#showyourwork

Months ago, on social media, my coach used a hashtag that resonated with me: #showyourwork.

Short and sweet, but I was immediately struck by the dual connotation. First, it’s a deliberate acknowledgement that athleticism is more than a PR highlight reel (because we all have ‘those people’ in our newsfeeds, right?). The larger implication of ‘showing your work’, though, is the insight that — just like in elementary-school math class — the PROCESS has more value than the outcome.

That’s the opposite of what our society teaches. There’s a strong tendency to focus on results and conveniently ignore everything in the middle. We celebrate the gold medal around a single Olympian’s neck, not the tens of thousands of hours of striving — the sweat equity, the physical injuries, the mental battles — that every single competitor undertook.

Further, while most high performers have a ready slew of ‘inspirational’ anecdotes about the times they failed during a crucial moment — when they were scared to dive off the starting block, or missed a high note in front of a crowd, or scored a goal for the wrong team — very few of us are brave enough to publicly embrace that learning curve as it’s happening. We feel much safer talking about hindsight struggles than admitting to present ones.

That one-dimensional perspective doesn’t help anyone. Recently, I was at the gym watching a friend crush an Open workout that I had completed earlier that same day. As she successfully jerked a weight she hadn’t thought she could manage, I grinned knowingly at her expression of joyful surprise — mirroring my own experience from a few hours prior. As she continued to methodically tackle the heavy barbell, I found myself unconsciously nodding my head, smiling widely, blinking back tears of recognition and pride.

Just then, a younger athlete leaned over and exclaimed in exasperated disbelief, “How can somebody be that strong?!? I just can’t even understand how that’s possible.”

Her tone snapped me out of my reverie. Fortunately, I think what came out of my mouth was, “Hard work!” — but the comment made me feel both sad and vaguely offended. The working athlete happened to be one of my close competitors — I know exactly what it takes to be “that strong” — and I was disappointed to hear her stellar performance being perceived as something ‘given’ rather than something earned.

But that limited perspective also makes total sense, with so few ‘everyday’ athletes freely sharing what the daily process of improvement actually looks like.

So #showyourwork felt like a challenge to me. It forced me to acknowledge that I’ve been part of the problem — deliberately withholding the vulnerable realities of training. Moreover, not only is that disingenuous on a public level, but it also hasn’t been serving ME on a personal level. I’ve kept quiet not because CrossFit has occupied a minor role in my life or hasn’t been ‘worth’ talking about, but precisely the opposite: because my performance has always mattered SO MUCH to me, yet in my own mind, I was a thoroughly mediocre athlete who therefore didn’t ‘deserve’ to be so deeply invested.

And because I didn’t see anyone else struggling in quite the same way, I felt like there must be something wrong with me. I wasted a lot of energy, for a lot of years, being frustrated with myself for not being able to ‘care less’. It was annoying to carry such a persistent burden of anxiety, when clearly I wasn’t ‘good enough’ to have it matter so much.

That subtle dare to #showyourwork helped me understand that my thinking was flawed. On some level, I was expecting the attainment of higher-level physical abilities to naturally place me into some new category, where I’d suddenly ‘own’ my athleticism a little more. Turns out, that has to happen the other way around.

Because, if not now — when?

If not now — where is the magical point when I DO suddenly become ‘good enough’?

One of the best-known quotes in CrossFit is, “It never gets easy; we just get better.” This sport has no hard lines. Once I get a strict muscle-up, I’ll want two. When I finally snatch bodyweight, there will be a new goal right behind that number. And there will ALSO always be someone faster, fitter, and stronger than I am. So the ‘good enough’ switch only flips when I decide it does.

So… I’m deciding. That I am allowed to be fulfilled by something I’m not the best at. That I have the right to prioritize training, nutrition, sleep, and recovery, even if no one is paying me to do it. That it is not selfish to authentically ‘own’ the luxury of devoting time, resources, and effort to something that pushes me to grow. And that I am finally brave enough to give voice to big goals — because now I understand that even if a particular endpoint doesn’t materialize, that isn’t a ‘failure’, because it’s the JOURNEY that’s the worthy part.

No matter where this road leads, I’ll never regret spending this time this way. What I would regret is not taking this opportunity to see what I can really do when I truly, consistently, intentionally try.

I don’t need to be THE best; I just need to be MY best.

And I never needed to care ‘less’. I needed to know that it was okay to care a LOT.

But I also can’t expect the people around me to magically understand this journey — to comprehend these unique mindset challenges and training/food/sleep/recovery priorities — unless I’m willing to show them.

So I’ve been slowly getting braver about my social media sharing. I’m learning to #showmyWORK, not just my results.

And the thing is — I’m a writer. I generally ‘show’ by TELLING. So the natural next step has led me here, to this new online space (far away from the Instagram character limit).

Which feels incredibly fitting — because part of the ripple effect of #showyourwork is that I now realize I’ve been approaching my writing in the same backwards way as my athletics. I’ve been blogging off and on for nearly two decades, but the biggest reason I haven’t kept up a more robust online presence is that I’ve been frustrated by the limited tools available to me on the free platforms. These past few years, it’s been mostly handwritten journals and lengthy emails — because obviously I didn’t ‘deserve’ to pay for a domain; it wasn’t like I was a real writer; I wasn’t earning actual money from it. In other words, my genuine effort and personal fulfillment via the process wasn’t ‘good enough’.

Except, of course, IT IS. Because THAT’S THE WHOLE POINT.

When I was 19, I got dumped by my first serious boyfriend. At the time, I was also living alone in a foreign country (long story), and so, naturally, my first response was to sit down in front of my computer and write about it. And what I remember most is that even as it was happening — as I was furiously typing and crying and aching inside — in those same moments, a tiny part of my mind was also acknowledging, “This is going to be some really useful work to read over later. You’ve never experienced this before. This is something REAL, what you’re feeling right here.”

A few weeks later, my hard drive crashed (no, I didn’t have a backup; it was 2003) and I lost all those pages. Leaving aside the fact that my nearly-36-year-old self would pay good money to see exactly what was going through my 19-year-old head, to this day, I genuinely still regret that there’s nothing concrete to show for that pain.

…But I’ll never regret the actual WRITING. The purpose it served during a challenging moment. The growth that I experienced via the act of putting words to something new and difficult.

Again — process beats result. It’s the writing itself that’s important, not any external validation or benefit. Just as with athletics — the lessons are in the efforts, not the outcomes.

So, all of that to say — here I am, dovetailing the two, deliberately SHOWING MY WORK.

Not elite-level work (…yet). Not always terribly interesting work. But work that is solid, intentional, consistent, and dedicated. Work that represents a lot of OTHER work — another layer of brick on top of many that have preceded it.

Work that matters deeply to me. Work that I am proud to own, unto itself.

And therefore, work that — I hope — makes me the type of public example I wish I saw more of.

That alone is GOOD ENOUGH.