The conundrum of being successful and happy.

One of the strangest things I’ve found about obtaining any amount of success, is for the most part, people don’t want to see you happy about it.  There are days where you’re so happy with a success that you want to just shout it to the world.  The same way a new mother wants to show their baby to the world.  Maybe it’s something you’ve worked really hard for.  A goal you’ve finally reached after years and years of work.  Maybe it’s that 4.0 that you’ve never seen on your college report card until now.  Or that back squat you’ve been chasing for 6 months.

Human jealousy is such an interesting emotion.  And it almost always stems from some level of one’s hatred towards themselves.  Think about it.  We’ve all been jealous of someone, at some point.  But if you were truly happy with yourself, and I mean 100% satisfied with yourself and everything about you, that jealousy would never come.  Jealousy is what makes it so hard for people to be happy for others’ successes.  

I think the worst part about this is sometimes the most successful people can somewhat feel different and isolated from the rest of society in the first place.  Whether you put your hard work into your job, your sport, or school, you’ve already decided to sacrifice certain “fun” parts of life that other people seemingly get to enjoy.  Then, after all those sacrifices, you finally obtain your goal, your “fun,” and no one around you wants to hear it, nor do they appreciate it.  That stinks.

I think the biggest things I’ve learned from these experiences are as follows:

Hang around with like-minded people.  If you are with people who share your sacrifices in life, they understand and appreciate what it feels like to win and succeed.  They tend to be happier for you and want to hear your successes more than most people.

Make friends with people who truly care about you.  You know how your mom is always happy for you when you succeed?  It’s because you’re not taking anything away from her by succeeding.  In fact, you’re adding to her life.  After all, you are her kid, she raised you, and it makes it easy for her to be that much prouder of you.  It is possible to find this in people who didn’t raise you.  It’s rare, but they’re the ones you can talk about your great project at work with.  Or make you brownies when you win a competition.  They genuinely want to see you happy and successful because it doesn’t take anything away from them.  In fact it makes them proud.  Be friends with them.  

Lastly, you also need to learn how to be happy for yourself and not need anyone’s approval.  I’ve found as I’ve gotten older,  I can keep more of my successes, big and small, to myself.  I think it started by realizing not many people were happy for me when I was younger and I succeeded.  That’s where you fake it until you make it.  I started keeping more and more to myself, until now it just becomes routine.  I can reach a big goal of mine, and that’s that, I’m happy.  Having friends and loved ones that are happy for me is just a bonus. :)

Why do we compete?

This was inspired by multiple discussions over the last month or so.  Changing sports for me was not something I took lightly, but much of this discussion was kept in mind while making the decision.

I believe there are multiple reasons why people compete:

1) Validation.

I know a lot of dedicated athletes that have found something missing in their lives, and winning as a competitor brings temporary joy to fill that void.  I must admit I used to fall under this category.  Swimming was a way for me to prove to everyone that I was as awesome as I didn't believe myself to be.  Make sense?  Not really.  The reason I found this to be a terrible reason to compete, was I won a D3 title in two different sports within a span of two months and I was left feeling empty months later.  The happiness that I had been searching for, at least in my college career, was nowhere to be found.

2)  Proof of hard work.

This is a reason to compete that I think applies to much of the CrossFit community, for example.  When you work all year to better yourself, why not prove that by competing?  It's cold hard evidence, something we don't always see in practice, or in the mirror.

3) Fun.

Huh?  I guess people compete solely for fun.  You baffle me.  More power to you.

4) Aesthetics.

This one I will never understand, and I don't mean that in a harsh way, it's just something that was not written into my DNA.  Many people are competitive athletes, or maybe just athletes that compete occasionally, because they like the way it makes them look.  I will admit, aesthetically, I have generally picked sports that have athletes that are pleasing to the eyes.  (Google Nathan Adrian immediately).  But coming from a small town in Arkansas, muscles were never a thing to be proud of as a young female athlete, and that was something I accepted at a young age.  I competed because my body is a tool.  It, for the most part, does what I tell it to do.  And the harder I train, the faster I get.  Now looking back on pictures from high school, I am SO angry at myself for thinking I was an ugly duckling (I was thin and about 20lbs of muscle lighter).  I guess maybe aesthetics is never a reason to compete, and acceptance of your body is much more important.

5) Enjoy the process.

This is super important for an athlete to become successful.  Or just being consistent.  If you don't enjoy the process, you'll never make it to practice the days you don't feel like it.  I never questioned whether I wanted to go to swim practice (except maybe on training trips.....the 6am practices 10 days in a row got old, but I secretly loved it).  Swim practice was fun for me.  It was interesting.  It was fluid dynamics.  It was turning my body into a strong, powerful, well oiled, efficient machine.  And every day was a new challenge.  I enjoyed practices so much I remember crying in front of my coach because I told him I had to skip practice to study for a thermo test.  He was almost laughing because in my four years as an athlete I probably missed two practices.

6) Plain. Old. Drive.

I could probably draw a spectrum of competitiveness and place every athlete I have ever coached on it.  This spectrum spans from "Not a competitive bone in their body" (my mom, sorry mom) to "My life would be an empty black hole of emptiness if I didn't compete"  I probably fall on the very fringe of the black hole side.  Always have.  And as a mid-20-something, it's what makes me happy, win or lose.  I accept that not every competition will result in a win, and I appreciate that if it did, I wouldn't appreciate the wins that much more.  I remember crossing the finish line of the 400m hurdles at NCAAs (after losing to the girl in lane 5 the week before at ECACs) and immediately bursting into tears.  All those years of hard work, staying in on Saturday nights, doing Coach Crawford's dreaded "up backs" on the lacrosse field on hot summer nights when no one else would.  Was I doing it for the win?  Yes and no.  I was doing it because of something inside me driving me to keep going.  I don't know where it came from, and I don't know why I have it, but it's there.  And it's not going away any time soon.

So here's to weightlifting.  May it bring the joy of competition I found in all my other previous competitive endeavors.  I couldn't be more excited about my future in this sport. :)