You're running threat software on a Tuesday

By Chriss Smith Jr. · First published in Sow the Seeds, 02

Nobody passes me on a bike.

That's the thought that showed up on a regular Sunday, deep into a long training ride on the W&OD trail.

I was settled in at fourteen, fifteen miles an hour. Two and a half to three hours on the schedule. The plan was endurance, nothing more. I'm training for The Abyss, a 330 km race in Iceland. We did it last July and got pulled off the course about 210 km in. We simply weren't fast enough. Too many hills, too little training. That's okay. It's part of the story, and it's fuel for the fire next year.

Then two guys came by on race bikes. Eighteen miles an hour. Maybe twenty to twenty-two. Blazing fast for the trail we were on.

Every part of me wanted to jump on the pedals, hard, and chase them down. Catch them. Pass them. Prove something to two strangers who had no idea I existed.

Then it hit me. That's an old tool. Old ego. An old thought running an old program.

I have a training plan. Today's plan said easy and steady, because this is a race for endurance. Chasing two strangers wasn't in it. The plan doesn't care about my ego.

So I let them go. I stayed on the plan.

It's easy to be hard. It's hard to be smart. Stay disciplined.

Here's the thing about old tools. They don't announce themselves.

When I was around forty, I ran everything through one filter. How does this look? Who's going to judge me? What if I get it wrong and everybody sees?

At sixty, that crosses my mind less and less.

Did I get braver? No. I've just been judged enough to find out what it really costs.

It costs nothing.

These days, I'm careful about different things. I'm careful about caring less. I care less about who's judging, and I'm more careful about being exactly who I am.

Last week I wrote about the scanning I learned as a kid, the habit of reading every face when I stuttered, and how long it took me to put it down. That was step one of the Mission Reset: Name the Tool. Name the habit. Name the behavior.

This week is step two, Evaluate the Threat, and it's the step most people skip.

Before you put a tool down, check whether the thing it was built for is still out there. Is the threat still real?

Most of the time, it isn't. You're not being threatened. You're running outdated threat software on a Tuesday.

The Atlantic showed me another version of it.

I rowed across it with a team, Team Shut Up and Row. Thirty-three days, three thousand miles of open ocean. We didn't take first, second, or even third. We did cross the Atlantic.

In my heart, I wanted the podium. I'll say it plainly. Holding that and being able to give myself grace for the finish has been one of the harder parts of the journey.

That was an old tool, too. A thought, a belief, a part of me that needs to win at all costs. It was built for a reason. It's gotten me through a lot of shit over the years. But the finish line was not a threat. Nobody was grading the ocean crossing but me.

Both races taught me the same thing. Set big goals. Sometimes you hit them, sometimes you don't. Either way, keep moving forward. Give yourself credit for putting in the most effort you could with the time you had, and still call it a win.

So this week, when the old alarm goes off, take a breath. Pause long enough to ask:

What am I actually protecting myself from here? Is it still in the room? Do I still need to be cautious?

Usually the threat left years ago, and nobody told your nervous system. It's still on guard. Still working at 100%.

So give it some grace. Not a pass. Grace. The kid who learned to scan the room was doing the best he could with what he had. So was the man who wanted the podium. Both of them got me here. Thank them, and then ask whether they still need to be on watch.

Next Tuesday is step three, Put It Down.

Chriss

Sow the Seeds is a weekly letter from Chriss Smith Jr., former Navy SEAL, speaker and coach. It comes out every Tuesday. Sign up and the free five-step Mission Reset guide lands in your inbox.