This has become a mantra of sorts for the millennials and has been unwittingly adopted by the fitness community. Whether you choose Strava, MapMyRun, Endomondo, Garmin, Fitbit, Apple… There are endless ways to count and track your activities. It is easy to feel like an activity that isn’t tracked, or that you don’t get “credit” for, doesn’t count. And, if it doesn’t count, did it ever really happen?
For those of you who are regular readers, (first off, thank you) you may find the irony in putting a post about the dangers of “Pictures or it Didn’t Happen” right after “What Gets Measured gets Managed”. Rest assured, both the irony and the order is intentional, there is a method to the madness and an important lesson and balance in both.
Earlier this week I talked about not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts. You can find the post in it’s entirety here (What Gets Measured Gets Managed), but the gist is, metrics help us improve, and hold us accountable, but it is easy to get lost in the weeds.
The same mindset applies to pictures or it didn’t happen. Have you ever not gone on a run because your watch wasn’t charged and you wouldn’t get credit? I definitely have. I used to take my vivofit off my wrist and tie it into my shoe laces so I would get credit for stationary bike rides in hotel gyms. (There were HSA dollars and company wellness incentives involved, buts it’s still a bit silly)
Then there is the gym selfie crowd. If you workout but you didn’t take a gym selfie did you really workout? How else do you show the rest of the world that you earned your #serenitythroughsweat without that picture?
I’ll start by saying this is again something I’m guilty of. There is an accountability aspect, and there is a data/metric aspect, but I would be lying if I said their wasn’t a vain attention seeking aspect.
Just like our metrics, I think that there is a happy balance to be found. Posting that sweaty picture, uploading those miles, showing how tight your arrow grouping is getting after some practice, these are all accomplishments, even if they serve to puff up our egos maybe more than they should.
There is also serenity to be found in miles untethered by an electronic tracking device, in throwing around weights with no one watching, and sweating in solitude.
The choice to take pictures is up to you, but let the sweat speak for itself and don’t feel the need to prove your serenity to anyone other than yourself. Thanks for joining me, and stay sweaty my friends.
