You Don't Suck As Much As You Think You Do Remix

I absolutely love the blog article “You Don’t Suck As Much As You Think You Do,” by Lisbeth (check it out - http://wordswithlisbeth.com/2015/01/29/you-dont-suck-as-much-as-you-think-you-do/) so I decided to take her post and put a spin on it. You should definitely read her blog before you read mine, as it is written quite clearly and cleverly. She puts an emphasis on her perspective as a crossfit athlete, whereas my “remix” is simply about life. Keep in mind that mine is written from a 16 year old’s perspective compared to an older, wiser perspective originally.

If you’re going to make it through life, then you need to accept one thing: You do not suck as much as you think you do.

Most of us are far harder on ourselves than anyone else ever will be. We look at other people and compare ourselves, whether it’s on instagram, Facebook, or in the supermarket. We often cease to consider everything that has led up to this very moment in our life and theirs. We forget that developing skills,  knowledge, and physical abilities takes time and patience. This can cause us to beat ourselves up repetitively.

Our culture pushes us to suck less and be winners. Winners are celebrated and losers are forgotten. The person who looks the best and performs the best gets the most followers.  The person with the best posts gets the most likes. Get off of social media if you notice the amount of likes you receive affecting your mentality.

You will burn out if you repeatedly tell yourself that you suck. There’s only so long you can punch yourself in the face mentally before you just give up and breakdown. You shouldn’t have to live like that.

It gets old. No one wants to hang out with the one in the corner crying about how much they suck at everything and how no one likes them. I know because I’ve been that person.

One day, I realized I was spending so much time hating myself that no one had a chance to get to know  me. To change this I took a teeny tiny baby step; I asked someone for help. The person I asked gave me resources, listened to me, and gave me helpful feedback. They even helped me work up enough nerve to ask the question that petrified me.

“What’s wrong with me?” The answer is unambiguous. There is nothing wrong with me, or anybody for that matter. We all have plenty of issues, but that is part of being a human.

And now? After talking with people, seeking help, and facing my most dangerous question, I have started to accept that I am a pretty awesome homosapien.

Do I still think that I suck at some things? YES, but it’s okay to suck sometimes.

I realized that by beating myself up all the time about my shortcomings, I was creating a miserable life for myself. Simply put, you can’t grow as a person when you don’t believe that you deserve to be happy.

Does putting myself in a vulnerable position and opening up to people make me weak?  Maybe. That’s okay. I’m making progress and I’m happy.

The simple fact of the matter is that you do not suck as much as you think you do. You can do this. You are doing this. You’ve made it this far.

Stop obsessing about what you suck at. Address your issue head on. Practice coping with it, talk about it, yell at it, prove it wrong. Find someone that can relate to your issue, talk to a friend, talk to a therapist, join an online forum, or start a club to brainstorm how to deal with the issue from different perspectives. Do the thing that you think you suck at until you suck less. Above all accept that you can’t be perfect.

My Own Staircase

Someone’s loved one died this week. Someone else suffered an ACL tear. Someone else got T-boned on the intersection joining Highway 63 to 19th Street. I’d say it’s been a rough week for some people; myself included. Maybe life was going too good, and we all just needed something to pull us back to reality. Yeah, that’s what it was.

My wrist was healing significantly, slower than a snail finishing a marathon, but nonetheless it was healing... until I tried to do a Crossfit WOD with 95 pound deadlifts, burpees, and wall balls. I felt a slight tear-ish feeling and decided to call it quits, but now I figure it might have been a little bit too late. I can say with pique that I sat at home that night with tears running down my face and ice packs strapped to my wrist; while I convinced myself that I would never get back full range of motion and I would never be able to lift again.

