I hear voices. I hope I'm not the only one this happens to. I hear them when I'm in the middle of my workouts. Even if there are multiple voices competing, there's always one that wins. Like the crying baby in a busy diner, the one that has the ability to pierce through the fog of ambient sound and that beats hardest on your eardrum will be the one that you can't ignore. The one that tugs on your sleeve and demands your attention.
Sometimes it's a scream - roaring over the music and the sound of dropping barbells, rising over the sound of my labored breathing and my heartbeat pounding in my ears. Other times it's a nagging whisper - a tiny voice that breaks through the silence I try to create when I'm focused on blocking out the world and doing my work. Sometimes it's both.
The voice isn't always an encouraging voice. A determined voice telling me that I can do it, that I'm strong, that I have one more rep in me. A voice that reassures me that I won't pass out and that the pain will be over soon if I can just keep going a little longer. A voice that cheers me on and lets me know that my best is good enough. That voice used to be the loudest voice. The voice that blocked out that nagging whisper that told me the weight was too heavy and I should probably set it down. The voice that said you look stupid and everyone is going to make fun of you. The voice that said you're not as good as everyone around you. The voice that tried to keep me fearful and make me doubt myself.
I'm not sure exactly when the encouraging voice started getting quieter and harder to hear. Like someone slowly turning up the volume on a stereo, the nagging whisper that told me I wasn't good enough has gotten louder and more intense over the last few months until it became the only thing I could hear and the voice that kept me going in the beginning and made me feel like I could take on the world faded off into the background. I haven't been able to hear it very often lately. Some days I don't hear it at all. Sometimes I think I've stopped listening for it altogether. The discouraging voice gets so loud that I can't even hear my coach reassuring me or my teammates cheering me on. Those negative thoughts rattling around in my head even seem to distort everything else I hear, making instructions like "shoot for x number of reps/rounds" sound like "if you don't hit that number, you're a failure."
I let the voice beat down on me until I gave in and agreed. I'm not good enough. I'm always going to be last. I'm so sick of being the slowest and never finishing. I got upset and frustrated and let the voice turn something I love and look forward to all day long into something I started to dread. I'm done thinking like that. I realize now what's been going on and I'm going to have to start working harder to listen for the reassuring voice. To focus all my energy on hearing the truth and believing that my best is good enough. I know I don't have to compare my effort and my work to anyone else. I can be competitive without competing against others. I just have to keep trying to be better than the day before. I can't always listen to the loudest voice I hear, because it won't always be the one that's telling me what I need to hear. Hopefully one day I'll be able to tune out the negative voice altogether.
