Build a Circle of High Quality Humans
Why succeeding in sport & life is largely due to who you surround yourself with.
Slightly more broad post this week! We’re getting into the community aspect of sport and how this also applies to life in general. It’s a bit about how our best laid plans fall by the wayside, how that can be a great thing and the community we build around ourselves who help us manage these curve balls!
I suck at asking for help, you probably do too
I’m making a fairly safe bet that the people who read these online musings of mine are a bit “Type A”… Which is a newly discovered phrase for me over the last year or so. However, triathletes and more broadly amateur athletes tend to fall into this category. The short version is that people who can be described as a bit Type A are generally goal oriented, hard driving and extremely dedicated to whatever they do. Sound familiar? Yeah, figured that may resonate.
That all sounds great though, right? Well yeah those are the positive traits of us hard driving types. The downside that seems to be present in all high performers; radical self reliance, or in more plain language… We don’t like asking for help & think we need to be able to function as self sufficiently as possible without needing to rely on others. Again, this can be both a gift and a curse, from personal experience it’s weighted more heavily in the “curse” part of the equation.
I’m regularly overwhelmed by everything I need to do, I still get them done and to an extremely high standard, however, this causes frequent bouts of burnout, stress, anxiety and most upsettingly for someone like me, fatigue… Crippling fatigue. The kind of fatigue that causes you to constantly drag yourself out of bed rather than leaping out with energy levels you deserve to have given how much effort you put into everything you do.
This is so common amongst those of us who find ourselves enamoured with endurance sport, the more people I know who love Tri, Running, Cycling, Swimming or any other endurance activity will know the obsession that creeps in. The clear headspace these activities offer, being outside and moving for long stretches of time. It feels so innately human compared to a lot of our modern world, it feels back to basics in the best possible way. It can be a recipe for obsession & we then try to attach goals to everything we do because that’s how we’re hard wired. This in turn puts pressure onto a thing we love doing which leads to, you guessed it… Stress. I’ve written more about removing goals & slowing down here if you’re interested.
So, what am I getting at? Well, all of this often means we plan meticulously and have a solid “fool proof” plan to get us where we want to go, to race the events we want to experience and achieve times and finish lines may other can only dream of! However, we all know that the best laid plans, especially those around sport are bound to change and experience turbulence along the way.
Those of us who fall into this Type A personality can be easily thrown if our high standards are not met, this can result in some quite damaging bouts of anxiety, stress and overwhelm. The kicker… We also suck at asking for help because of that radical self reliance element to our personalities. Doh! Talk about a catch 22!
This is where others come in, your community, tribe, circle… Whatever you call them, they are the people who you know you can rely on and you truly value their counsel.
You need good people in your corner
You need help in most things you do in life, whether you think you do or not. That’s something I’ve been learning more and more over recent years, yes I can accomplish a tonne of stuff on my own fulled by caffeine and serious bouts of overwhelm and anxiety, however, leaning on others for help alleviates at least the need for anxiety and maybe a little of the overwhelm!
A great example of the essential nature of community is my relationship with my coach. Leaning on my already great friendship I have with my tri coach has enabled me to understand training better and Dan being the awesome guy he is just seems to love developing others in any way he can.
Through this relationship I have with my coach I have been able to tap into his knowledge which has been an enormous growth accelerator, I know how to train smart rather than just hard, I know how the different aerobic and anaerobic systems work in the body, how my training cycles complement each other. Most importantly though, just being completely honest with him about what I want to achieve no matter how crazy it sounds!
That last part is the key value of having high quality humans in your circle, you develop deep and meaningful friendships with people who want to see you grow & will be there for you when you miss the mark to help pick you back up. Now, I know this sounds like every other self improvement guru talking… But bear with me because maybe I’m about to give you a new insight here, maybe it’s kinda sport specific, but I think it’s the secret sauce for building a circle of great humans who you can cheer on, and will cheer you on in return. You need to be willing to make a mistake & trust someone who may not be worthy of that trust.
Before Dan started coaching me, I got to know him a little as my the head coach of the tri club I’m part of. I love enthusiastic & passionate people, I thrive off their energy because I’m also that way inclined. Dan is one of those people and I immediately enjoyed his company. When I asked if he would coach me 1-2-1 I only had a loose tie with him and I knew I needed to invest in the relationship to better understand if it was a fit.
This is where being willing to make a mistake comes in, you have to start any relationship in good faith and understand that sometimes failure will mean getting burned. However, if you learn from each time you get it wrong, you know how to pick better candidates for those high quality people. My example of picking Dan for 1-2-1 coaching all those months ago was based on my gut feeling, and that’s what being willing to make mistakes allows you to develop. It’s simple but not easy, you have to fail a bunch and trust the wrong people before you develop a good “gut feel” for people.
Thankfully these days, my gut is more right than it is wrong, I get a good feeling about someone and generally that’s the right call. However, this took years of getting it wrong and learning from those experiences. I still get it wrong, just less often and you will too. But you have to be willing to fail and learn from it, only then do you get the benefits. The great part of this, every time you get it right, you add another great human to your circle and they can help act as a short cut to better relationships! They can sense check your gut as an invested but more objective outsider, it becomes a flywheel.
This all culminates into when you get a good feeling about someone, you can be 100% open and honest with them, developing lasting and close ties. Real friendships, ones where you can say “Hey mate, I qualified for the world champs but it's only 7 days after another full distance race, is that possible?!” and that friend says; “ok awesome, sounds like we’ve got work to do!”. Even when you think it might be the wrong thing, you can fully trust in another persons judgement, you can fallback on someone else’s belief in you. You no longer have to shoulder the whole burden and self doubt that creeps in with these big life moments. You share the burden and trust in your cheerleaders!
Sharing the burden
That last point, trusting in your cheerleaders. It won’t always work out, but when you’re in doubt and can’t figure it out for yourself you have others who can share that weight with you. It helps you build confidence in your choices, keeps you heading in the directions you want to be heading in and most importantly gives you others to share in yours and their successes. Because after all, what’s the point of doing things if you don’t have others to share it with?
I hope you already have your circle of awesome humans, but if not, don’t wait to start building it! Start today, find the people who enjoy what you do and be willing to get it wrong a bunch knowing that on the other side is a community you will wonder how you got this far without!