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.