There’s no denying it’s a cliché, but recently I’ve found that I’m having to remind myself of the above on an almost daily basis. The problem I’ve personally found at the moment, is that it feels like the temptation to compare is coming at me from all sides. I’ll break it down for you…
We all know that social media, Instagram in particular, can be a large source of stress for people, and I very much include myself in that. If you want a break down of my thoughts on the social media culture within CrossFit, click here.
The thing that’s been affecting me more recently has actually been a comparison with my pre-injury self. I do a session, and numbers that used to be manageable, now feel like I’m lifting the world. I look back at videos of lifts, best performances, or qualifiers, and beat myself up for even getting injured in the first place, for putting my progress back so much, for being so irresponsible, for not sorting my back issues sooner, and letting them escalate.
Obviously, none of these thoughts are helpful. I can’t help where I am. I can’t change what happened, or speed anything up by dwelling on where I ‘could’ have been by now if I hadn’t got injured. I think that’s almost the hardest thing about injury. On this occasion, hard work won’t make it happen sooner. It won’t make it happen quicker. I can only meet myself where I’m at and try to make each day better. But that realisation didn’t happen overnight. At first, I was in denial about my injury, thinking that it was just a niggle and I’d wake up one morning and feel totally fine. Accepting that this was serious, and going to be a long process, was the first stage.
I’ve mentioned before about the psychological side of injury (see athletic identity). But one that I wasn’t expecting was how difficult I’d find it to trust my body again. I question myself a lot now. I struggle to commit to big lifts frequently. I don’t think I’ve ever bailed so much on lifts as I have done in the last few months. I’m worried that if I get under the clean, but not under enough, I’ll hurt my wrists (if you know, you know). I’ll have 5-4-3-2-1 programmed at increasingly heavy weights and hit a solid double. Add a mere 2.5 kg for the single and boom. My head is gone. It’s a huge learning process. I’m constantly trying to balance the perfectionistic expectation that I put on myself of where I shoulda/woulda/coulda been right now, with the sport-psychology-graduate rational side of me that tells says that I can’t change it, and that I just need to keep with the process of putting one foot in front of the other.
Talking with my coach the other week, after yet another mini breakdown, he highlighted that what I should be comparing to is where I was 6 months ago. Back then, I was ‘testing’ my back out with a 30kg overhead squat, and there was a plethora of movements I still couldn’t do due to the pain on extension (arching) of my lower back. Today I’m back incorporating all movements back into training, and I’ve been pretty much back to full training for the last 3 months. When it’s put like that, I almost can’t believe how quickly it's happened. The fact that in those 3 months, I’ve PBd, endured several gruelling and lonely sessions, and had to do it whilst living on my own, in the middle of a global pandemic, is pretty incredible. I’m proud of myself for that. I just couldn’t see any of it because I was too busy thinking about what I’d lost in the 6 months prior.
August, 2020
So, my message here is this: whilst we all know by now that comparing yourself to the highlight reel of Instagram isn’t helpful for anyone, make sure that you aren’t beating yourself up with your past self. When you’re struggling, remember how far you’ve come, from your lowest point, not where you were when all things were fine and dandy. We are stronger and more resilient than we give ourselves credit for.