THE PROCESS

I feel as though it has become increasingly easy to forget things today. A somewhat effortless task enabling us to neglect the important and dismiss the relevant. An ignorant and unappreciative disregard of where we came from and what actually got us here in the first place. It’s frequently overlooked that there is a continuous action, a series of changes taking place in a definitive manner that allows us to respond and attain what we desire. A “process.” Our perspective on how we train becomes overwhelmingly outcome based instead of effort based. Eventually we all need to wake up, take a step back, and realize that the product ceases to exist without the process.

It is inevitable that as our ability during training increases so does our obsession to become more fixated on the arbitrary. We undoubtedly develop this “fetish” and begin to attach ourselves to a specific metric, movement, or piece of equipment. Being able to lift 700lbs, our completion time on a marathon, or our ranking in a competition have somehow become the only gauge of our capability. They are convoluted, overemphasized and essentially restrictive causing us to only refer to our capability during a certain point in time. The trap is thus, that we tend to identify with ourselves only when we are at our absolute best. We forget what got us here, what we endured and the lessons that we learned within that process that enabled us to become capable. In turn, the importance is then placed on the number or whatever bullshit measurement we use rather than the actual effort that’s used for the task at hand. The “product” or the “outcome” becomes a thing of worship, as our well-being, confidence and sanity are used as it’s tribute. We begin to migrate from the initial goal becoming nomads without a destination only to blindly fall into a seemingly endless trap of uncertainty and insecurity. It incites us to disregard our trails which tell a story allowing ourselves and others to use as path for future endeavors. We begin to repeatedly fail not knowing why, getting weaker, slower and more fatigued. We overlook that our current condition is the consequence of the current process that we have in place. If my behavior dictates that I continually do the same thing without acknowledging that process A got me to result B, then I stagnate. My process and effort within that process should then be THE indicator of what I need to do or not do each and every time I decide to train. In the end what you set out to do doesn’t matter, the more vital point is how it affected you and what you discovered psychologically and emotionally within that moment. You have to be completely willing to sacrifice yourself to the effort that you’re putting in, to put it all on the line, so you can be reminded of what you could be become if you applied yourself to the task at hand. We should relish the challenges and hardships that we experience and use it as a tool for self-discovery instead of using the ends as a surrogate for our identity.

I feel like I’ve circumnavigated around this shit storm many times before, and till this day continue to do so. From my own self-reflection I’ve come to recognize distraction as the facilitator and subscribing to it only disrupts the process. I’ve since then have habitually tried to change my behavior regarding this, realizing that our distractions define our limitations. The sooner we discontinue our subscription to distraction the quicker we begin to regain our focus on what actually matters. The effort, the hardship, the pain and the lessons that stem from the three.