Become an Ordinary Athlete

'Cause all I wanna do is go the distance. Nobody's ever gone the distance with Creed, and if I can go that distance, you see, and that bell rings and I'm still standin', I'm gonna know for the first time in my life, see, that I weren't just another bum from the neighborhood.' - Rocky Balboa

Rocky Balboa lies on his bed the night before his fight with Apollo Creed. He can't sleep. He's filled with fear about the fight that waits for him tomorrow. He says this line to his girlfriend. He's not desperate to win and he's not afraid of taking a beating. He wants to prove himself to himself. He needs to prove he's more than "just another bum from the neighbourhood."

This is high drama, and events like this - if they happen outside the movies - are not the stuff of ordinary life. And yet, they are. Great art* is connected to the everyday, and Rocky's need to be competent and feel competent, is common to most people.

People want and need self-mastery. We need to feel competent. We need to be competent. Not perfect, not amazing, but competent. The world needs competent people. Competent people are rewarded - in all sorts of ways - for their skills and self-mastery.

What are the ingredients that make up competence? Surely one of them is the ability to exert your will to make your body tolerate physical discomfort.

This is not hubris. This is not machoism. This is a healthy mindset. A desire for self-mastery is an inherently balanced ambition. We can control only so much: there are people and forces in this world that seek to hurt, harm or disempower us. But this world we find ourselves in - with all of its unfairness and fickleness - still rewards people who do control what they can control. "Self-government" is how people referred to this in a bygone era. If that sounds like antiquated gibberish, then look beyond my verbiage to my argument: self-mastery and competence are still very relevant today. Let's turn again to the folk wisdom of Rocky Balboa:

"Let me tell you something you already know. The world ain’t all sunshine and rainbows. It’s a very mean and nasty place and I don’t care how tough you are it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain’t about how hard ya hit. It’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward. How much you can take and keep moving forward. That’s how the winning is done!" - Balboa, 2006.

Getting fit or staying fit can be your training ground in self-mastery. The act of exerting your will, and making your body subordinate to it, is powerful theatre. When you watch yourself do that, day-in-day-out, it changes you.

A few years back I was a recently unemployed 35-year-old. I was the primary breadwinner for my family - a wife and two daughters. Money was tight, uncertainty was high, and I was a little unmoored - who wouldn't be? In this period, I maintained my habit of daily exercise. Unlike many, I have the privilege of finding this enjoyable - I want to do it even though I don't have to. But there have been times when the black dog of depression has hounded me, and I have let the habit slip. So amidst the angst of unemployment, I knew that I needed to keep moving. I needed to have an outlet for my tension and - more importantly maybe? - I had to preserve the wherewithal to put mind over matter.

I have a strong memory from that time that captures the power of physical training as life theatre. I was bike riding in Kings Park (Perth, Western Australia) - doing repeats of some hills in the otherwise pancake-flat surrounds. I had been thinking and worrying about finding work. I was nearing the steepest hill in the park; a relatively steep and short climb that sits on the crest of the escarpment.

My thoughts went like this:

 “There is not much I can control right now, but I will control what I can control. And I am going to FLOG IT up this hill.”

Then I unleashed the beast, pushed as hard as I could for as long as I could, and got to the top gasping for air. That was a physical embodiment of my determination to do everything in my power to get a job and provide for my family.

I look back on that moment as one of a few turning points in my life. I replay that tape and tell myself the same thing again and again. And I recall hundreds of other (less significant) moments when I have drawn on the mental endowment of year-in year-out physical training to bear up under the garden variety psychological and physical strains of life. The discipline of maintaining fitness has helped enable growth in spiritual and emotional discipline. Exerting the will to keep going in a hard workout has helped me to resist the fight or flight urges that beset me in interpersonal conflict.  

Are weight loss and improved (physical) health your only reasons for consistently doing exercise you enjoy? If they are not powerful enough reasons to get you moving consistently, have you considered the opportunity before you to develop mental resilience and willpower? In this world where competence and self-mastery matter, becoming an ordinary athlete can help you prove yourself to yourself.

*The film: "Rocky" won an academy award - who knew?!