The Training Is The Whole Point

In the lead up to the 2022-2023 college football playoff, University of Georgia quarterback, Stetson Bennett was asked how winning the national championship the year prior had changed his life.

He responded, “Not a whole lot to be honest. My friends still give me crap. My brothers and sister still think the same about me. I’ve still got to do schoolwork. Other than just fanfare, nothing else has really changed.”

If we’re honest with ourselves, his response can be very confusing for highly ambitious performers and leaders constantly getting fed success culture messaging.

We’re constantly told that winning a championship WILL change our lives. 

We’re told that success will absolutely change everything. Not only are we told this by a culture hellbent on getting “there” but we tell ourselves this all the time. 

“Everything will change for me if I can just achieve X”

“If I can just win a national championship…”

“If I can just get a D1 scholarship…”

“If I can just get a head coaching position..”

“If we can just move into that house..”

“If we can just have $X in our retirement fund..”

Our culture feeds us this on our scrolls, and our own insecurity feeds us this in our souls.

And once we go about actually achieving our goals, it can become one of the loneliest and confusing places for a high performer to land in.

Is all of life really about “getting there” ? Is your entire career ultimately about climbing the very narrow mountain? What happens when we actually get there and realize “nothing else has really changed?” 

“The Arrival Fallacy” was coined by psychologist Tal Ben-Shahar and is the belief that once you reach a specific achievement or milestone, you will experience lasting happiness, fulfillment, or a transformed life. 

In reality, we move the goalposts, adapt our sights a little further down the road, and have a hard time maintaining true inner drive when everything about our identity is firmly attached to external achievements.

Who Are You Becoming?

We’re all being told a fantastic lie. The lie that achievement will change your life. In reality achievement is just a momentary stop on a larger journey.

Like Stetson Bennett at Georgia, the best high performers recognize achievement for what it is and pursue a mindset and worldview around training. Training is the reward.

In all this crazed destination delusion, we’re forgetting the larger plot. We’re forgetting that training was the entire point all along. 

Training, becoming, transforming is what leads to meaning, not just in some distant future, but every day in the present, right here and right now.

One of my favorite discussions with high performing athletes, coaches and leaders often comes around discovering the difference between a training mindset and a trying mindset in this image below.

I’ve never been more convinced that the onslaught of achievement glazing in our culture perpetuates even in high performers, a trying mindset rooted in our ego. I’ve also never been more convinced that those who do the inner work to move into a training mindset will win on every street, in every arena, and throughout every industry for the foreseeable future.

In a culture obsessed with achieving, the real win is to obsess over becoming. It doesn’t get the likes, favorites, and retweets as much as achievement, but are we sure everything that gets liked, favorited, or retweeted is the best indicator of what makes a meaningful life, purposeful existence and sustainable excellence?

The most pressing question of our inner lives is not about what we’re achieving, it’s about who we’re training to become. 

What would happen if you began to re-frame your days around who you’re becoming, instead of defaulting to what the next achievement is going to be?

Stay The Course,