Blog 5 Shadow Boxing

Shadow Boxing

Through years of experience, training, and simply observing life, I noticed something peculiar about human beings.

We are remarkably talented at achieving things and then immediately deciding they don’t count.

We buy the house, but someone else’s is bigger.

We get the promotion, but someone else got there faster.

We lose twenty pounds, but someone else lost thirty.

We survive something difficult, then criticize ourselves for not handling it better.

And perhaps one of the strangest things we do:

We accomplish something meaningful and call it luck.

As though the years of effort, preparation, sacrifice, learning, persistence, and resilience had nothing to do with it.

As though we simply wandered past success and accidentally tripped over it. We don’t respect it, appreciate or savour the wins!

Many of us are willing to take full responsibility for our failures (and the shame of other) while giving ourselves very little credit for our successes.

The mistakes belong to us.

The accomplishments belong to luck.

Funny how that works

We are “shadow boxing”🥊 and loosing.

Not against another opponent or other people.

With ourselves, we are our own opponent!

Or more accurately, with a shadow version of ourselves made up of self-doubt, old wounds, unrealistic expectations, imagined criticism, and the belief that somehow we should always be doing better than we are.

The thing about shadow boxing is that the opponent never gets tired.

That voice is always ready.

You should have done more.

You should have known better.

You should be further ahead.

You should look different.

Earn more.

Need less.

Accomplish more.

Feel less.

The shadow is relentless.

And because it lives inside our own heads, it knows exactly where to land the punches.

It reminds us of old mistakes.

It magnifies our flaws.

It minimizes our accomplishments.

It moves the finish line every time we get close.

Then it convinces us we’re losing.

The tragedy is that most of the bruises we carry through life were never given to us by other people.

Many were handed out by our own inner critic.

By our own impossible standards.

By years of measuring ourselves against expectations we never consciously chose.

Miss Management has lost many fights in that ring!

What she eventually learned is that the goal was never to beat the shadow.

The goal was to stop fighting it.

To recognize it for what it is.

A collection of fears.

Old stories.

Inherited beliefs.

Outdated scorecards.

And perceptions of what we think other people expect from us.

The shadow is not truth.

It’s commentary.

Sometimes useful.

Often not.

The older I get, the more I believe success has very little to do with winning someone else’s race.

Success is sleeping peacefully.

Success is healing.

Success is laughing more than you did last year.

Success is setting a boundary.

Success is asking for help.

Success is leaving what harms you.

Success is becoming more of yourself and less of who you thought you were supposed to be.

Not all victories come with trophies.

Some arrive quietly.

Some look like rest.

Some look like forgiveness.

Some look like finally putting down baggage you’ve been carrying for years.

Miss Management believes every traveler needs their own map.

Their own destination.

And their own mile markers.

Because if you spend your life shadow boxing, you’ll be too busy fighting yourself to appreciate how far you’ve already come.

So before you decide whether you’re succeeding, ask yourself two questions:

Whose scorecard are you using?

And why are you still fighting a shadow?

This message is brought to you in kindness.

Miss Management