The Rule of Thirds: What an Olympian Can Teach You About Feeling Crappy
This is some seriously good advice
Do you struggle with your creative endeavours or your athletic goals? Do you sometimes feel overwhelmed?
Of course you do.
Good.
That’s right, it’s good, because you’re meant to struggle.
At least, some of the time, according to the Olympian coach of long distance runner Alexi Pappas, that is.
No, she’s not being trained by a sadist, her coach has just developed a philosophy around the struggle of pursuit. After all, his job is to help the world’s best get that little bit better.
The Rule of Thirds
Pappas, the Greek national-record holder for the 10,000 metres, explains her coach’s philosophy of thirds here.
He told her;
“When you’re chasing a dream or doing anything hard, you’re meant to feel good a third of the time, OK a third of the time, and crappy a third of the time. And if the ratio is roughly in that range, then you’re doing fine.”
Not everyone strives to achieve extra in their lives, some are happy with a 9 to 5, a family home, and Netflix.
And cool. Some of the very best of life comes from that.
But for those who are driven to do more, this is a great philosophy to embrace.
I work hard in the gym with varying success and failure, and I have been performing stand-up comedy for six years now which can be equally up and down.
This advice of thirds has stopped me from going insane because it is true that I spend about a third of the time hating my pursuits, feeling terrible, talentless, genetically inferior and straight-up crappy.
But it would be remiss to not mention there are times I feel I great at the gym, I feel I am mastering comedy, and I feel my progress is in an upward trajectory.
But, like the coach said, the rest of the time, I’m somewhere in the middle.
Why This Advice Works
Any advice from an Olympian is going to have real experience behind it. These people have got blood, sweat and tears behind them. Pappas and her coach have pushed themselves to the pinnacle of what a human can do, and we should take what they say with the gravitas it deserves.
This isn’t the words of some twenty-something red pilled bro-visor on YouTube, this is authentic stuff.
This advice works because it’s true to life. You will feel crappy about whatever you do here and there, but it’s a comfort to know even the very best feel crappy. Even Olympians feel crappy.
The mind is our most powerful tool.
The gym has taught me this, but so has comedy. Two very different pursuits, but fundamentally similar in that I need to have faith, be consistent, practice, and trust the process. I will have good days and bad days. I can’t be too in my head. I have to let that go.
But as you may know, it’s challenging to let go of negative feelings. They all seem so real and important.
So when I hear two Olympians explain I’m meant to feel that way, that it’s part of the process of achieving, that it’s not just normal but necessary, it’s a wave of relief.
It’s easy to say “fuck doubt” or some other Instagram-esque t-shirt slogan, but Pappas isn’t saying that, her coach isn’t saying that. They’re saying embrace doubt as part of the whole.
Doubt and negativity are a third of the cake, and if you want to have your cake, they need to be on your list of ingredients.
Author Elizabeth Gilbert, who wrote Big Magic, also explains this about the creative process.
Gilbert explains that fear is part of the journey. She likens it to a car ride, if you want to go on a creative journey, fear has to come along too. That’s the deal.
She presses home the point that you cannot create without fear. And Pappas and her coach say you can’t pursue your goals without negativity.
So next time you’re feeling “crappy” about the things you’re trying to achieve, next time you’re feeling fear about putting you’re don’t there and trying to achieve, consider this a good sign.
It’s part of a process, it shows you are on the right path. Comfort is sitting on the sofa eating crisps. No one feels crappy not trying. You only feel crappy because you are trying. Embrace the process.
This is the video.
