Be The Best at Getting Better
A favorite coach and author of mine to follow is Brad Stulberg. He recently wrote a post about how to be the best at getting better. It’s an interesting concept – how do high performers keep improving, learning and pushing themselves? It’s a question I’ve asked myself many times.
He outlined 8 key take-ways to his process, but there was one in particular that resonated with me –diversify your Identity.
There’s a lot of pressure to go ALL IN. To get specific early, and to spend every waking moment devoted to perfecting your chosen ‘thing.’ But, according to Stulberg and his colleagues – David Epstein, and his book Range first come to mind – I think that ‘all in’ type of thinking can lead to burnout, and stifling our passions instead of building into them.
Since the beginning of my running career I have felt this pressure – to live, breath, eat, sleep and think all things running. There was this accepted belief that you weren’t really a professional athlete until you could nap during the day, plan your life around running and get paid to do it. If you’re serious about something – running in this case - I needed to devote my full attention to it. This has never worked for me.
When I first started running, I was 25, getting my PhD in neuroscience and physiology. I was working 70+ hours a week and trying to dip my toes into trail and ultra running. I signed my first contract with The North Face in-between experiments in the corridors of my lab.
When I started winning races, I was balancing a new job teaching at a small college. When I got injured, I wrote a Ted Talk and gave it at CU boulder, I got a book deal and started writing my book while I was traveling, racing and training in Europe. I started a coaching business, got a certification in sports psychology and started a small business. All these interests and projects have added to my excitement to run, train and push myself to be my best. If I didn’t have these interests to diversify myself and my energy, I believe I would have suffered from burnout very early on in my career.
It's like making a pie – although there’s an accepted recipe and instructions to follow to make a good pie (like being a pro runner), each ingredient is different and equally important for that pie to come tougher. For me, having different parts of my identity is like each ingredient to that pie recipe – if I forget the baking soda (or add too much) the pie isn’t going to taste very good. So, I make sure to nourish and add to my identity outside of running, so I can be the best runner I can be and, as Brad Stulberg puts it, be the best at getting better.
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