This might sound a bit of hogwash, but believe it or not, your personality plays a very important role in the way or how much exercise you do. So, if you’ve been feeling under the weather and generally not being able to meet your workout goals, it is probably because of your personality type.
According to a group of researchers, some people are more consistent in their efforts in working out and others not so much. However, the specific personality traits that encourage this behaviour is still unclear.
The researchers narrowed their focus on psychological processes such as mental flexibility and a person’s ability to make short-term sacrifices in pursuit of future successes. “There indeed appears to be a certain way of thinking about goals that correlate with long term process.” said researchers.
"What's new in this study is that we used an objective measure of goal progress that could be recorded as participants naturally went about their lives: their check-ins at a local gym.”
According to the findings, self-reported levels of a trait called “planfullness” brings about a change in the real world.d
The research claimed that participants of the research experienced a decline in gym attendance when the individual claimed they weren’t “planfull.”
The researchers added that “ It seems logical that people who are successful with their goals would be able to write in detail about their planning process. We were surprised then to find no relationship between people’s goal pursuit behaviour and how they wrote about their goals.”
