Mpowher Athlete

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Find Value in Who You Are

Growing up, my medals were hung around the top edge of my room, attached by thumbtacks.

Senior Year of High School, my friend hung hers on her arms. What seemed like hundreds of medals hanging from her arms, stretched out wide, in her senior photos.

My 2016 Track & Field Team wore our National Champion Shirts for what seemed like a week straight after we won our title.

As athletes, we wore our accolades, our medals, our trophies like armor. Like proof of what we had always been working for. We were proud of what we had done, and every medal was reinforcement that we were good enough, and our hard work was worth it.

Can you relate?

There's nothing quite like the high of winning an event or game or championship. Even smaller than that, the joy that comes from sinking a 3 pointer or scoring a goal is sometimes indescribable. For me, it always came after a big triple jump. I'd bound out of the sand just feeling like "this was it." I'd run over to the official and hear him read off the mark, and if it was big, the joy I felt was insurmountable. I'd look over to my parents, at their smiles, my Dad with his hands in the air, and at that moment, I would feel so fulfilled.  So worthy. 

Of course, we all find joy from doing well. It's human nature. And there's nothing wrong with being excited when you accomplish something after working so hard.

But what I have learned after many years of chasing mark after mark, is that no matter how many of those marks I hit, the high fades. And after the high is gone, and the fulfillment of the one accomplishment is gone, what's left?

When you ask yourself that question, this conversation becomes about so much more than winning.  

It is about how, as athletes, we often tie our self-worth to our accomplishments. 

We feel confident in ourselves when we win. We feel worth and purpose when we are performing. But what about outside of the gym? Do we feel worthy when we aren't competing? Do we feel fulfilled even when we don't perform well?

I would argue that for most athletes, the answer at some point is no.  

We find most of our worth not in who we are, but in what we do.

Why? It really is classical conditioning at it's finest. As a young athlete, if you perform something wrong, you get corrected and told how to change it. If you perform something right, you get praised and rewarded. We are classically conditioned from a young age to feel better about ourselves when we perform well and to feel worse when we perform poorly. Not because we are told losing is bad, but because the amount of positive reinforcement we get when we win is so much more powerful and impactful than the "You still did great" we hear when we lose.

Over time, that praise and reward makes you feel good. Eventually (and maybe in no time at all), that recognition and feel-good feeling become about more than just performing a movement correctly. It can bleed into how you feel about yourself as a person.  

We begin to tie our worth to what we do and the outcome of it. But our worth - your worth - is so much more than what you do. You are worthy because of who you are.

But how do we alter our sense of worth? The cheers from your coaches, the roar of the crowd, the smiles on your parents' faces...You don't get that when you hold a door open for someone or when you are kind to a stranger. We don't get the loud, adrenaline pumping, positive reinforcement for being good people.

The first step is acknowledging that you need to have a louder voice in your head than any crowd you've ever heard. You have to be your number one fan, reinforcing your beliefs and thoughts inside of your head. 

The next step is naming all the things you love about yourself.

Not anything that you do, but things you love about who you are.

"I am a hard worker. I am a great daughter. I am kind to others."

These are constant things. They don't change whether you win or lose. They aren't dependent on what you do or how you perform. They are a part of who you are

By shifting our focus to who we are instead of what we do, we can begin to feel worth and accomplishment no matter how a game or tournament turns out.  

That's what we all want in the long run, right? To feel great about ourselves, no matter what? To be able to walk off of a field or away from a sport with our heads high and our hearts full. This is only possible if we begin to shift our sense of self-worth to who we are instead of what we do or how we perform.  

If we can do that, when a championship is over, when a season ends, when a career comes to an end, we still feel proud and worthy and happy. Life still feels full.