Staying Humble

I have been sitting here thinking about what I am going to write about this week and it suddenly dawned on me. I was thinking about this over the weekend. It's a topic that I think many people in the fitness industry could take on board and at the least have a think about or do some self reflection.

The importance of staying humble

I am writing this in relation to those involved in the fitness industry and bodybuilding. Bodybuilding and fitness unfortunately are things that are driven largely by image. Even the name bodybuilding describes building the body. It's a body centric activity. Unfortunately it also tends to be an activity that distorts many people's egos. It's something that goes with the sport simply because it is so self focused and so image focused.

Let's think about some of the behaviours that bodybuilders and people in the fitness industry engage in:

- analysing your physique in the mirror or other reflections
- taking photos of yourself or having others take photos of you
- judging your own physical appearance (physique)
- judging others people's physical appearance (physique) in relation to yours
- taking selfies
- boasting or bragging about physique, fitness related financial success or otherwise
- posting any of the above on social media

Now I'm not saying that all of the above are negative things which should be completely avoided. Many of them are actually necessary and useful things for monitoring self progress. In fact I do many of those things myself. I'd actually say that most of us who are involved in bodybuilding and fitness would be lying if they said they'd never done any of those things. However all of those things are self focused and body image focused. Some of them are fine and others are a little unhealthy by nature but all of them can become somewhat unhealthy if the ego gets too big.

I suppose what I'm getting at is the mindset behind all of this. Looking at yourself in the mirror at the gym and admiring/being proud of your progress is ok. You shouldn't feel ashamed of yourself for feeling good that you are improving the way you look or improving your fitness and health in some manner. But if you start thinking a little too much of yourself I think that can start to become a bit of a problem. And I think some people do start to feel this way, even if they deny it.

This doesn't exist only amongst amateur bodybuilders or in the general fitness arena. Think about Phil Heath and Kai Greene at last year's Mr Olympia. Here are two of the best professional bodybuilders in the world and each of them were bickering like school girls on and off stage. Why? Too much ego. And you might say "well they are the best so it's fine for them to have inflated egos". Well, not really. You can be the best at something without thinking the world of yourself.

I think often times actually the people who are at the top of different sports or the top in whatever else are actually the most humble. They know what they are capable of and what it took to get there. They have respect for the process. So they don't need to prove to everyone that they are something fantastic and they don't think they are God's gift to the world. Usually when people try to prove themselves it stems from insecurity. The people at the top (usually) aren't insecure.

The fact is everybody struggles with this to some degree. When you start to get good at something and achieve results your ego gets a boost. It's human nature.

What can we do to stay humble?

 Check yourself before you wreck yourself - I think the first step is just being mindful of our egos. Be aware that you are involved in an activity or in an industry that is very image focused. When you achieve something good and your ego starts to inflate, reign it back in. Recognise your progress but stay calm and focus on further progress, not on how great you are.

Educate and dominate - knowing what is realistic in terms of your physique, strength development etc will go a long way. Educating yourself and having a greater level of knowledge about a variety of factors that contribute to your progress will keep you grounded in reality a lot more. Ideally this should help to keep you a little more humble because you will realise what to expect in terms of results and just what a slow and gradual process this is that requires a lot of focus, consistency, patience and dedication. I think that in itself is humbling. Those that stick with this for the long haul knowing the reality of how slow progress really is have the opportunity to develop some positive character traits along the way (one of them being humility).

Moderate your own behaviour - sometimes the behaviour we engage in fosters our ego to become bigger and bigger. To negate this, have an attitude and behaviour that promotes the opposite. Pull back on talking yourself up. If you are posting on social media know the reason why you are posting - fun, business, progress, to brag, attention. If the reason you are posting is because you want to show off and get attention, maybe just hold back and don't post. Achieving success and being modest about it says a lot about yourself.

Develop yourself in a balanced way - this is difficult advice to give when bodybuilding is such an extreme activity which sometimes requires extreme measures. Sometimes we need to take a step back, look at the big picture and ask ourselves are we truly balanced. Your physique and fitness should not be your entire life. Things like interpersonal relationships, family, education/intellectual development, career, spiritual development, emotional well being, travel/cultural experience and personal happiness are just some examples of areas that can be important and should be paid ample attention. Live your life outside of the small subculture of bodybuilding and fitness.

Don't think, do - what I mean by this is that if when you achieve something if you spend too much time thinking about how great you are for achieving that thing then you aren't spending that time being productive. You could be creating and/or acting on a strategy for success in the next thing. Of course there is time for relaxing, resting and non-action too. However what I am saying is doing things, planning, practicing, training, applying, creating is so much more valuable and productive than expressing to yourself and to others how great you are. If what you are achieving is great, people are going to take notice without you making a big noise about it.

Small steps - I want to point out that by writing this I'm not hoping to create a massive change. If anything I realise that many people are very set in their ways and don't even see this as a problem. But I am hoping a few people might read this and think "yeah I let my ego soar a bit high sometimes" and then apply mental effort and take behavioural actions to keep it in check. As bodybuilders we don't need to become Buddhist monks but we could have a think about the nature of ourselves in this activity/industry. A little bit of humbleness goes a long way, especially in an industry where we see much of the opposite. Do your part to make this better, not worse.

Those are my thoughts for the week. I hope you enjoyed reading them. I'll be back next week with a different topic. Remember if you have any coaching enquiries or perhaps a topic you'd like me to cover in my blog in the future then you can contact me as per below.

Muscle Academy contact details:

Email - info@muscleacademy.com.au
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- Evan