BLOG What is This Girl Can?- Elise Richmond

As part of This Girl Can Week, Sport Activator Elise Richmond explores what This Girl Can means to Female Students:

It comes as no surprise that it is difficult at times to get involved in sport and stay interested. Many individuals, companies and organisations are trying to tackle the issue of inactivity and help you to stay motivated and keep active

One notable organisation doing this is ‘This Girl Can’. They applaud women of all shapes, abilities and backgrounds that are staying active, regardless of how they do it and how they look doing it. Often, the difficulties women face surrounding physical activity include the fear of judgement, worrying about how they look and whether they’re good enough at the sport.

This is exactly why ‘This Girl Can’ deserves to be celebrated and we are supporting TGC week. They aim to reduce any stigma women feel, to share real stories from all women from a range of backgrounds and encourage all forms of activity.

It is inspiring. It is motivating. It makes you feel good. Reading about these women and their stories, you can’t help but want to get involved. To take up something new and interesting, to meet new people and create amazing memories while keeping fit but also having fun.

We all know that lockdown has made it harder than ever to stay motivated with anything, let alone physical activity. Again, I personally think that this is something TGC is also helping to tackle. Reading each of the stories on the website, you see how everyone uses different sports and activities to stay fit, but they all keep at it because it is fun. The emphasis on having fun, just enjoying exercise is something that is often overlooked but can be the biggest motivator of all. When you find that activity that you love doing, you love how it makes you feel, it spurs you on to keep going and inspires you to put the effort in.

Aside from the inspiring stories from these women, I find that there are a few tricks that can help me to stay motivated with exercise.

1. Exercise for enjoyment

Viewing exercise as a means for you to enjoy yourself and to take a break from work can be incredibly motivational. I find that planning my day so that I have exercise breaks between my uni work encourages me to look forward to working out. Exercise shouldn’t be viewed as a means to make up for eating ‘bad’ food, it shouldn’t be viewed exclusively as a way to lose weight. Changing your perspective and relationship with exercise will play a big role in your motivation levels.

2. Find the exercise that is right for you

While opportunities to get involved in sports may appear to be slim during lockdown, it is actually the opposite. There are a multitude of activities you can still try out, often from the comfort of your own home for free (or at least a minimal cost). The ‘This Girl Can’ website is a great place to look for inspiration of new activities to try- there are over 90 different activities listed on their website alone and plenty. Take a look on the ‘Active Newcastle’ website also for specific classes and events that you can get involved with too. Now is the perfect time to find your new passion for exercise.

3. Set realistic goals for you

Set yourself goals, simplistic I know but the way you do it can make all the difference! Your goal doesn’t have to be crazy; you don’t have to start running 10k every week when you’ve never run before. Take your own needs into account and think about what changes you want to see; not what others are doing.

Find more about This Girl Can Here- https://www.thisgirlcan.co.uk/meet-the-girls/