'I get what I deserve'
It’s inside of you
Stuff happens, things don’t go as planned, adversity strikes at the worst time, and now it’s up to you to figure out how to piece the broken puzzle back together.
So often in life it’s not what happens to us but how we act next that determines the quality of our lives.
“But professor, surely you aren’t suggesting that our minds determine the objective quality of experiences?”
Not entirely, but instead of thinking about how the mind bends reality, instead think about where you want the control element to be in your life.
The person who complains, makes excuses, never takes responsibility, they surrender their ability to control any situation. No matter if it’s good or bad, they simply throw up their hands and decide that ‘this happens TO ME’ and therefore it’s ‘out of my control.’
What I want you to consider is that no matter what happens to you on the outside, you have the power on the inside to take control of your actions and reactions to any situation life throws your way.
The Locus of Control
Yesterday, Tribal Training head coach
, myself, and a few of my teammates went hard on this idea in our monthly ‘Tribal Cafe’ podcast (MUST LISTEN: Apple / Spotify).We used this diagram as a way to discuss how endurance training creates a foundation to live as a ‘high agency’ individual in the world. What we’re doing is moving away from the external locus of control, described about as the person who makes excuses and never takes responsibility, and towards an internal locus of control.
Take a look at these statements and you’ll see why the internal is the way forward if you desire meaning, purpose, and the freedom to live life on your terms
I get what I deserve vs. I never get what I deserve
I make things happen vs. Why Me?
I control my destiny vs. My fate is decided
My fault vs. Not my mistake
I CAN vs. I CAN’T
The importance of taking on responsibility becomes brightly identified when you put the two side by side.
And it’s this acceptance of responsibility that allows you to act and react in positive, constructive, creative, and solutions based ways to any adversity life throws you ways.
It’s how you truly make lemonade from the lemons of life.
The power of training
Now how does athletic training help move you from the external to the internal?
Afterall, we all have good reasons to give into the excuses, and let’s be real, a lot of times the excuses are valid and GOOD. But that’s the the argument here. It’s on what to do next and what affects happiness and purpose.
Here’s how training makes it all makes sense.
The brutal honesty of the contest, of competition, forces each participant to come to grips with the truth of the outcome. Win or lose, there’s always a lesson on how to improve for the next game. This is true for each training session as well, along to the way to the contest. Good or bad, there’s always something to be learned.
If I determine that everything is out of my control, I’m going to be a victim to the circumstances. I’ll give into excuses that I ‘can’t train’ in certain weather, at certain times of the day, in certain gyms, not on tired legs, not when the family visits, not when I’m on vacation.
Pretty soon you’ve surrendered so much agency that you only train when it’s easy.
Now when the day comes to ‘test yourself’ your mind latches onto all the external reasons you failed to perform.
The weather sucked that day
The officials didn’t organize properly
That hotel room bed was too hard for me to sleep well
BLAH BLAH BLAH. You can see how WEAK this mindset is.
You’ve become a victim to a pattern of giving away your ability to breakthrough adversity with your agency.
You don’t creatively solve the problems in your schedule.
You don’t battle against the weather on bad days.
You don’t have courage to move through fear of the unknown and try something new.
You have a CLOSED HEART.
The Takeaway
Whether in training or life, it’s up to you to determine if you have the power or not.
But in order to gain the freedom, you need to accept the responsibility. When things go bad take ownership and instead of lamenting on how things could be different RESOLVE to make them better right now through your action. When things go well remain humble and give gratitude.
Sports are powerful in helping us feel when we have agency. When I trail run through a thunderstorm I gain a spiritual win over the environment, that my determination to endure the elements means I get to live in the gains of completing my training session despite a great excuse to ‘skip it.’
So when it comes to your training, start to notice when you begin to make excuses, when you begin to surrender your agency, and your ability to control the situation, because it’s easier to simply give in.
THIS IS YOUR CHANCE TO TRULY TRAIN THE SPIRIT.
Punch through, find a solution, who cares if it’s messy. It’s not QUITTING.
The more you do that in the gym, the easier it gets to transfer that locus of control to others areas.
The answer is simple really, because you begin to feel disgust towards the excuses that force you to give away your agency and you start identifying them far more easily in yourself. Then you start to notice how EVERYONE ELSE has easy excuses they love to fall back on, and it makes you more resolved than ever to not live your life with that weakness as the compass.
Take ownership
Take on responsibility
Claim the mantle of agency
Act towards your destiny with your intention
Happy Training Friends