The person you really need to impress

People tend to do a lot to impress other people.

Nice clothes, fancy house, awesome vehicle, etc. At the gym we see it sometimes too - the strutting, the little noises, the glances in the mirror, lifting maybe a little more that they should to see if that cutie over there notices (both boys and girls do this). I see lots of Facebook posts that might be about trying to impress someone out there.

Conversations I have heard and been in can certainly gravitate towards listing accomplishments in order to impress. When you meet a new person, often ‘What do you do?’ is a standard question to sort them in your mind as to where they are ranked in the invisible hierarchy of society. Doctor? Impressed. NASA Astronaut? Very impressed. Maybe there are jobs in your head you don’t feel are impressive. It’s quite personal.

People post race results, training results, all sorts of stuff online and maybe it’s to impress. I tend to do it to inspire others, but we all have our reasons. One of the problems is: nobody cares about you. I remember when one of my coaches said that to me. It seemed so harsh but I had to concede that he was right. It’s not that people are mean or don’t like you but on a daily, hourly, minute by minute basis people are not busy caring about you. They aren’t even thinking about you unless you are right in front of them.

People care about what they are doing right now in that moment. I can pretty much guarantee, the people in the gym aren’t thinking about how much you can lift, what you are doing or how you look because they are too busy wondering how they look to you. They wonder if people are looking at them, judging them - stuff like that. People are thinking about what they are doing, how they are doing it and what is next for them; so they don’t have time to be thinking about you.

So what if instead of wasting our time trying to impress people who don’t care about us, we spent some time trying to impress the person you really need to impress: yourself. What if you set up the next day or week to impress yourself? Set up a calendar or schedule that had you start by creating the perfect day for you. What time would you get up? Would you exercise first in the morning or after work? What would you eat? What things could you do all day that would make you happy or that would have you impressed?

When we do things that impress ourselves our confidence goes up. We feel better, act better and start to attract awesomeness. If you compare yourself to others or allow other people’s opinion of you to matter you set yourself up to fail. The same goes with trying to be perfect or defining your self worth by your performance all the time. That’s a roller coaster you do not want to be on.

This doesn’t have to be complicated, you can start small. Be on time for things for a day by just planning to be five minutes early for everything. Take note each time you succeed and smile to celebrate the win. Next, be decisive about things in a way that supports you. Say ‘no’ when you need to, have a healthy meal instead of a lousy one, go to bed on time instead of watching a little more television. Decide when you are going to exercise and stick with it. Set goals using actions instead of results and then celebrate the success of the action regardless of the outcome.

That might mean you decide to go for a 40 minute run instead of setting a goal to run 8 km in 40 minutes. The first one is action based and easily a success, the other has risk: weather,terrain, possible body issues, etc. and it is open to failure. Running for the time of 40 minutes is very easily a success, no matter how far you go. It’s easy to self criticize, but instead,look for the good stuff you do each day and work to impress yourself!

Happy Training!

Scott