Cyclcross is hard. Photo by Angel Santos (Unsplash)
‘It never gets easier, you just get better’, I’ve heard variations on this theme
many times… As a cyclist the most common variation is a quote that is attributed to Greg LeMond: “It doesn’t get easier, you just get faster.” For those who don’t follow professional cycling, LeMond is considered one of the greatest American cyclists of all time. Wikipedia has an easy to read biography of him.
Challenges
We often come up against challenges in our daily lives. These challenges might be related to doing or learning something new, or it might be dealing with someone we find difficult, or maybe it’sBridge to cross. Photo by Chin le Duc (Unsplash)
doing something we don’t particularly enjoy, or maybe there’s something else you might be finding challenging.
We sometimes have the tendency to look around and think that others have it all mastered and find it easy. You know that person you might be competing against, orDoes she have it all worked out? How do you know? Photo by Jonathon Daniels (Unsplash)
working with, or maybe it’s someone else at work or school, or maybe it’s someone you sort-of know, or someone you admire… Surely they’ve got it all together and sorted out. Everything is all working out for them!
And sometimes we think we’ve mastered something but the next moment we feel like a failure because what we think we’ve mastered doesn’t work…
Cyclists work hard and get faster, stronger, more confident…
The LeMond quote is often used by cyclists when we’re racing and and training. We sometimes think that the smaller, lighter, or stronger riders find racing easier. Our evidence is that they are doing it easier is that they are moving faster. We might try to explain this by saying that they are lighter and stronger. But in reality the riders that are riding faster, while racing A Grade or at the professional level, but they are working just as hard as those racing in lower grades. They are likely to have more experience and be able to use their skills and knowledge more effectively to their benefit. They might also have the ability to make it look easy to their competitors…
Do you look at others who compete in your chosen sport, or perform in another activity and think you can’t get there? What if you had the same amount of training, the same coaches, the same team supporting you and the same desire and motivation? And sometimes, the same amount of money being spent?
Social Media…???
I wonder how often we look through social media and think the people we follow have everything all sorted… But I wonder how many of those people you are following are curating their feed so heavily that it looks like they have it together? Social media doesn’t always show you the effort that might go into getting to a particular point… and I’m not just referring to the number of photos that were taken to get the ‘perfect’ one, or the number of filters applied to the image. (See this story about a young girl who drastically changed her Instagram feed.) How much effort has someone put into their business, or their sense of self, or self development, or into helping others, or into contributing to the wellbeing of their friends or family, or strangers?
Real Life
I wonder how often we look at someone in the street and make a judgement that is based on one aspect of someone rather than suspending judgement until we understand the whole person? What do we think when we see people in the street? Is this helpful to them? Is it helpful to us?
What about me?
How often do we judge ourselves in this way? How often do we judge ourselves harshly or unfairly? How often do we look at how far we’ve come? How much stronger or faster or skilled or knowledgeable are we now? How much more able are we to manage challenges?
Are we more contented with where we are at now than we have been? How far have we really come? Can we celebrate these achievements? Can we notice and accept that we are ok, worthwhile and valuable in spite of the challenges we might have experienced, and because of the challenges we’ve conquered?
What do we see when we look in the mirror? Photo by Oleg Sergeichik (Unsplash)
If you would like to learn more and would like to have a chat with me about how I might be able to assist you to shift your mindset, please contact me here or you can go to the Enhance Life Psychology Facebook page and contact me via messenger.
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all sorted… But I wonder how many of those people you are following are curating their feed so heavily that it looks like they have it together? Social media doesn’t always show you the effort that might go into getting to a particular point… and I’m not just referring to the number of photos that were taken to get the ‘perfect’ one, or the number of filters applied to the image. (See this story about a young girl who drastically changed her Instagram feed.) How much effort has someone put into their business, or their sense of self, or self development, or into helping others, or into contributing to the wellbeing of their friends or family, or strangers? 