04/15/2016
Writing down your motives
People tend to show their better side to others and not show all the rest. The “better” is never universal for all though there are certainly some common features, it’s something specific for each one of us, but the main idea is to highlight the qualities which seem to be “good” and hide the ones which are “bad” according to current set of morals and beliefs. Often even if people admit some bad sides they would immediately try to add that to the “better list” or at least direct that way “it changes” or “it was worse before” or “I know I have to learn” etc, eventually showing themselves as someone who wants to change and makes efforts. Or even saying some worse things about themselves and instead of admitting they have been there forever and there’s no reason to think they would change, hey would be some sort of pride and saying “I am who I am”.
Everybody is who he is. The world is the world, the sun is the sun, my boxing glove is my boxing glove. But..
It’s highly important to be able to admit things without covering them with approval or justification immediately. To be able to find contradictions in own behavior and find what stands behind them. Ask questions, make mental and real experiments to see what’s going on.
I’ve heard a lot of opinions and attitudes towards competition and a wish to compete. Most of the time people would say “I don’t like competing” or “I’m into competing” and it makes a certain picture of them, but I realized that I had no idea what they were talking about and ironically some people don’t really know that themselves.
One person means “I want to prove myself”.. while other means “I want to overcome fears” while the strongest motivation of the third would be “I want to impress my boyfriend".
The “competition” consists of many things, each of them having a certain weight in the whole picture. And while positive motivations are usually emphasized by people, the negative are hidden. Really, who would want to admit that they are competing to impress their boyfriend or girlfriend?
I believe, if one doesn’t realize and admit what’s really behind their wish to compete, It will be much harder to develop, every time overcoming ego, throwing a lot of power to maintaining the false image of oneself for them and everybody else.
It’s interesting and very effective to make such an analysis of the whole “I like it” thing and write down both positive and negative motives.
For example, taking the whole picture into pieces and sectionalizing the reasons for “I like to spar, compete” could look somewhat like that:
"Good" reasons (one can put on social networks or tell others in the gym)
) A wish to get better at boxing, means to feel the long-lasting slow improvement which improves self-esteem and makes the certainty about slow but inevitable changes strong. Caused by perseverance and a wish to change my life to better ) A wish to enjoy the physical activity where one is not getting bored (eg when someone is easily bored in the gym doing the same things over and over) ) A wish to overcome the fear of being in front of other people seeing him in action ) A wish to overcome a fear to be injured and fear of pain ) A wish to develop specific qualities in oneself which they find enjoyable - pacing oneself, learning to control emotions, learning to think under pressure) A wish to change the body, develop the body reactions ) Fun workout ) For a girl - a wish to overcome the image of oneself which other people imposed on them - that a girl doesn’t have to be doing that, she should be a wife, a mother, a whoever but what she wants to be, caused by determination
Other reasons (not for social networks apparently)
) Ego for getting better. Trying to show oneself that one is getting better in a short period of time, and show it to other people. Impress others with improvements ) A wish to hurt ) A wish to impress people around (specific people and some unknown crowd in general) caused by ego. The movement, the way body looks for others. Impress with good looking body. ) A wish to prove that one is not useless caused by low self-esteem, self-pity and some unknown spectators who have some unpleasant opinion about them ) A wish to overcome the image of oneself which other people imposed on them - that a girl doesn’t have to be doing that, she should be a wife, a mother, a whoever but what she wants to be, caused by self-pity only and not the wish to actually change the emotional state by that ) Actions based on idea that if one has done it before, they should proceed because it's faster to get results and look better in something they've done than in something new without actually thinking if they want to change or do something else) A wish to impress specific person (boyfriend/girlfriend, coach, someone else at the gym), caused by sexual desire (even very subtle), positive attitude, affection, a wish to prove anything) Boredom ) Force of habit – when the idea of dropping it makes everything look like there’s nothing else to do) Trying to find someone to tell you you are doing well and having a pat on the head) Trend reasons - someone else goes or it's what a group of people does, it's cool to do that ) Loneliness - no friends or sexual partner, and it makes one look for them at the gym
More or less, most of the people have those all things, depending of personal character traits. I do not believe people who will say they are not driven by ego in many parts of their training. Sometimes the “-“ motivations help in some period of time and become working motives but eventually they have to be get lower otherwise they will affect too many areas in learning.
Ego will bring to lots of consequences like quitting completely if haven’t achieved the result in a short time (which is often very hard), or make the person injured while thinking about how he/she looks on the ring rather than thinking about the best defense techniques, it will make overestimate their abilities and make them blind or bump them into the reverse of the medal - thinking that they are incapable and getting angry at themselves or the teachers.
If one has a lot of “other reasons“ in him and they are sectionalized and written down, it’s so much easier to see how it affects the whole performance. Seeing how much there is to gain with the clarity about not being able to achieve huge results in short time. Being able to expect very slow changes in months, more in years, and it makes a person concentrated on the couple of things which can be improving at the very moment, day after day, and then switching to something else. Not 5 or 10 things, 1 or 2, because it’s very hard to take more at a time. Take one thing, do it no matter what, try another. Get back to basics again and again without thinking about looking fancy.
Feeling self-pity being beaten up again and again? Feeling not enough encouraged and patted on the head by the coach? Trying to constantly compare oneself to others to look better? Instead of looking for approval go and look into the issue which caused it, make a plan how to change it. Get better training hard instead of looking for someone’s mistakes. Face the whole package of things you have in yourself, admit it, find it’s place in your life and start changing them one by one.
