy place (other than the gym or my kitchen) is the bookstore.  I get excited when I spend hours organizing drawers and cupboards and will describe the end result as “so pretty!” I’d rather watch a documentary about the planet than reality television.  I spend half of my weekend happily cooking.  My favourite celebrity is an astronaut. I still listen to boy bands at max volume.  I still live in terror of team sports.  And I love Star Trek AND Star Wars (though not in a ‘would be really good at trivia’ sort of way, just in a ‘will always be down to watch them’ way).

But, I also can deadlift over 100 lbs and I can run really far.  I can do a photoshoot-worthy face of make-up.  I have several tattoos. I stay pretty on trend with my wardrobe. And I ride on the back of my husbands motorcycle in a badass leather jacket.

So I’m not like a regular nerd, I’m a cool nerd.  

Or maybe I’m just not any one thing at all.

We are not defined by one adjective in our lives.  We are more than just cool or nerds.  Just because you are one thing doesn’t mean we cannot also be something else.  We are complex creatures.  Just because you’re a socially awkward homebody (like me) doesn’t also mean you can’t be a confident and enthusiastic fitness instructor (like me).  Being a hyper-extroverted motivational speaker doesn’t also mean you can’t be an introverted neighbour.  Being a jock doesn’t also mean you can’t stay up all night playing dungeons and dragons.

Our minds equating two superficially related items happens to help make decision making easier, which in some cases is a good thing; you’re scared of heights, someone asks you to go skydiving, you say no; makes the process seamless. But when you autopilot all your choices based on relationships to other things without examining those relationships critically you can end up leaving yourself out of a lot of opportunities. Deciding we “are” something so we therefore “cannot be” something else is a limiting belief; basically, you think you can’t, so you can’t.

Example, I wholeheartedly believed that group fitness was my worst nightmare.  Based on my history with phys-ed (*shudder*) and team sports (*double shudder*) I made the blanket decision that a group fitness environment was awful and not for me.  I didn’t research anything about it.  I didn’t ask any questions about it to anyone who went religiously.  I didn’t look into what was available.  I just thought group fitness = elementary school gym class (as in the last gym class I had ever done) and it was therefore a nightmare.  Why would I PAY to go through that again?

At first glance it absolutely seems like a reasonable correlation.  I don’t fault myself for it because I didn’t know better.  But there are key differences that make adult group fitness different and the first and most important one is that this is a group of people who ARE paying for this and they therefore do not care what anyone else is doing.  It isn’t like when you’re young and everyone is making comparisons about who can do what while we’re all being forced to dodge flying balls.  This is a group of adults in a wide variety of physical states who are paying their good, hard earned money to try to get a little bit healthier.  The vast majority will commiserate with you when it’s extremely hard and encourage you when you’re doing well…but in reality they are mostly worried about their own workout and aren’t really paying attention.  Because we’re adults and we don’t have time to worry about whether Laura at the gym can lift more than we can….IF we even notice that she can.

Another key difference, we are choosing the activity we want to do.  If you don’t want to have rubber balls whipped at you while you frantically ninja-dance to avoid them, don’t sign up for a dodgeball league.  If you don’t want to catch a baseball coming at you at high speed, don’t sign up for a softball team.  But if you like to dance, try Zumba.  If you want to kick stuff, maybe try kickboxing. You get the idea….unlike phys-ed classes that are designed to expose you to all kinds of physical education options, you, as an adult spending your own grown up money, get to decide what sort of activity you want to do.  And lucky for us now, the options are endless!

There are other differences too, I am not the same person I was in Grade 7, I can go to classes with people I am comfortable with and will encourage me etc.  But you get the idea.  My assumption about group fitness was based on a parallels to an experience that was only superficially similar and as a result ended up being completely wrong.

And we do this all the time; making assumptions about ourselves based on flawed information.

You can be forgetful and also intelligent.

You can be strong while also not being overly graceful.

You can be confident while also being introverted and withdrawn.

You can be a logical decision maker while also being a dreamer.

So if you’re dismissing trying something because you think you’re not suited to it, check your decision making process to make sure that isn’t based on an oversimplification you’re making about yourself.  Because we’re not simple and we aren’t ever going to be just one thing…we’re complicated and we’re going to be lots of things.  Which is actually pretty cool…even if you’re a nerd.