What if we focused on just showing up?

When I was fourteen, more than anything I wanted to be a professional rugby player. The last time I played a rugby match I was sixteen, I was seventeen when I last trained. It was not for lack of opportunity that I never played again nor did the daydreams of playing end. Yet I was unable to get past the attempts to train, to get to a state of fitness that seemed adequate for me to be good enough for the first training session back. What really stopped me was a fear of not being good enough, or as good as I had felt I had been. 

Fast forward to a coach training session ten years’ later. I was awed, if not a little intimidated, by the presence and experience of the trainer, who seamlessly plucked and wove together models and concepts and ideas I had never heard of. 

The question on my mind quickly became many questions: how on earth did they hold all that information? How did they know what to apply when? How did they then know how to implement that model in that moment? Like my non-existent return to rugby, how could I ever get to that level? 

When I finally managed to string these thoughts into a coherent question, it went something like ‘given the range of experience and models you know, how do you know what to use when?

Their answer was one ‘model’ that superseded all the others.

‘Just show up.’ 

What if I had just shown up to one rugby match, or even just one training?

While preparation in some form is often essential, there is always a point where regardless of what we know or how prepared we feel the only option we have is to show up.

Although I’ve now discovered alternative ambitions to my rugby aspirations, I have found wondering what I missed out on by not showing up? 

And more broadly:

What would be different in life if we simply showed up? 

What are the things we would show up to?

Who are the people we would show up for?

Where are the places we would show up? 

What stops us showing up?

It all sounds so simple and obvious but experience, or a lack of rugby in my twenties, suggests it is harder to apply in practice.

So what gets in the way of allowing ourselves to simply show up?

While it is a simple idea showing up is less of a simple act. 

It would have been much more different to notice the difficulty I felt when considering showing up to rugby again: the expectations I feared I would never live up to, the fear of what that would show about me, the fear of all the work I’d have to do to be any good again.

The challenge of showing up draws to mind Tim Gallwey’s distinction between Self 1 and Self 2, something this blog has looked at before. 

Self 1 is our judger, they think (and often overthink), they tell us what to do and ultimately try to control to force a desired outcome. 

Self 2, free of judgment, flows through intuition, observation, curiosity, experience and feelingIn the case of showing up,

Self 1 may tell us we need to be a certain way and only a specific outcome and route to the outcome is acceptable. Self 1 will be strict on preparation and eagle-eyed on performance, there is a way these things go and if we follow that way then we might get what we want.

Self 2 will likely ask ‘what am I noticing as I show up, right here, right now?’ In preparation it may ponder ‘what do I notice I need to show up for this occasion?’ Afterwards Self 2 will be curious in observing how showing up went, what could be learnt to try next time.

If Self 1 is about control, Self 2 is as much about letting go of the uncontrollable expectations of Self 1 as it is tuning into non-judgemental observation.

Knowing what we need can be valuable, knowing it is difficult, extra time to prepare, some accountability from someone else. Knowing what we need to let go of is equally valuable to quieten Self 1, release us from our expectations and to hone in to Self 2’s non-judgemental nature. 

We’ve shown up far more than we ever knew

When we think of anything we have ever achieved in life, it eventually has come down to showing up and taking a leap into the unknown.

A job started with some sort of application.

Relationships and friendships likely started with an action and are sustained by continuing to show up.

Personal goals, whether running a marathon, or taking up a new habit, are the product of regularly showing up.

While how we show up is also important, it doesn’t matter at all if we don’t show up.

So when we do show up, we can celebrate those moments we stepped into the unknown, we were brave, we were vulnerable, we let go just a little bit and put ourselves in the place where we can receive more of what we want.  

While we rarely remember the climb at the top of the mountain, it is those steps, each one a showing up, that gets us to the peak.

Reflection questions - what is it you want to show up to?

If you could show up for one thing what would it be?

What would it be like to simply show up?

What are you holding onto that stops you? 

What do you need to just show up?

What would the world be like if everyone allowed themselves to show up more?