Comparison, Motivations, and Roxanne Modafferi
Today we’re gonna broach point number 7 on how to unfuck your life: “Stop Comparing Yourself to Others,” as well as talk about motivations, embracing your inner nerd, and just choosing to be happy.
Know Your Motivations
It seems that with every new year folks jump on the bandwagon for change… and I’m not harping on them for wanting to, I just think people don’t realize how hard change can be and how motivation plays into that. Social Media is jam packed with folks showing their motivations, flaunting them like a peacock, but underneath the surface they fail to realize that their motivations are actually… shit.
Sorry, they’re kind of shit. It’s not terminal though! Today we’re gonna talk about how to make those motivators NOT shit.
There are two types of motivations: extrinsic and intrinsic. I know, I’m really over simplfying all of this
Extrinsic: you do something for an award or to avoid punishment.
I show up to jiu jitsu because I want my rank or I don’t want to make professor disappointed in me.
I get my college degree so people think I’m smart and respectable.
I show up early to work and leave late so my boss sees.
I became a cop/paramedic/firefighter/nurse/doctor because I want people to value me.
Intrinsic: you do something because you enjoy doing it or want personal growth.
Each one of these is a useful form of motivation, don’t get me wrong, but what people often do is use the wrong type for the wrong goal… or they think their doing something for intrinsic reasons and deep down they have some external form of validation they haven’t met yet… and there’s nothing to be ashamed about by that, just know if that’s the case. Embrace it with self compassion and change.
Extrinsic motivation is like candy… makes you feel good for a moment but it’ll flash off real quick. It’s cheap motivation… it ain’t soul food.
I used to listen to David Goggin’s books during the pandemic as a means of motivation to push myself, and for a long time it works. Hell, listening to him still works for me, but even if you listen to his current book he’ll tell you (in not so many words) that he started out with extrinsic motivation but found personal enjoyment/growth in pushing himself. His quest to become an absolute monster started off to show his shitty dad and all the racist punks in his town that he couldn’t be hurt… and through his journey he realized he just loved doing it. You don’t go through SEAL training three times to get back at your dad… at some point, you go through it because you love the person you’re becoming through the challenge.
You fall in love with the process. You find that intrinsic motivation to continue. How you do that though is up to you, and your own journey of finding worthiness.
Comparison is the Thief of Joy
I learned this going through jiu jitsu, but yet so many who continue to practice the sport fail to see the lesson (some allll the way up to Black Belt… looking at you, Gordon Ryan). You know, we always talk about all the good that jiu jitsu supposedly does, but it’s ultimately up to the individual to get that out of the sport. “It’s a stress relief,” “it teaches humility/kills the ego,” “it teaches patience,” etc… Don’t get me wrong, it can do these things for sure, but so can tennis. So can anything that forces you into something new, takes a long time to master, and you find it fun. The dark side to jiu jitsu is that it leads a lot of folks to compare.
We’ve all been there guys… no matter what belt color you are. “Why are they a 3 strip <insert color of belt> when I routinely submit them?” “Pffffsh, of course so and so got promoted, it’s because they’re professors lapdog..” “I lost this tournament, therefore I must suck.” It’s all a bunch of emotional reasoning to the self-imposed competition we have with our own fragile egos. It challenges our extrinsic motivation… plucks it like a guitar string and shakes the very core of why we are doing whatever goal we’re trying to reach.
Before the pandemic hit, I was a four stripe white belt… for nearly an entire fucking year. My brother got his blue belt, silently, during that time after not training as much or as often as me which he hid from me because he knew it would hurt me. It got under my skin… it put a chip on my shoulder… it made me go mad with comparison and frustration as I saw other folks getting promoted since their gyms didn’t close down during COVID. I used that as extrinsic motivation to do tournaments… “I’ll show the world” I thought to myself. It forced me to do an aggressive weight cut, travel to Arizona alone, and do a tournament with no support network where that extrinsic motivation burned off like the cheap fuel it was. I found myself walking to the center of the mat, already defeated, miserable from the weight cut and the loneliness and the poison of comparison slowly rotting away my spirit. I got destroyed in that tournament; I was defeated before we slapped hands. Complete and utter ego death had come upon me like a wave, and I let my competition run over me… you can’t kill what’s already dead.
I think that destruction made my blue belt promotion that more meaningful though. Motivated to do jiu jitsu for an INTRINSIC motivation (I was trying to raise money for cancer), I had long forgotten that burning feeling and pit of sorrow I had felt just a month prior. And in a small, intimate ceremony I got my blue belt, given to me by two women I deeply admire. It wasn’t in front of the whole academy, or on the podium like some folks get… and weirdly enough, I appreciated it more that way. Silently… personal. I know some of my training partners and friends expressed being bummed that they couldn’t be there that day but I had already shared it with them through all the grueling rolls and drills we all did together. That little private moment was for me… nobody around to compare to, just me and my former self.
