Dear Advy,
I’m normally pretty good at setting boundaries. The boutique firm where I practice is great about organizing social events and fostering a team atmosphere. The problem lately is that all the events revolve around physical fitness activities. I understand the need to exercise and the positive effects on my overall wellness. I can assure you that I do make frequent trips to the gym – I don’t like it, but I do it and I prefer it to be solitary chore. The pressure to take part in the “work workouts” has been exhausting. Group hikes, yoga, step challenges, stair challenges – lately it seems never ending and while not explicitly stated, it feels mandatory. I’m looking for ways to opt out, or at the very least, some recommendations on how I can suggest alternative, less physical activities. Any ideas would be welcome.
Sincerely,
Out of Breath and Patience
Dear Out of Breath and Patience,
“Getting fit” is one of the most common New Year's resolutions we make. That's great as far as it goes, but it's something else entirely when someone else is making that resolution for you. Few things are as demotivating as having somebody else make a resolution for you to get healthy.
It sounds like whomever has come up with this group activity thought it would help people want to exercise. There are many benefits to participating in group physical activity. It is true that for many people, much of the time, having someone else to exercise with is helpful in motivating them to continue with an exercise program. Moving your body in concert with others can help members of the group feel greater social cohesion, which often makes group exercise attractive for managers who want to deepen bonds among work teams. You allude to that goal in your letter. Exercising with a group or a friend can even make you feel less fatigued during the course of exercise and allow you to exercise longer.
No, I am not trying to sell you on going along with the firm’s group exercise program. You are correct to notice that the “special sauce” in group exercise programs is participants’ wanting to be part of the group physical activity program. One study published in 2013 found that the beneficial effect of exercising with peers is linked with the intrinsic motivation of participants. Internal motivators like wanting to get healthy are often more important to meeting one’s fitness goals than social pressure. Quite aside from the physical activity issue, it sounds like being pressured to participate in this firm exercise program is making you less enthusiastic about your workplace culture, which means that your firm is not achieving the vaunted “teambuilding” goal of this exercise program, at least when it comes to you.
It’s like someone gave you a pair of great running shoes that are two sizes too small. They may have meant well, and the gift might look good from the outside, but it doesn’t help you one bit.
Why is it important to understand your firm’s motives for organizing these group activities? Odds are that the person or committee putting this program together believes that it is an unalloyed good thing for you and everybody you work with. With all those proven benefits discussed above, goes their logic, how can there be anything wrong with it? I also get the sense from your letter that, this issue aside, you like working there. That suggests that although you want to take your exercise regimen back as a solo endeavour, you don’t want to burn bridges while you do that. There are two distinct issues with this group activity program:
- The firm is organizing group activities with a recent emphasis on physical activity;
- Implicitly, if not explicitly, the firm is making participation in these events mandatory.
You don’t mention an inherent problem with the group activities aside from the fact that they are leaning toward the physical activity side lately, so issue #1 is not the main problem. The problem is mainly the pressure from the firm to forego your individual exercise goals in favour of the group activities.
Aside from the firm belief that encouraging (and perhaps pressuring) lots of people in the office to participate in the group activity is good for everyone as discussed above, the firm management/social committee/point person is also probably worried that if everyone isn’t participating then people will drop out and fail to participate in these activities. There’s something to that all-or-nothing hypothesis. When individual firm members see other people choosing not to attend, not only does that give them permission to skip the next group hike or pickleball tournament, but it also creates the impression that it is not important. The well-meaning but problematic pressure you’re experiencing is not only driven by a desire to do good but a fear that spotty attendance will put the whole team-building group exercise thing into a death spiral of declining attendance.
What do you do about this problem then?
Talk to the person or people organizing the events about your concerns. I have given you two guesses at what’s motivating them because this conversation will go better if you can approach them as compassionately as possible. There may be other factors in their thinking that I can’t anticipate, but you can explore them with the organizer(s) in a positive conversation about the group activity program.
If and when you tell the organizers you want to skip some or all of these fitness-based activities, listen to any of their objections carefully and compassionately. If they’re worried that your non-attendance will trigger a decline in overall attendance, consider what you could do to help lessen the impact of your non-attendance. Could you attend some, but not all events? Could you attend the non-fitness events? Could you publicly thank them for their efforts in a way that encourages others to participate? I’m not telling you that you must do any or all those things but persuading them to lighten up the pressure to participate means listening to any concerns they raise with you and thinking about how you could meet those concerns within reason.
Make a plan with the organizers to meet your own need for solitary exercise while meeting their needs as well. In that way you can accomplish what you need to meet your own fitness goals while avoiding damaging your relationship with the people organizing these events. Life is too short to spend time in a spin class you didn’t want to be in!
Be well,
Advy