Two Powerful Thoughts: Competitions of the Heart, and False Dependencies

Just got back from beating myself up at the gym... it was suprisingly energizing.  When I walked into the room, the energy was dull, low, and unfocused.  When I walked out of the room, I could feel the intensity.  The experience really exemplified two powerful thoughts that have been bouncing around in my head the past few weeks: Competitions of the Heart and False Depencies.  Once I fully embraced these two concepts, the energy just began to build and build, not just in myself, but in everyone else present as well... so how did this transformation happen?

Competitions of the Heart

Competitions of the Heart was a concept that I began to think about in it's current form as I was helping to coach my old middle school wrestling team.  I noticed that there was a certain type of competitive spirit that was completely non-destructive, which pushed everyone to their limits but brang people together instead of pushed them apart.  I began to refer to these situations in my own mind as "competitions of the heart".  A competition of the heart looks something like this: Everybody is going along, doing their own thing, at a certain level of intensity and drive.  Suddenly, someone comes along and kicks it up a notch.  You can see it in their face, a slight bit more of intensity, a higher level of focus.  

At first, people around them will try to make it a competition of the body, trying to match their speed or strength... then they'll realize that the challenge was not a challenge of the mind or body, but of the heart.  Suddenly, you'll see THEIR faces begin to change, with that same slightly more intense, more focused look.  This will begin to spread around the room, untill one of the competitive people decides to kick it up ANOTHER notch, and the process repeats.

The interesting thing about competitions of the heart is that they only take one person to grow. It only takes one person who challenges people not to be as good as him, but to be the best THEY can be.  In doing so, it creates a synergystic effect around the room... causing EVERYBODY to be better.  The question still remains though... if it's a competition, how do you know who's a winner, how do you measure it?  The answer is to count false dependencies.

False Dependencies

When I first began thinking about false dependencies and competitions of the heart, I didn't connect the dots between the two.  The notion of false dependencies came to my attention from one of the mentors I have enlisted to help me with my weaknesses.  He's an expert on the issues of organization, productivity, focus, and attention that I'm working on right now.  I was discussing with him the fact that my planning system had been falling apart for the past week, and I hadn't been able to get much done because of that. 

He pointed out to me that just because I hadn't been putting things into my planning system as per usual, did not mean I couldn't do them.   The notion came as a shock to me, not because it's a big huge notion that's earth shattering, but because I genuinely hadn't been thinking in those obvious terms.  I had created a false depency between my planning and my doing, that had caused a literal halt in my productivity.

This experience caused me to begin thinking about where there might be other false dependencies in other areas of my life.  I began to find them all over the place, and as I eliminated them one by one,  my productivity began to skyrocket.

Me being strong depends on me exercising, me exercising depends on me having exercise equipment, me having an exercise equipment depends on me going to the gym, me going to the gym depends on me having a car.

I began to notice some patterns of false dependencies

• Something Scary depends on Something Tedious.
• Execution depends on Planning.
• Something Hard depends on Something You're Waiting For.
• Something New depends on Gathering More Information.

then I began to take it deeper, realizing just how deeply the false dependencies ran.

Getting up depends on having arms and legs.

As I began to take it to those deeper levels, I realzied that competitions of heart were nothing more than competitions to see who could eliminate more false dependencies.  Eliminating everything false depenedcy until the only dependency left was heart, until you were running on sheer willpower alone.

I should clarify, I 'm not suggesting that you get rid of incentives, tools, and tricks, I'm merely saying that you learn to be able to live with out them, so that when you encounter a situation in which they're not there, you can still press on.  Do you really think a prize will matter when you're beginning to feel pain from pushups? Do you think pain will matter when you literally don't feel like you have the strength to continue?  Do you think thoughts will matter when you ACTUALLY don't have the strength to continue? As these false dependencies fade away one by one, you get closer and closer to relying on heart alone.    The winner is the one who gets closest.

By consciously examining your life for false dependencies (paying special attention to the patterns I mentioned  above), you can begin to develop your own heart.  The, put yourself in situations where you can have competitions of the heart, and push your heart to the limits.  IT's worth it.

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