I no longer do competitions for a variety of reasons. It’s too risky for my health (I’m at 8 concussions), it’s mentally exhausting, and fussing about making weight is not mentally healthy for someone who is a FFP (formally fat person). I did one last one just so I could say I did it, and end on a better note than last time. Before stepping onto the mat I had a different approach… it wasn’t about winning: it was about trying my game plan. I told myself, win or lose, I would: go for straight ankle locks, try the buggy choke if it presented itself, go for the triangle, not get submitted, and have fun… which I literally achieved all of those things.
Before I stepped onto the mat, I met my competition and broke the ice with some laughter and wished them luck. My last coach critiqued me for this, saying that I had to go in there mean and not make friends with my competition which pfffffsh, fuck that… a medal is whatever, a connection is better. I’m 35… I ain’t making money on fights… this is all for shits and giggles. Don’t get me wrong, I’m gonna give you a fight but I’m gonna have fun doing it, because I don’t measure my self-worth anymore off wins, losses, or fake medals. I don’t measure it off stripes, belt colors, submissions against my training partner (which bro… it’s training, calm the hell down). I measure it off personal growth…
I still talk to the two chicks I competed with to this day.
If it’s not fun why are you doing it?
Goku and the Ego
I guess this might be a little bit of a love letter to UFC Fighter, black-belt, and anime-nerd Roxanne Modafferi… also known as “The Happy Warrior.” I don’t follow many UFC fighters because most of them are just ego-driven, paid sponsors of whatever bullshit they’re trying to sell you that’s been strategically advertised on the butt of their fight shorts. But I do follow Roxanne Modafferi on social media because she embodies everything I value: authenticity.
Uhhhg, shut the fuck up, Matt Damon. Crypto is the Crossfit of the Financial Investment world.
“Yeah but Modafferi sucks, she has a 25-20 record…” says the man wearing his Tapout shirt, shoving his second dozen hot wings into his gullet at the Buffalo Wild Wings. Remember, your haters are never doing better than you… sit down and enjoy your chicken, Sir. Modafferi isn’t known for her record, she is known for her mentality and her love of Dragon Ball Z, which I’ll fully admit I was a huge nerd about when I was in middle school (I once tried to see if I could hack our mitochondria in our cells to make a “Spirit Bomb”… I was 11 and still had a degree of magical thinking).
Modafferi exudes the philosophy of being a “happy warrior.” She isn’t motivated by extrinsic bullshit like wins and losses, she just loves fighting. She doesn’t do it to prove people wrong or to show everyone how tough she is, she loves the sport and the thrill of it all. I see the same mentality in my jiu-jitsu mentor and friend, Liz, who travels everywhere wildin’ out in competitions… and she does it with a happy smile (she never stops smiling… trust me, I spent months as her pre-tournament meat dummy…).
These are people fueled with intrinsic motivation and lack of ego… so why do we gravitate towards douchery so much?
Gordon Ryan may be the “king” of jiu jitsu, but his former teammate turned nemesis Craig Jones will always be liked more. Why? Because Gordon Ryan has an ego the size of his SARM fueled muscles and Craig Jones joking refers himself as a forever-silver medalist. He doesn’t have an ego, and if he does his isn’t on display like some roided out peacock.
Speaking of Dragon Ball Z, those of you familiar with Dragon Ball Z, we all know why we love Goku and think Vegeta is a complete douche. Vegeta is FULL of extrinsic motivations, which is why he never seems to be better than Goku. He constantly compares, feels entitled, goes lengths to prove himself as the truest Saiyan, and guess what happens? Simply, happy, dopey Goku with his pure intentions and love for the game so effortlessly reaches Super Saiyan before him. He gets it eventually, but… not without getting bested every damn time.
It’s your ego man… all of this just ties to your ego. The extrinsic motivations… the comparison… it all ties to THE EGO.
And lastly… be more careful about how to tie your identity to things you can lose. If you tie your identity so closely to what you are, what happens if that is taken away from you? “I’m a runner,” ok… but what if you become paralyzed? “I’m a cop,” ok… but what if you had one bad call that took away your ability to do that job? “I’m a mom,” ok… but what if your kid grows up to be a little shit who hates you? By attaching simple labels to ourselves, we box ourselves in, and we abandon the other wonderful parts that make us… well… “us.” You are more than just those titles… kill your ego, stop comparing, and embrace you for what you are.
