In my sophomore year of high school, I raced in a mile race in a track meet against a runner, who I’ll call John Smith. John Smith was one of the best runners in the county. He had run the gold standards of a high school runner: a 4:20 in the mile, and a 9:20 in the 2 mile. These are times I have still not broken to this day.
I stepped on the line with John Smith, and acknowledged that I would not be able to compete with him. He was better. He was faster. He was more experienced. I had no business being mentioned in the same sentence as him.
When the race actually happened, I was very, very close to John Smith most of the race. He beat me, but barely, and I probably could have been more aggressive and put up a better effort against him if I had been less deferential to John Smith’s accomplishments. If I had seen him as my equal, I probably wouldn’t have beaten him, but I would have been significantly better. He had a pretty poor performance where a no-name sophomore who was a lot worse on paper could have beaten him.
When the race was over and I cooled down with one of the team’s leaders and captains, I told him my thought process. I told him that in my head, I was competing against John Smith, so I mentally checked out of the race a bit.
“You can’t think like that,” he said. I don’t remember exactly what he said next, but I remember his message and what I took away from it. I have to believe I can compete with anyone. I have to believe I’m better than anyone or can be better than anyone.
. . .
More than 11 years later, I realize my friend had a point. I wouldn’t call myself a dreamer, but a realist. When I have a lot going on, I accept that I may be more limited and accept it. I try to find a sustainable path forward that is flexible, instead of an incredibly rigid one. I am also not a huge fan of the self-help space and think self-help can be ableist and not adapted well to each person’s individual circumstances.
However, recently I have found myself fired up and incredibly motivated by what I call megalomanic delusional thoughts. I will just quote some of the things I tell myself in my head to keep pushing myself forward and navigate my daily activities, including as a husband, special education teacher, law student, runner, and writer.
I feel guilty thinking these thoughts. Part of me feels like they’re not polite, and might not be healthy. The silver lining is, outwardly, I don’t present these attitudes to others and am still seen as a kind, generous, humble person who is always willing to go the extra mile to help people I care about, instead of a pompous, arrogant asshole. But these thoughts are those of a pompous, arrogant asshole.
I call these delusions for a reason. They’re things I believe temporarily, in the moment, as a means to an end to propel myself to give my best effort and not give up, or just start my day on a positive note. I also don’t actually believe them, or else I wouldn’t need to say them to myself. If you think you’re the best, better than everyone, or the smartest person in the room, you would not need to tell yourself that over and over again. It’s actually rooted, I think, in an insecurity when I feel unconfident and uncertain. I have been told that my uncertainty and my ability to navigate and tackle nuance are some of my greatest traits, particularly in a world that does not incentivize those feelings.
These megalomanic delusions, however, have sometimes completely shifted my attitude. I am human, like everyone else. A lot of times, I just don’t feel like washing the dishes, cooking, writing a report, cleaning the house, studying, or taking care of an errand. We all have a million things to do we don’t feel like doing.
But by believing and telling myself I am good at all these things, that I may even be the best, I am more motivated to accomplish a very undesirable task. If I think I am good at washing dishes and getting them as clean as possible, I am more inclined to actually do it. They make me take risks I would not take otherwise.
For example, about two months ago, I ran a half marathon. I told myself over and over again, “I’m the best runner here,” “I’m in the best shape in my life,” and “I know how to stay calm, relaxed, and controlled.” I was running paces I had never run before for a half marathon. For two miles in the middle of the race, I ran 5:20 miles. It was a pace much faster than I was necessarily comfortable going at that time or that I thought was wise, but I felt great.
I was in the position I was in, and I was committed. It ended up being too fast, but I still ran a 45-second personal best. I got third place behind the two guys I was running with half the race. I put myself in the arena. I believed I could be the best, so I acted like I was the best and affirmed, over and over again, that I could be the best.
I obviously wasn’t the best on that day, but I did much better than I had ever done before in my life. And that’s what mattered — that I shattered my previous performances and goalposts, even if that wasn’t on par with my expectations.
I am very conscious of what I’m doing, and I’m hoping I do not internalize these delusions into making me a completely different person. So far, I am still very much the same person, but rely on these delusional, megalomanic thoughts as a motivator and an edge in times I’m unmotivated and dismayed.
