My true motivation

For me competition has always been difficult. I have always been fiercely competitive but something in the back of my head never really let me fall in love with the idea of winning or losing. Society has conditioned me to want to win and to celebrate whenever I have, and I certainly know how to rub a victory in. However, I have never been a sore loser. In many cases I have found myself just as happy for the other guy winning as I would have been If I had won the competition.

My motivation for winning or striving to be the best died off a while ago. Winning is the thing that drives a lot of people and that is fine since that's what works for them. But what motivates me is developing perseverance and not giving up even though I feel like quitting. If that means I come in first so be it, but even if I come in last I am more satisfied with the accomplishment than where I am in the standings.

Some might say that I strive for mediocrity. From my point of view I could care less who wins. I don't really get my validation from others and so being proclaimed the winner really has little meaning to me. When I look in the mirror or inside my own mind I have to answer more important questions than weather or not I won or lost. Did I give it my all? If not, why? What are things I can do that will help develop a will to keep going? Did I cheat myself or fool myself in my training or studying? How can I be more honest with myself? What do I expect from this? Am I trying to prove something or develop my character? The answers to these questions is what is important.

Running for a cause has certainly given me focus. A positive side effect has been that as I run I gently assassinate the part of my character that tempts me to throw in the towel and give up without seeing how far I can go and how much I can give. I am slowly killing off that part of me that for years has told me small white lies I was all too eager to believe. "You'll get to it tomorrow" "You can't take another step" "You can stop later just try it this one time" "They'll never know". This has been what I have benefited most from thus far and I expect there are greater lessons ahead.