I Am Dee Dee Mahmood

Exercise Motivation & Character-Building: Support System as a Team

Good team support can even male you soar overseas!
Team Waf4h in Australia

How is your New Year Resolution to exercise? Strong on 1st January and slacking as the months progress? "Semangat 2 minit" (2-minute "motivation spirit") syndrome is no new concern.

One of the biggest challenges in exercise adherence is waning motivation. It is a challenge to stay motivated especially if you are exercising alone. 

So how do you ensure that you have strength in motivation?

Exercise as a Team. TEAM SPORTS.

When you have fun in a group, you will motivate each other and likely that you will stay motivated too.

Playing team sports can aid in strengthening exercise commitment. Team sports are not only socially fun, it builds friendship.

Playing Team Sports Builds Character

1. Towards a common goal

This is aligning your focus not only to contribute positively to your team but also to bring out the best in yourself and others while striving to achieve team goalsa.k.a.Team spirit. 

2.Trust and Respect through Cooperation

No one player wins a team match. It is all a team effort.

One defender cannot defend if there are repeated multiple-players attack from the opponent. A striker cannot score a goal, if his or her mid fielder does not pass the ball to them. It is a collaborative effort and about complementing each other.  You have to trust your teamate to do their part so that you can do yours

When everyone is working towards a common goal (scoring to win), they need to trust and respect their teammates' abilities to work hand in hand to create that winning goal.

2. Discipline

Playing team sports teaches discipline. Discipline is needed to help inculcate the spirit for keeping to training and control which are both essential for a successful team.

Discipline is fundamental for living in a cohesive society. It  helps everyone appreciate and understand the benefits of co-existing and encourage them to work with others as they try to aim for a set of similar objectives. The playing field is a training ground for the board room or office place.

3. All for One, One for All

Do you know that social marginalisation leads to loneliness and depression and in some cases, suicide? The engagement and social belonging to a sports team offers participants the platform to learn how to be a better person of a community following ethics of good character.

Bringing the communities together across continents
Singapore vs South Africa

4. Good Sportsmanship

 Staying competitive yet with grace.

A handshake in sportsmanship.

Winning with humility. 

Positivity in defeat. 

Those constitute  good sportsmanship. Playing team sports builds character as it teaches people how to function at best in a group setting. Unselfishness towards a common goal  and care for each other. 

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5. Managing anxiety and stress

Playing team sports helps with regards to managing anxiety and stressful situations. It teaches you adaptation skills and a "never say die" attitude. You learn to think of every obstacles as challenges to be solved.

There you have it, positivity at work and it certainly does bring exercise-happy-endorphins your way!

6. Leadership

Playing team sports  helps to cultivate leadership skills,

through  personal, duo or team's  actions to advance your team’s success and even in captainship responsibilities. 

A team of “passionate champions” encouraging forward thinking creates powerful positive energy which lifts every individual in a team. 

7. Caring & Compassion

A team consists of different individuals with different personalities. Team sports teaches us how to care for each other. At times, it is about the individual putting others before him or her in compassion and care. Being humane. 

8. Sport for All even the little one!

Photos shared here courtesy of Walking Football4Health Facebook Page

Dee Dee Mahmood, multi award winning Celebrity Exercise Physiologist and Nutritionist, is the Academic Adjunct Senior Lecturer at Edith Cowan University Australia. Her PhD research on obesity was chosen for its impact on obesity in Asia and was accepted and presented at the President's Cup Award, American College of Sports Medicine Northwest Annual Meeting in Tacoma, Washington. Ambassadors to brands like Reebok and Norwegian Seafood Council, this TEDX  Speaker has several signature community programs to her name, Fat2Fit Asia and Walking Football for Health Asia. She conducts  synergy on community and corporate health and research collaborations internationally.

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