Necessary Selfishness
During a long drive back to Miami from New York, Darryl was playing Episode 14 of Carl Paoli’s podcast, “I Am Carl” (also known as “The Freestyle Way Podcast”) where he speaks with Annie Thorisdottir - a two times Crossfit Games champion and her experience with being pregnant during the pandemic and how she handled changing the way she moved and trained during it all.
At one point, she says this about her lifestyle before pregnancy:
“As an athlete you live such a selfish lifestyle. You’re the number one priority and your body’s the number one priority and everything revolves around becoming better.”
She went on to talk about how much this has changed for her because of needing to share her body with another little life, and it went on to be an absolutely beautiful conversation. But, I couldn’t stop thinking about what she said about athletes living a selfish lifestyle and how, although I probably would have denied it before thinking about what you’re about to read, it’s very true.
I think most people tend to avoid describing themselves - or anything they do - as “selfish” because we think of the word as a negative trait; but selfishness is NOT inherently bad.
Good selfishness is actually often undervalued.
Prioritizing your mental health, your nutrition, your sleep, and time for physical maintenance - all of these things are incredibly important for our bodies and minds to thrive, especially for the majority of people who have obligations other than keeping their bodies at peak performance capability (because when your life doesn’t revolve around athleticism, the focus is quite often not on keeping track of where your body and mind are health-wise, so making time to be selfish in these regards is more necessary than society puts emphasis on).
Athletes in every aspect of sport, including our own, are pretty much required to be selfish if they’re looking to ascend to the top of what they do. Without making yourself and your training/performance the number one priority, how can you expect to progress at a competitive rate? Even athletes who aren’t competitive still have to focus on their own goals and everything they need to meet those goals in order to build themselves. Realistically, that can stand outside of sport as well.
You can’t surpass your own level of capability without a degree of selfishness.
And this doesn’t mean that all athletes in every sport are just out in the world, not caring about anyone or anything else at every waking moment in order to maximize their own performance - THAT would be a detrimental and malicious level of selfishness. Many athletes have found ways to prioritize their needs and training while also teaching and sharing their knowledge and expertise with other athletes/practitioners in their sports, but I’ll get into that more in the next blog post (keep an eye out).
It’s all about BALANCE.
I’m very aware that balance isn’t easy to find - as I’m sure some of you reading this are realizing while thinking about your own habits and practices. I think it’s important - no matter what sport you play/practice or what level of athleticism you fall into - to take a step back and look at what aspects of your needs require a level of selfish attention and to what degree you’re meeting those needs.
Prioritize selfishness today, the good kind.
- Mel Rivera
