As runners, we’re always trying to go faster or further because those metrics demonstrate how successful we are. But in his new book, Win the Inside Game: How to Move from Surviving to Thriving, and Free Yourself Up to Perform, Steve Magness argues that when we measure our worth by our achievements, it backfires, preventing us from reaching our full potential.
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In the United States, the “American Dream” is seen as a kind of Holy Grail: work hard and you’ll be rewarded with success; you’ll move up the ladder in terms of social status. So we work hard at whatever we do – schoolwork, our job, running – but never feel fulfilled because it’s always possible to be more successful, to obtain more material rewards or receive greater admiration. That’s because there’s one inherent flaw in that pursuit of the American Dream; the concept is misunderstood by most people.
The phrase was coined by historian James Truslow Adams in his 1931 book, The Epic of America. As Steve explains, “He used it as a way to critique the Gilded Age in the US, which essentially was the time right before the Great Depression when everything went haywire, when people were just extravagant over abundance, essentially abundance of items, outcomes, self-defining things, external success. And what he was arguing is that we need to get back to maybe a dream that was actually the American dream, which was of well-being, moral character, and opportunity.
“I think somewhere along the line, we’ve just kind of lost that. And what it does is it sets us up for unrealistic expectations and a goal that actually gets in the way and harms us because it reminds us that (A), we might not be good enough because there is always someone with more stuff, wealth, accolades, achievements. And then (B), it focuses us on the wrong things because if that’s your sole focus, it just kind of makes you miserable. It gets in the way. You’re never satiated. You’re never content.
“In this book, I tried to focus on, okay, what are the things within our control psychologically so that we can get ourselves off of this never-ending story of, ‘I need to achieve more, I need to make more, I need to do this in order to define myself as a success.’ And I think that place is often where we miss it and we go wrong because we keep trying to repeat, to climb the ladder and climb the ladder.”
One thing we can control is establishing a sense of connection. “Belonging and connection are fundamental psychological needs, and they literally change how we perceive the world. So if we feel connected to others, it will change how difficult we see a task. We will literally judge hills to be shallower, boxes to weigh less, distances to be shorter and more achievable because we feel connected. The opposite is true when we feel lonely.
“One of the reasons is there’s this psychological theory called ‘social baseline theory’ that essentially says we evolved to share the load. So think of it as way back in the day, you’re on the savanna and you’re out hunting. If you’re with a group and you come across a lion or a tiger or a snake, you feel a lot better if there’s a lot around you. If it’s you alone, you probably feel terrified and you’re probably gonna die. So we evolved to feel the safety of the group. Now the problem is, in our modern world, we’ve basically eliminated everything that helps us create that feeling of belonging.
“We’ve replaced it with this kind of superficial connection or superficial fitting in, which is more akin to what we see on social media, where I have these people who follow me and I’m vaguely aware of who they are. And maybe I check in or see how they’re doing from the outside, but it’s like a 2D caricature. It’s not that deep feeling. And what we need more in this world, to create that sense of belonging, is the deep connection.”
Just as social media influences our relationship to others, it influences our relationship to ourselves. We tend to label ourselves as a way to present ourselves to the world, allowing what used to be a verb expressing something we do to become a noun describing who we are; for example, going from saying “I run” to “I am a runner.” At first, Steve says, that’s helpful, but it can quickly become detrimental.
“When you or I got interested in running, chances are, once we started to see ourselves as a runner, our dedication increased, our motivation increased. It was easier to get out the door and do the workout because it was part of who we are. But at some point, and the research shows this, it can go too far. We move from loving it to marrying it. And once we start to feel that marrying and intertwining, then we start seeing it as a reflection of who we are. So if we don’t race fast enough in the race, it’s not, ‘I failed at running,’ it’s, ‘I am a failure.’ And then from that instance, what happens is we start being in this fear/protective mode, instead of being able to have that joyous process of pursuing something that we enjoy and seeing where it takes us.
“It’s often what we see when people make their hobby a job. When it’s their hobby, they love it. And then when it’s a job, a lot of the fear and anxiety come around it. That’s often because of that intertwining and feeling like we have to go, push, strive. And what I’m saying is that we’ve got to hold on to a bit of the stuff, the play, the exploration, the enjoyment that got us interested in the thing at first.”
Photo credit: Hillary Montgomery
Resources
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