The Story You Tell Yourself

Yesterday my wife, Julia, and I did our yoga practice together. We’ve been doing yoga together for several months now, and I always look forward to it.

As I edited the video so I could submit it for GRIT, I commented that I always like doing the yoga videos because, with us in sync, they tend to look pretty cool.

“OMG,” she said, “I was barely moving! I wasn’t doing anything like you.”

I can’t stand it when she says stuff like that.

Like yesterday, when we finished our workout, and I told her she’d done an excellent job, her response was, “I mean, I guess. Not like you, though.”

See, there are two parts to her statement. The first is a compliment, which I don’t mind at all. I’m human; therefore, I enjoy recognition and compliments, especially from my wife. But the second part of her statements is a dismissal of her achievement, and that part drives me batty.

Achievements have a way of creating a positive feedback loop. Accomplishing a task or reaching a goal feels good, and it helps develop the mindset you need to continue. Armed with the confidence gained from the first achievement, you are better prepared to attack the next goal. Then, with two behind you, the third is easier and so on until the fuel of prior success pushes you to the point of being unstoppable.

That is unless you deny having achieved that very first success. If you discount your achievements, if you deny the self-recognition of a job well done, then you may as well not have done it.

At least from a mental perspective.

Here’s a fact: Julia is on day 19 on consecutive burpees with me doing as many as she can in the time that it takes me to do 100. Every day she’s able to do more.

Here’s another fact: Not even counting the burpees, she’d done more workouts in the past three weeks than she has in the last three years.

That leads to fact #3: she’s kicking ass. And she should be showing up to the next session with an attitude of, “Hell yes, I am one badass bitch!”

Because, truth is, she is a badass.

But it’s hard to feel like a badass when the story you tell yourself is that you didn’t do as good as the person beside you.

There’s a place for that line of thinking in professional sports where your income and future depends on being better than everyone else around you. As a pro, you’re expected to compete and fight and beat everyone else.

But for the rest of us, our competition isn’t another person.

It is ourselves.

Each day we go to war not against our friends or our family or somebody on Facebook; we go to war with ourselves. The battle is against our minds and our bodies and the win-loss record is internal.

When we lose, it’s important to acknowledge the loss and search for the lesson it contains.

Equally important is acknowledging the wins. When we discount ourselves because of how our performance compares to another, we wind up putting our wins in the loss column.

If we do that long enough, we wind up feeling like a loser, and eventually, we stop trying altogether.

Take time to acknowledge your wins.

The story you tell yourself is important, so make sure you’re telling the right version.