How running, swimming and cycling can help you become more confident

A clear definition of success

Many of us spend our days in the office, where, in the words of philosopher Matthew Crawford, "despite the excess of invented criteria, there are not enough objective standards."

This is not a criticism of modern jobs, but rather a property of an economy that produces intangible goods. This is in stark contrast to objective indicators in sports that can be easily measured. For example, if you have run a three-hour marathon, you can easily tell if you are successful or not.

Ask someone what it means to do a good job when it comes to a complex project. Most likely, he will need at least half an hour to explain this to you, he will have to draw graphs and diagrams. Then ask the same person what it means to do a good job during a sporting event and they can do it in a minute without PowerPoint.

Perhaps most people are simply tired of wasting their time pursuing the subjective benefits inherent in intellectual work. Endurance athletes probably don't have these problems. Why?

The satisfaction from the concrete manifestation of oneself in this world, characteristic of manual labor, makes a person more simple and calm. Perhaps this frees us from the need to constantly prove our own worth with words. We can simply indicate: the building is standing, the car is driving, the lights are on.

Matthew Crawford

Crawford himself, being a doctor of science, changed his profession to a mechanic and opened a motorcycle repair shop. He now advocates for "manual competence" and the satisfaction that manual labor provides.

Athletes achieve this by striving for new personal records that are easy to measure and track.

Physical and mental harmony

When a runner decides to achieve a goal, his body becomes the main instrument, and his mind concentrates on using it. The result is harmony between cognitive functions and the physical body.

For an athlete to avoid injury, let alone make progress, they must listen carefully to their body's signals. These cues tell you how to get to the next level and influence how your next workout will go: whether you need to push up to make progress, or choose lighter exercises to help your muscles recover.

The body signals and how the athlete responds to them affect the training program and its effectiveness. This is why the best athletes conduct every workout with deep focus and care. Training in this manner creates something special - something that happens when the action and the person performing it become so merged that they become one.

Involvement and knowledge of your body

It is difficult to imagine more involvement than concentrating on your body during training. Athletes are involved in every moment of their actions: they monitor muscle contractions and breathing, how lactic acid boils in the muscles.

We learn how our body works and use this knowledge to improve our performance. Part of this process is satisfaction at the end: for example, just from the fact that it's a beautiful day outside, or from emotional relief after a hard workout.

And athletes performing in competitions feel satisfaction that hard training has led to a good result. Moreover, the results are often measured by the most honest and objective indicator - time.

After a successful competition, you are proud of what you have created. You are pleased to know that you yourself have changed your body, prepared it for victory. Many athletes value the deep satisfaction, confidence, and sense of fullness that these moments bring. And this is the reason why we continue to reach new heights.