Today may be the first day of the rest of your life, but it may also be day one hundred and eighty-three of your current workout regime. Getting up and sticking to it are are hard. In fact, the only thing harder might be starting at all.
How and why do we do it? ("It" being keep setting goals and training for them). Well, here's a few reasons from women:
"My morning workout is the hardest part of my day, whatever comes up next I can handle." Katrine
"When you land the axle, then you want to do the double axle. Challenge never stops. You keep trying for the next harder maneuver." Nora
"I am less likely to doubt myself. I am more likely to take on a leadership role. I feel sexier. I know my worth and I am less likely to settle for less than I deserve." Mary
"I have to feel fit to accomplish things in my life." Allison
Challenge. Accomplishment. Feeling sexy. Etc...
Makes me want to get up in the morning.
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
Impressed?
Have you impressed yourself lately? Been proud of an accomplishment?
No? Huh. Could it be that you just don't value what you do anymore?
According to many psychologists, if we are driven, ambitious people, we often lack the ability to appreciate and value our own successes. What a downer. The phenomenon, or maybe it's a syndrome, even has a name--idealization/devaluation. In other words, you idealize a certain measure of success when you see it in others, or when you are struggling to attain it, but once you reach it, well then, what's the big deal.
The first triathlon I ever did was in, I hesitate to say, 1993. Not that many women were doing them, and I didn't know anyone who could advise me on how to do the race. I was the rookiest kind of rookie you can be. My goggles got kicked off at the beginning of the swim. I had a full change of clothes for each sport (mind you this was a race that would take the winners less than hour, it was that short), and I wondered where I was supposed to do the changing. My mountain bike weighed 50 pounds. And I came in second to last. I felt like a rock star! Nowadays when I finish a triathlon, I pack my stuff up quickly in the organized way I've developed and wonder how I might have done better. I rarely take any time to relish the accomplishment. I hardly think of it as such.
I'll bet the same goes for lots of you in something--sports and other areas of your life.
Just because you can do something, does not mean it's easy. Every time we do something, it's good to remember the first time we did it. How did we feel? Like a rock star? Oh yeah--get that feeling back. You earn it, every time you do, whatever it is you do so well.
No? Huh. Could it be that you just don't value what you do anymore?
According to many psychologists, if we are driven, ambitious people, we often lack the ability to appreciate and value our own successes. What a downer. The phenomenon, or maybe it's a syndrome, even has a name--idealization/devaluation. In other words, you idealize a certain measure of success when you see it in others, or when you are struggling to attain it, but once you reach it, well then, what's the big deal.
The first triathlon I ever did was in, I hesitate to say, 1993. Not that many women were doing them, and I didn't know anyone who could advise me on how to do the race. I was the rookiest kind of rookie you can be. My goggles got kicked off at the beginning of the swim. I had a full change of clothes for each sport (mind you this was a race that would take the winners less than hour, it was that short), and I wondered where I was supposed to do the changing. My mountain bike weighed 50 pounds. And I came in second to last. I felt like a rock star! Nowadays when I finish a triathlon, I pack my stuff up quickly in the organized way I've developed and wonder how I might have done better. I rarely take any time to relish the accomplishment. I hardly think of it as such.
I'll bet the same goes for lots of you in something--sports and other areas of your life.
Just because you can do something, does not mean it's easy. Every time we do something, it's good to remember the first time we did it. How did we feel? Like a rock star? Oh yeah--get that feeling back. You earn it, every time you do, whatever it is you do so well.
Monday, May 3, 2010
Happy "Now" or "After the Fact"
Reading a great new book by Lucy Danziger (the editor in chief of Self) and Catherine Birndorf (a psychiatrist), The Nine Rooms of Happiness (more on the book later), I came across an interesting observation about the difference between our experiences and our memories of experiences.
Scientists apparently often use what's known as the "Experience Sampling Method" to conduct studies; a process by which participants in a study record their experiences at random moments, in real time. Apparently most people have a high propensity to overrate the happiness they experienced doing a particular activity, when asked after the fact, whereas their actual experience in real time rated lower along the way. The example Lucy gives in the book is recalling downhill ski days fondly, when, in actuality, those same days are cold, wet and frustrating in the moment.
Some psychologists think that how we remember things is more important than our real time experience. Others think that what we actually experience is more important.