There is a difference, however, between delusions and lies. I know I’m not actually the best or the smartest person in the world. I know I’m not the hardest worker or the most brilliant mind out there. At the end of the day, real life limitations and reality itself are still incredibly important.
However, these megalomaniac delusions have allowed me to channel a part of myself that a previous part of myself has tried to suppress to adapt to what I believe I should be. It’s the monster, the demon, the part of me that might just be crazy or insane. It’s the competitive part of me that does not want to lose. It taps into a part of me I don’t like to admit exists: the vane and prideful side that does actually think I am the best at everything I do and thinks I’m better than everyone else. I hate to say it, but those vices are useful when channeled into positive pursuits rather than indulging them.
Thinking I am unstoppable or just the best has helped me write when I don’t feel like writing, work when I when I don’t working, and study when I don’t feel like studying. I know intellectually I’m not the smartest person in the room, but I’ll start to take actions that put me in the position to get closer to my delusion, including participating more in class, devoting more time to reading, or asking the professor more questions. Sometimes, it’s not what I do, but how it makes me feel. I feel, temporarily, and in situations when I really need to be pumped up.
. . .
There’s a time when it is too much and it’s time to put it to rest. These thoughts are not always productive in times when I’ve pushed myself too hard and realize I’m at my limit, or even past it. There comes a time when repeating these thoughts over and over again just exhausts me and makes my mind race rather than pushing me forward. Sometimes, I need to just be human, and at the end of the day or at times when I sense I have reached the point of diminishing returns in pushing myself, I turn off these megalomanic delusions.
Turning off the thoughts is a refreshing reminder that I don’t actually believe these things, or at least I can stop at the end of the day and remind myself that health, family, and faith are more important than the achievement-focused goals I so often focus on. I think there is a lot of nuance, that we can believe a lot of different things at different times, just like we can feel different things at different times. There is a time for feeling super motivated and pumped up, and a time for just resting and laying on the couch. I experience the latter just as much as the former, but my circumstances, and the circumstances of many working multiple jobs, going to school at night, or parents, is that they have to be active and occupied more often than they can rest.
The psychological term for these megalomanic delusional thoughts is positive affirmations. According to Dr. Poonam Sachdev at WedMD, positive affirmations are phrases you say to yourself or in your head to build confidence and improve your confidence even in difficult circumstances. They are a means of overcoming negative thoughts of self-doubt and minimizing negativity. It usually is through the use of positive self-talk, and there is no one-size-fits-all solution.
Dr. Sachdev emphasizes that denial of reality is usually not a good coping strategy for these positive affirmations. Affirmations are a research-backed way to decrease stress, increase well-being, improve academic performance, and make people more open to behavioral change.
Personally, I think there’s a time and place for these affirmations, and the way I think about them is likely more derogatory than how other people would. It’s not like these thoughts never occurred to me in the past. But I will say, at 27, I am significantly more certain that I deserve to be in the same room, in the arena, and am capable of being the best at any given thing as long as I work for it. I don’t really think it’s impossible for me to achieve lofty goals anymore like I did when I was a sophomore in high school. I have a much more positive outlook that, yes, I might not be better than John Smith at any given moment, but I’m in a much better place than I was yesterday.
Since that time 11 years later, I am in a place where I actually do believe nothing can stop me, internally, more than I need to keep telling that to myself. I might not believe it on the days before a test or the night before a race, but I believe it on the day of. And it’s that internal belief in myself, more and more, that has become more integral.
To be clear, this hasn’t given its way into the hubris these thoughts can so often lead to. Most of the time, I do doubt. I am unsure. I do lack confidence. I do proceed with caution and make sure I tackle a given performance or big event with more restraint and control to account for what can happen on a given day.
This doesn’t mean I completely take myself out of the conversation like I did when I was in the tenth grade. It means I am more confident and have been able to dream, but I have also gained the wisdom of discernment to maximize my chances to perform on any given day.
But sometimes, it’s not about discernment and not about being calculated and cautious. Sometimes it is about believing, and it doesn’t need to be more complicated than that. Maybe it can be about believing I am just better than I was yesterday.
I used to think mindset was bullshit, that it had no impact on how I did or how I performed on a given day. I realize at the end of the day it does matter — not as a determinative prediction of the future, but just as a realization that I, too, deserve to be in the ring and arena, and will do the absolute best I can to win.
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This post was previously published on The Partnered Pen.
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