Does having a bad experience impact your later life?

This topic has been suggested by a good friend of mine, Kevin McAdoo – we both studied Sports Science at Swansea University and he is now a Physical Education teacher himself.

To find out more, I asked members of my Facebook community in a poll about their experiences of P.E. at school and the results were quite surprising; however, this was a small pool of people, so I’m not saying it is something you could generalise to the wider population.

What was Found

It was a pretty even split between the individuals with a bad experience in physical education and those with a good experience who went on to have a non-sedentary life in adulthood. There were none that I polled who had a bad experience and were now sedentary, but I would put that down to the pool being on Facebook as opposed to say an email questionnaire just between myself and the recipient.

What was Learnt

Although this poll represents a small sample size, it lends support to the belief that personal context is key as those individuals who had bad experiences had possibly some kind of ‘eureka’ moment as to why they didn’t become sedentary, which is different for every individual.

As Gordana Biernat would describe it; “They put a positive connotation on a negative situation.”

In conclusion

It all comes down to the individual being able to come to terms with that past experience and resolving/reflecting on the issue that is causing them the underlying stress in adulthood. This reasoning would be supported by Mike Marschhausen, as he would argue that  “current stress would be as a result of something in your past.”

But does that mean one way of thinking is better than the other? Not necessarily. It all comes back to the old way of thinking which I believe modern society is starting to shy away from and that is ‘Dealing with emotions’ or ‘hiding our true selves’.

You might ask, James what do you mean by that? Well, it’s very simple the world nowadays doesn’t like to get its feelings hurt (and no I am not saying bullying here which has come up in the media recently with British Cycling and British Swimming). But people are more likely to be like sheep and follow ‘the flock’ as opposed to challenging something they don’t believe in (with proper discourse and facts).

However, my way of thinking is a bit of a mixture of both Gordana’s and Mike’s. It’s probably because of my background in sports psychology and my sporting career which makes me think this way, as you are taught to reflect on both the good and bad of a situation. You might argue that analysing things all the time is a bad thing, which in hindsight I would agree with, as you can sometimes read too much into someone or something.

 

PS: I’d love to know what you thought of the blog. Hit me up in the comment section or alternatively drop me a message. I answer every email, just ask.

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