Flow State

I’ve mentioned it before, but for the past year and a half, I’ve journaled every day. More recently, I’ve changed the focus. Instead of spending two pages dumping my mood and then reluctantly writing down three things I’m grateful for, I start with a prompt that is uplifting, reflective, or gratitude-based.

I asked AI to make me a list of prompts, then asked for more about accomplishments, personal growth, and the world at large. I’ve really enjoyed it.

The other day, the prompt was:

What accomplishment am I most likely to minimize that actually deserves more credit?

Well. That one hit.

I thought of three things immediately, and I’ll get to them in a minute, but the prompt really got to the heart of a problem I’ve had most of my life. I don’t give myself enough credit. In fact, I tend to beat myself up and spend an unhealthy amount of time thinking I’m a loser. Unaccomplished. Everyone else does everything better than me.

(Yes, I know. Tiny violin. Moving on.)

So I sat with this one for a while (sorry for the therapist-speak), and I started to understand not only my accomplishments but also why I have always struggled to value them.

First up: Ironman.

I don’t give myself enough credit for completing two full Ironmans, four standalone 70.3s, and two more 70.3s as part of the absolutely ridiculous Triple-T weekend—four triathlons over three days. Instead, I focus on the one 140.6 that I DNF’d. I remember the race where a friend literally had to pick me up off a curb. I think about how I wasn’t as fast or as strong as I “should” have been.

But I did them.

I got off the curb.

I came back after the DNF and finished two years later.

Maybe I was near the back of the pack, but I was in the pack.

Second: my military service.

I was a captain in the Army Reserve. I was Armor branch, but most of my service was with cavalry scout and infantry training units. I got to drive tanks, fire the main gun, practice platoon tactics, and do all sorts of things that are incredibly fun when nobody is actually trying to kill you.

And yet, I minimize it.

“I was never deployed.”

“I was only in the reserves.”

I work at a school with veterans who served in Iraq and Afghanistan. Some spent decades on active duty. Compared to them, I sometimes feel sheepish even saying I served.

But that’s because I’m pointing the camera at them. Not because my service wasn’t meaningful.

Third: being a lawyer.

This one is probably the most obvious. My parents were lawyers. My sister was a lawyer. My brother-in-law was a lawyer. My wife is a lawyer. For years, almost every friend I had was a lawyer. I worked with lawyers, socialized with lawyers, and married a lawyer. When everyone around you has done the same thing, it stops feeling special.

I joke that I went to one of the worst law schools in the country (although I did well there). I joke about whether being a lawyer is really that big of a deal.

But again, that’s because of where I was pointing the camera.

When your entire world is the legal community, becoming a lawyer seems ordinary.

It isn’t.

And that’s the lesson.

The problem was never my accomplishments. It was my framing.

I was comparing my Ironman finishes to people who had done dozens of them. I was comparing my military service to that of decorated combat veterans. I was comparing my legal career to a family and social circle where everyone had the same credentials. I was always looking at the person standing on a higher step of the podium.

So here’s what I’m taking from this.

First, I’m enough.

What I do does not have to be compared to anyone else. If I did something difficult—something that took years of work, discipline, sacrifice, and perseverance—I can acknowledge it without immediately adding a “yeah, but…”

No, I’m not going to start walking around dressed head-to-toe in Ironman gear like I have a sponsorship deal with a company that has never heard of me.

But I also don’t need to pretend those accomplishments don’t matter.

Second, I don’t want to make anyone else feel smaller about what they’ve accomplished.

My accomplishments are mine. Someone else’s are theirs. Maybe they didn’t finish an Ironman. Maybe they never served in the military. Maybe they never became a lawyer.

But maybe they raised incredible children. Started a business. Survived a horrible year. Took care of a sick parent. Went back to school at 45. Got sober. Learned a new skill. Kept going when life was beating them up.

Props to them.

This also connects to a book I’m reading called The Score, which is about metrics, measurement, and how we often reduce complex experiences into numbers. The problem is that numbers rarely tell the whole story.

You can measure my VO₂ max. You can measure my pace. You can measure my finishing time at Rockford.

You cannot measure what I got from the training. You can’t measure the mornings alone with my thoughts, the friendships, the confidence, the discipline, or the fact that my wife and daughter came to spend a weekend supporting me.

The clock says 6:45.

My experience was far bigger than 6:45.

And that brings me to one of my favorite “too good to fact-check” stories.

Supposedly, the happiest person on an Olympic podium is the gold medal winner.

Obviously.

But the second happiest is not the silver medalist. It’s the bronze medalist.

The silver medalist is looking up.

“I was so close. I could have won.”

The bronze medalist is looking down.

“Wait, I made the podium? Hell yes.”

Not in a “sucks to be everyone else” way.

Just in a “holy crap, I’m standing on the podium” way.

The silver medalist is thinking they failed.

Failed?

You are literally the second-best person in the world at something.

I think I’ve spent too much of my life being the silver medalist in my own mind.

Always looking up at who did more, who was faster, who was more successful.

Maybe it’s time to look around.

Not with arrogance. Not with superiority. Just with gratitude.

I’m on the podium.

And that’s pretty damn good.