Authenticating Yourself

Authenticating yourself to computer robots has become a regular part of our digital lives, for those who partake. Authenticating yourself to yourself, however, may be a less common experience.

You know. Being honest about who you are or what you are doing. 

Being brutally honest with oneself about oneself is important for success at just about anything.

I’m Winning!

For any athlete, that ongoing conversation you carry during competition, or training for that matter, is the basis of much of your performance. Mental dexterity is important in bringing yourself up to the task (“I’ve got this”), or beating yourself before you start (“No way I can beat that guy”). 

Managing our internal dialogues is a skill and an art developed through experience.

I was once climbing an especially arduous mountain road and the struggle was real. Nothing felt good and I was trying to mentally find a way back from my current ugly attitude.

I noticed that whenever I looked up the road at the seemingly interminable climb, my enthusiasm flagged. When I focused on the road a few feet ahead, however, my perception of the situation improved ever so slightly.

Any port in a storm, so I kept my eyes down and was glad I checked in with myself. Funny the things you can learn about yourself by regularly checking in.

Going Outside

While I am by nature more than happy to train alone, I still enjoy the rich dynamics of working out with others. Competition bubbles up naturally in the presence of two or more athletes, which makes for a refreshing experience and the miles fly by.

Being around younger athletes (at my age, there are few my age or older) affords me lots of opportunities to see how the next generations problem-solve athletic challenges. 

Alas, with the advent of so many technical improvements to the athlete’s existence, so many solutions seem to be perceived to be outside of the person. Some new gadget, monitor, computer that is sure to fix that problem.

My experience has been that performance issues are usually inside of the engine and computer (body and mind). Looking for solutions outside ourselves is more akin to chasing symptoms. Good for making money for someone else but delivering little lasting value to the consumer. The open market is notorious for constantly making new and improved versions of current solutions, so there is always an update to buy when the old one needs replacing.

Authenticating Yourself

There is a relaxing instrumental song titled “What you need isn’t there” by Hammock. While I like the music, the title says so much to me about our modern society. When we go to a non-solution for a solution, why are we surprised we do not achieve success? Seems obvious, yet here we are chasing things outside our selves and ignoring the idea that we might hold the key to our challenges.

When we know who and what we are, not what we pretend to be to get along with others (groups do a terrible job of defining individuals), we find fulfillment as persons. How you define your Self is wholly up to you.

“That is, to be ourselves causes us to be exiled by many others, and yet to comply with what others want causes us to be exiled from ourselves.”
― Clarissa Pinkola Estés