I tend to think we ought to be "in the moment", as they say--which implies enjoying said moment. And yet...
Say, for example, I'm out for a run. It's a windy, cold day. I'm running into the wind. I feel defeated, and I can't wait for the run to be over. If asked in the moment, I might say my run was no fun at all. However, once I'm home, and enjoying the sense of accomplishment, I look back on the run through rose coloured glasses. Which "interpretation" of my experience is right (because it's all interpretation, after all, filtered through the highly subjective environment of our mind)? Well, both. In fact, my sense of accomplishment may be all the higher, if I encountered challenging conditions.
Does it matter that I wasn't rapturous in the moments of the actual run? In fact, would the ex-post-facto enjoyment be less if the run itself was more enjoyable in real time?
Worth pondering.
Perhaps the answer is that we need to find the joy in the moments of the run itself, but the source of that real-time joy, in some cases, may be the knowledge that you will feel good afterward about the accomplishment.
The bottom line?--we do sports because they make us feel good, about ourselves, about life, and hopefully about the world.
Scientists apparently often use what's known as the "Experience Sampling Method" to conduct studies; a process by which participants in a study record their experiences at random moments, in real time. Apparently most people have a high propensity to overrate the happiness they experienced doing a particular activity, when asked after the fact, whereas their actual experience in real time rated lower along the way. The example Lucy gives in the book is recalling downhill ski days fondly, when, in actuality, those same days are cold, wet and frustrating in the moment.
Some psychologists think that how we remember things is more important than our real time experience. Others think that what we actually experience is more important.
I tend to think we ought to be "in the moment", as they say--which implies enjoying said moment. And yet...
Say, for example, I'm out for a run. It's a windy, cold day. I'm running into the wind. I feel defeated, and I can't wait for the run to be over. If asked in the moment, I might say my run was no fun at all. However, once I'm home, and enjoying the sense of accomplishment, I look back on the run through rose coloured glasses. Which "interpretation" of my experience is right (because it's all interpretation, after all, filtered through the highly subjective environment of our mind)? Well, both. In fact, my sense of accomplishment may be all the higher, if I encountered challenging conditions.
Does it matter that I wasn't rapturous in the moments of the actual run? In fact, would the ex-post-facto enjoyment be less if the run itself was more enjoyable in real time?
Worth pondering.
Perhaps the answer is that we need to find the joy in the moments of the run itself, but the source of that real-time joy, in some cases, may be the knowledge that you will feel good afterward about the accomplishment.
The bottom line?--we do sports because they make us feel good, about ourselves, about life, and hopefully about the world.
Thursday, April 29, 2010
The Unexpected Dangers of the Scale
If you're like me, you let the narrative in your head about your weight play too often, whether or not your weight is actually an issue you ought to be thinking about at all. This is not a good thing. We all know that, right? The narrative in our head is very unlikely to be helpful, even if we are trying to lose weight. Because mostly it's going to be sending us undermining negative messages.
In my own case, I recently had cause to see just how damaging my own internal monologue could be.
Just back from 9 weeks of no running and fantastic cross country skiing instead, I was feeling fit and good. Got up for my first run in more than two months, and decided (why, why, why?) that I'd get on the scale before I headed out. Where did those extra 4 pounds I didn't want come from? And why hadn't I noticed them? My clothes all fit the same. I felt strong. And so on. My mood slid off a cliff. Now my run wasn't about running, it was about, "I need to do this to get rid of wherever this weight I don't want came from." Even if, as my partner and friends pointed out, it may have come from the extra muscle I built during the xc ski season.
No matter, my internal monologue was loudly proclaiming about all sorts of things I shouldn't have done in the weeks previous, distracting me from the gorgeous sunny morning and how happy I ought to have been back in Central Park after months away.
Out the door, not one mile gone, I tripped, fell, gashed open my knee almost to the bone, went to the hospital, got stitches, couldn't run for 3 more weeks.
Would this have happened if I hadn't been battling with the internal voice? I can't say for sure. Yet...a piece of me knows that the accident would have been far, far less likely had I been focused on the run at hand.
I'm back to running finally, and being very careful. Not so much about the rocks and roots in my path (since I try to run on any strip of dirt I can), but about what the voice in my head is going on about. If I feel it edging into anything the least bit negative, I start telling myself positive things, out loud (okay, under my breath so people don't think I'm crazy running girl). Double bonus--the positive messages take hold on and off the road, and running feels like a privilege and a joy, after the voluntary and involuntary time off.
