I was reminded of the illustration of the iceberg in a talk my friend Kim Lloyd did at the Spurling Seminar.
The illustration goes something like this:
When you look at an iceberg, all you see is what is sticking out of the water. You don’t think of all that is underneath the surface. For all you know is what you see, a little ice floating atop the water. But from that view and that view alone you are missing the real grandeur of the iceberg. For you would have to dive under the water to appreciate its full size and magnitude in all its beauty.
The part of the iceberg you see is the outcome, but the part you don’t see is all the hard work that goes into achieving what you see.
I know you didn’t need me to explain that to you, but I don’t want to assume anything.
What You See
In our digital age, there is never a shortage of people or things to compare ourselves to, the magic of the internet has brought the best of everything and everyone right into our homes. No longer do you have to feel like a failure or less of a person only at the checkout line when you go grocery shopping once or twice a week. Now you can feel that same disappointment any time you want, intentional or not.
Now here is the thing. When we look at all these great people and things you don’t think, “O wow that person must have put in lots of hours. Sacrifices personal and short-term happiness and gain for them to achieve “X.” ”
No, we most likely think something like this:
“That person was lucky to have such great DNA.”
“They had a lot of things go their way.”
“If I had the same opportunity I could do that too.”
Minimizing a person’s achievements does nothing positive for us, other than fill us with more hate and resentment, causing us to focus on what we don’t have and keeping us in this unmotivated downward spiral. That only leads to the same thing. Us doing nothing about it and feeling shitty about ourselves.
What To Do
When we see something we don’t have or someone doing something great that is not us. Most of the time we resent it only because it brings attention to an area we are not great at or to something we don’t have.
The funny thing is we never cared about having a new car until one of our close friends got one, we never cared about running a 5k until we saw someone post about it online,
The first thing we should do is stop and think, “is this important to me.”
If “no” then congratulate that person and move on with your beautiful life.
If you find that it is something you do care about or a new desire you just realized you have then taken some time to dig deeper, look under the surface, and see if it is indeed something you want and something you can feasibly accomplish.
If yes and yes then start taking steps to achieve it.
Your Fitness Sherpa,
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