All that negative self talk made me very depressed, so I started calling psychologists. Most told me that they weren’t licensed to work with adolescents, or that they didn’t specify in sport’s injuries. After that failed quest, I got to my own devices and pulled an archaic college textbook labeled “Introduction to Psychology” out of my basement. I flipped to the section on motivation and found it fascinating, but it wasn’t quite what I was looking for. Next I googled “sports psychology - mind of an athlete” and found some advice about making a staircase. It sounded silly, but I tried it. I made a staircase and immediately felt better.

Here’s my staircase:

It consists of all the tiny steps I have to take to reach a certain short term goal. The short term goal is to do a handstand (really I would like to snatch 180 and clean & jerk 200, but from where I am now that goal would be completely un-motivational because of how far I actually am from achieving that). The steps are made up of all the things I need to do before I can safely attempt that goal of a handstand. Making these steps visible and marking the ones I have already completed gives me a sense of how far I’ve come already, while still motivating me to work towards the higher steps.

This visual reminder helps me look forward to all of the little successes, and make sure that I savor every step that's conquered in training (no matter how minuscule). Never take for granted all the things that you CAN do, but also never stop striving for greatness.

5 Things I've Learned From Being A Coach

Being a coach comes with a completely different perspective from that of an athlete, but the goal is the same - to be the best. Here’s what I’ve learned about coaching over the last couple months.

What I’ve learned so far:

1. Stop Searching for Perfection

Every athlete wants to win gold medals, and every coach wants to have a gold medal program. You want people to look at your athletes and say, “Wow, that coach knows what he/she is doing!” Perhaps the biggest mistake a coach can make is doing too much in search of the perfect program. Should we do strict presses and back squats three times a week or should we just focus solely on the Olympic lifts? What about core - should we do it everyday or do front squats count as core? There are a million different programs out there that might all work, but it’s important to remember that if what you’re doing right now is working then your program is obviously pretty darn good (thanks to Dan John for that advice). Perfection in training is not the goal, but perfection in competition is. Just remember that.

2. Be patient

If something just isn’t clicking right with one of your athletes don’t give up. Things take time to learn, especially if they are used to doing it a different way. Try to put yourself in their shoes and remember what it was like to be a beginner. At some point we all had no idea why our coach was yelling at us to “get under the bar faster,” but eventually it made sense that if you got under the bar faster you could lift more weight. You may have to use a different cue or find a different drill for a certain athlete, but don’t give up when it comes to technique.

3. Stay open-minded

I almost had a heart attack when one of my athletes complained that their wrist was hurting. At the gym I trained at we rarely did wrist strengthening so as a coach I didn’t feel that things like wrist curls or farmers carries were a vital part of a good program; however, when an athlete has an injury that is the most important time to stay open-minded. After that incident farmers carries and overhead carries are now a regular part of our program.

4. Pretend like you know what you’re doing

When our team stepped into Cannon Falls High School for our first meet I was sweating and shaking. It had been a year since I had competed and I was letting every voice in my head tell me how badly things would go if I messed up, but for the sake of the athletes a coach must at least pretend that they know what they are doing when it comes to competition. The coach makes most of the decisions at a meet: when to warm-up, how to warm-up, what to put on the bar, how long to wait between sets, when to go out and lift, etc. If the athlete doesn’t trust their coach that’s just one more thing for them to be nervous about. Watch what the other coaches and teams are doing, and pay attention to details. You’ve got this.

5. If you want to go to the Olympics don’t be a coach

I’m sure it can be done, but the amount of work that it takes to program for others can be a huge stress on your training and it can dull your enthusiasm for the sport. In my situation coaching is keeping my eye for technique fresh, but for a healthy athlete with large aspirations it might hinder their motivation for training. When you are a coach your athletes always come first, but when you are an athlete your training always comes first. It’s tough to do both. When it’s time for me to go back to full-time training I will make sure to leave my athletes with a coach who is devoted to his or her athletes, because that can make or break an athlete’s career.

If you are thinking about becoming a coach you should definitely go for it, but first make sure that you have a solid plan and are ready to devote a lot of your time to your athletes. Coaching is very enjoyable, especially when your athletes improve and succeed :)