I was at a training session with my trainer awhile back and he laughed and said that after I left our last session, someone asked him if I was one of the ‘Athletes’ that he trained. My gut reaction was to laugh. Me an ‘Athlete’? I never even considered it. He saw my reaction and asked, ‘What makes you think you’re not?’. Well a lot of things, I am not paid to do this, I am not in that good of shape. In my head, an ‘Athlete’ was a paid professional who competed individually or on a team. Turns out, I was completely wrong about this. According to the Oxford Dictionary, an athlete is ‘a person who is proficient in sports and other forms of physical exercise.’
OK so now I had to take a step back. OK so I play sports, recreationally, but I guess I do go to tournaments to complete. I’ve completed 2 – 10K Spartan races. (by the way, if it ever says it’s on a ski slope, expect to spend hours going up and down them, I don’t know why I was surprised by this). I lift 2-3x a week. I regularly run 4-5 times a week. I have practices for the sport I play 1-2 x per week. I practice on my own. When I have time I swim or bike to mix in some low impact activities.
Now, am I good at any of those? I guess you could say I am proficient. I started doing all of this for my own mental health. I never intended to become what people would see as an ‘Athlete’.
Thinking through all of it I realized that Imposter Syndrome wasn’t something I faced at work. It was everywhere in my life. Even the things I did as a hobby I felt like an imposter. By all definition and accounts, I am an ‘Athlete’. People meet me and regularly tell me they are intimidated by how much I do. In my mind, I am the jogger in the middle to end of the pack, the player on the field that’s there to support all of the other ones, the swimmer taking their time, the lifter there just trying not to be strong so I don’t hurt myself again on the field. I fail to look at everything I do as a whole and see that I am active 2-3 hours a day without even thinking about it.
In many ways, I don’t see myself as an ‘Athlete’ because I’ll never be able to compete against the people that I see as an ‘Athlete’. As hard as I try, I just don’t believe I belong on the same field as they do. However, we all can’t be at the same level as everyone else. We’re all striving to be better and all need people to look up to. I forget that as much as I look at some of the other ‘Athletes’ and admire how much they can do, there are people who look at me and think the same thing. I just don’t believe them when I hear it.