In my own case, I recently had cause to see just how damaging my own internal monologue could be.
Just back from 9 weeks of no running and fantastic cross country skiing instead, I was feeling fit and good. Got up for my first run in more than two months, and decided (why, why, why?) that I'd get on the scale before I headed out. Where did those extra 4 pounds I didn't want come from? And why hadn't I noticed them? My clothes all fit the same. I felt strong. And so on. My mood slid off a cliff. Now my run wasn't about running, it was about, "I need to do this to get rid of wherever this weight I don't want came from." Even if, as my partner and friends pointed out, it may have come from the extra muscle I built during the xc ski season.
No matter, my internal monologue was loudly proclaiming about all sorts of things I shouldn't have done in the weeks previous, distracting me from the gorgeous sunny morning and how happy I ought to have been back in Central Park after months away.
Out the door, not one mile gone, I tripped, fell, gashed open my knee almost to the bone, went to the hospital, got stitches, couldn't run for 3 more weeks.
Would this have happened if I hadn't been battling with the internal voice? I can't say for sure. Yet...a piece of me knows that the accident would have been far, far less likely had I been focused on the run at hand.
I'm back to running finally, and being very careful. Not so much about the rocks and roots in my path (since I try to run on any strip of dirt I can), but about what the voice in my head is going on about. If I feel it edging into anything the least bit negative, I start telling myself positive things, out loud (okay, under my breath so people don't think I'm crazy running girl). Double bonus--the positive messages take hold on and off the road, and running feels like a privilege and a joy, after the voluntary and involuntary time off.
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Woman Climbs High
How cool is it that not only has the first woman now summited all fourteen of the highest mountains in the world, but that she completed this amazing feat at the age of 44?
Oh Eun-sun Scales Annapurna
Oh Eun-sun Scales Annapurna
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
George Sheehan on Running Like a Girl
A link I am passing along to a wonderful essay from the inimitable George Sheehan:
http://www.georgesheehan.com/essays/essay29.html
http://www.georgesheehan.com/essays/essay29.html
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Giving Up
Yesterday I passed a t-shirt on a runner that said "never, never, never, give up." The slogan reminded me of a conversation I'd had the day before. I had just found out that two women I knew had "given up" on doing the big races they had signed up for a year in advance--one a double ironman and the other an ironman (projected to take place 10 months or so after her first son was born).
Give up.
Words are so much more powerful and slippery than we think. Those two words, in my mind (and I don't think I'm alone in this), have a pejorative ring to them. As in, she couldn't take the pain, or she wasn't up to the effort, etc...
I don't think they "gave up." The women "decided not to do" their races. A choice is not giving up; certainly not if it makes you happy, or at least happier than the alternative, which might be slogging through a relentlessly long race that you don't want to do, and don't have to do, and that, in the long run, is not about anything except your own desire to participate, or not.
Which brings me back to the t-shirt I saw (and had occasion to ponder during my next couple of loops around the park on my bike)--while I agree that we ought never (never, never) give up on things, that expression is meaningless until we fill in the context and content. Giving up, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. We are each our own beholder. We need to make the decisions that are right for us. If someone else labels our choice "giving up," that doesn't make it so. Not by a long shot.
The most important choice we have is to choose to make ourselves happy.
Choose happy!
Give up.
Words are so much more powerful and slippery than we think. Those two words, in my mind (and I don't think I'm alone in this), have a pejorative ring to them. As in, she couldn't take the pain, or she wasn't up to the effort, etc...
I don't think they "gave up." The women "decided not to do" their races. A choice is not giving up; certainly not if it makes you happy, or at least happier than the alternative, which might be slogging through a relentlessly long race that you don't want to do, and don't have to do, and that, in the long run, is not about anything except your own desire to participate, or not.
Which brings me back to the t-shirt I saw (and had occasion to ponder during my next couple of loops around the park on my bike)--while I agree that we ought never (never, never) give up on things, that expression is meaningless until we fill in the context and content. Giving up, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. We are each our own beholder. We need to make the decisions that are right for us. If someone else labels our choice "giving up," that doesn't make it so. Not by a long shot.
The most important choice we have is to choose to make ourselves happy.
Choose happy!
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