The Muscle-Mind Connection: Building Personal Agency Through Exercise
Personal agency – your belief that you can influence your circumstances through your own actions – represents a human need. When you lack agency, you experience life as something that happens to you and can feel helpless to its challenges. A strong sense of agency can transform your relationship with challenging situations by turning them into opportunities for self-improvement and accomplishment. Your agency fuels your achievements and infuses your experiences with personal meaning.
Among the various paths to developing personal agency, one path tends to be underappreciated: physical exercise. While most people understand the connection of exercise in conditioning the body, often missed are additional benefits from persistence, incremental progress, and self-efficacy experiences which can transfer to other aspects of your life.
Self-efficacy research shows us that mastery experiences help us to develop a strong belief in our abilities to accomplish difficult tasks or produce desired outcomes. More often these mastery experiences are personally challenging based on our individual circumstances. For example, a hard physical challenge might be a recovery process from an injury or surgery with rehabilitation, walking or running a certain distance, becoming a skilled martial artist, or performing your first pull-up.
Complementary to personal agency, exercise psychology research consistently shows that regular physical activity positively affects self-perception and confidence. Participants who engage in consistent exercise routines or structured exercise programs show measurable improvements in their sense of control over their lives and belief in their capabilities. This pattern appears across diverse populations and various types of physical activity.
I vividly remember a conversation with a former colleague of mine who told me about his experience completing the Ironman Triathlon – a uniquely grueling event entailing two miles of swimming, 100 miles of cycling, and running a full marathon (26.2 miles). Being middle-aged, the prospect of competing in Ironman greatly intimidated him. What’s more, he had wanted to return to school to finish his degree in physical therapy but always talked himself out of it because it seemed too daunting at this stage of life. After months of dedicated training, not only did he complete the Ironman, but he claimed the experience so powerfully improved his sense of agency he ultimately graduated with his physical therapy degree and went on to have a thriving career.
While the Ironman experience changed the life of my former colleague, rest assured you don’t have to participate in that level of physical activity to experience the agency-building effects of exercise.
I recently experienced these benefits firsthand after enrolling at a local indoor rock gym. Having no previous experience with rock climbing, I endured weeks of uncomfortable practice and repeated failures not having yet developed the specialized strength and technique to maneuver to the top of the rock wall. Nevertheless, after a long initiation, I finally scaled a difficult wall which had bedeviled me from the beginning. The satisfaction felt in that moment reinforced within me that through dedication, patience, and focused effort, I can produce a personally meaningful outcome.
Exercise-induced agency is achieved from the process of the mastery experience: moments of discomfort, working through setbacks, and earned successes. When you encounter challenges during physical training – your muscles burning in the final repetitions of a set, the mental battle to finish the last mile, or the frustration of failing to complete a climbing route – your brain rewires itself for greater resilience. These constructive challenges optimize dopamine release in the brain's reward system. Crucially, the dopamine surge that follows an earned achievement after overcoming difficulty creates much stronger neural pathways than a reward that comes easily. This neurological process, sometimes called delayed reward learning, explains why the rock wall — that defeated me so many times before — provided me with such immense satisfaction when I finally conquered it.
Delayed reward learning transfers to other life challenges by training your brain to persist through difficulties with the expectation of eventual success. Exercise provides an environment to experience controlled discomfort. It teaches your nervous system that discomfort is not a signal to stop, but rather a necessary part of the path to achievement.
Here is an idea for creating your personal agency connection through exercise:
Begin with an achievable goal. If you would like help in framing your goal, tools can be found in past Wellness Corner blogs focused on goal setting tools: SMART goals, WOOP goals, GROW goals, and HEART goals.
Track your progress. Exercise inherently involves some discomfort and struggle. Learning to push through these challenges helps to build resilience. Being able to see your progress supports the progressive nature of fitness – gradually increasing distance, weight, or complexity – while maintaining a focus on your goal.
Celebrate your wins. Make space to reflect and praise yourself on the milestones reached when working toward your goal. These help with continued motivation and personal connection to your goal. Additionally, those who exercise regularly often begin to see themselves differently: “I’m someone who can overcome difficult challenges,” or “I can become good at anything I set my mind to,” becomes part of their self-talk and can influence future decision-making.
With each success, you don’t just build muscle, you build a stronger internal locus of control – that your actions and decisions have influence over your life’s outcomes. The agency you develop by overcoming physical challenges doesn't remain confined to the gym, track, or climbing wall. It ripples outward, empowering you to transform other areas of your life. Whether returning to an activity you once enjoyed or trying something new, you’re just one decision away from your next personal transformation.
What physical challenge might become your next agency-building opportunity?
