When was the last time you said “I can’t do that”? If it’s a phrase that pops into your head regularly, then it’s a good idea to try and reframe your thinking around what you’re capable of.
So often, our default position is a self limiting one – we start out thinking that something isn’t possible and then work our way to a position of it being possible. We see this all the time in terms of how we view certain activities and how we refer to them. If you tell a friend, who isn’t aware of your Sport Walking ambitions, that you’re planning to take on an ultramarathon, chances are their reaction will be “you’re mad” or “that’s crazy”.
There’s no question this is partly down to conditioning in our lives today but it’s also probably a naturally occurring phenomenon in us, quite possibly dating back to times when life was far more perilous. Nowadays, conditioning will often come from things we see and hear – like in the news, where sports that aren’t mainstream and which ask of participants, something significantly challenging are almost always framed as ‘extreme’.
On the whole, life in modern society is quite regular, not very threatening and really rather benign, so doing anything which involves getting out of your comfort zone, going into challenging environments or traveling great distances is seen as abnormal.
This means that so many people are blind to their actual potential. They assume that something challenging is beyond them and then write off opportunities or activities that are actually within their capability, if only they tried. So what if all this was flipped on its head and our default position was that anything is possible? What sort of impact would that have on us? What could we achieve?
It’s likely that many people would assume there would be greatly increased numbers of hospitalisations, with reckless wounds or possibly even deaths from catastrophic accidents – you see how we instinctively frame things? But self belief or viewing activities for what they are, without adding peril which may or may not exist, isn’t just related to risk or exposing yourself to dangerous outcomes.
It can be as simple as thinking that walking a distance you’d normally travel in a car is perfectly normal. I mean, why wouldn’t it be – we used to do it all the time in our deep history. So this is not just about whether we feel that Base Jumping is normal or worth the risk, it’s about such a broader scope of activities, lifestyles and human choices, which many think are extreme, without really thinking about whether they are or not.
Is BMX really an ‘Extreme Sport’? Solo sailing around Cape Horn could be considered extreme but then it’s still within human capability – the proof is there with every successful circumnavigation. Is trans- Atlantic rowing extreme? Well, it’s a long journey and the conditions are tough but is it on a par with going into space? I guess it depends on your outlook.
The point here really is not what any one of us would define as extreme, the point is whether that definition holds us back. That’s the big point – do we, by classifying things in the extreme, deny ourselves valuable life experiences?
Bringing the argument back closer to home and to Sport Walking, we think the answer to that is yes. If you think that people who walk ultramarathons are crazy, then by default, you can never do something like that because, of course, you’re not crazy, are you? So you miss out on the fitness benefits, the self esteem, the sunsets, the people, the terrain and trails, the sense of incredible achievement from doing something you didn’t think was possible. But at least you’re not mad!
Pivoting to a different outlook has nothing to do with being a renegade, of doing things that others don’t, of putting the finger up to all those doubters. It’s purely about you fulfilling your potential, for yourself. Nothing else matters. Whether friends think you’re mad, whether what you do is considered a little off the wall. All that matters is what you get out of it – the growth, the confidence, the experiences, the freedom, the memories.
When you pivot away from the ‘extreme’ mindset and adopt a way of thinking that accepts without question any activity as viable or normal simply by existing, then you un-shackle yourself and there’s no limit to what you can achieve.
For Sport Walkers, the ‘everything’s normal’ mentality frees you up to aim high, to dream big but, most importantly, to approach any challenge with open eyes and a clear mind and that’s essential to be able to succeed. You need to know that a challenge will be hard but, equally, you need to be able to see ways that you can mitigate those difficulties to come out on top, whether that’s simply knowing how much training you need to do to succeed or whether it’s gaining some technical skill.
If you approach any challenge, test or activity as being normal and a perfectly sane thing to do, you can then focus on the detail of what risks there might be and solve them. Default Self Belief means believing you can do something rather than knowing. The knowing may take training, equipment, resources, assistance but the believing makes all that possible.
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