And through movement, we can discover something equally remarkable: our capacity to become stronger, more capable, and more confident than we once imagined.

Sport can transform our relationship with ourselves. It can help us experience competence, resilience, pleasure, and pride. A positive relationship with our bodies can contribute profoundly to psychological well-being.

But what happens when the body becomes not only a source of experience, but also a means of proving our worth?

When Extraordinary Becomes Ordinary

We watch people run 50 or 70 kilometres, push through exhaustion, and take on challenges that seem almost superhuman. We admire their discipline, endurance, and extraordinary capacity to keep going.

And when we ask them why, the answer is often surprisingly simple:

“Just for fun.”

But what does fun mean when it involves months of preparation, physical discomfort, and pushing the body far beyond its ordinary limits?

Perhaps the answer is exactly what they say: joy, curiosity, adventure, and the pleasure of discovering what the human body can do.

After all, fun does not have to be easy.

Yet another question emerges. What happens when achievement becomes more than an experience — when it becomes a way of feeling worthy, strong, visible, or enough?

Two Years Inside CrossFit

Two years ago, I walked into a CrossFit gym with very little understanding of what I was entering.

I had heard that the workouts were varied, challenging, and never boring. That sounded appealing. My initial motivation was fairly ordinary: I wanted to improve my health, become stronger, and perhaps lose some weight.

What I did not expect was how quickly exercise could become a social experience of comparison, competition, and belonging.

One of the things I enjoyed most was the workout of the day — the WOD. We performed exercises within a given time, counted repetitions, and recorded our results in an app.

And there it was: a leaderboard.

A visible ranking of where each of us stood in relation to everyone else, from beginners to highly experienced athletes.

At first, I paid little attention to it. But after a few months, as I became stronger, I discovered something unexpectedly enjoyable: competition.

I began comparing my results with people whose abilities were similar to mine. Sometimes I managed to outperform them. Sometimes they outperformed me.

And I genuinely enjoyed it.

Competition gave me energy. It encouraged me to work harder than I probably would have on my own.

It did not necessarily make me feel more valuable as a person. But it certainly made me feel more capable.

Still, I began noticing something else.

The leaderboard was not merely a record of physical performance. It also created a visible hierarchy within the community.

I heard people discussing who had moved up, who had fallen behind, and who had beaten whom.

And I started wondering:

When does a measurement of performance become a measurement of ourselves?

Push Your Limits. But Why?

Over these two years, I repeatedly encountered familiar messages:

Push your limits. No excuses. Work harder. Don't hold back. Be stronger than yesterday.

These phrases are intended to inspire. And sometimes they do.

But I have often found myself wondering: Do I really need to push harder? And at what cost?

I have managed to avoid significant sports injuries, partly because I have chosen not to attempt certain movements or push beyond what felt safe for my body.

Meanwhile, I have watched fellow athletes — people considerably stronger, more skilled, and more enduring than myself — embrace challenges that I would hesitate to attempt.

I admire them. Their discipline, persistence, and physical abilities are genuinely impressive.

And yet, I have also felt something less comfortable.

In a culture where pushing harder is celebrated, choosing to do less can begin to feel like being less.

I sometimes wondered whether I was training enough, working hard enough, or investing enough in my progress.

And in a strictly athletic sense, perhaps I wasn't.

Others were doing more, progressing faster, and achieving things I could not.

But another question kept returning:

Enough for what?

The Handstand I Still Cannot Do

There is a movement I have wanted to master for quite some time: the handstand.

I still cannot do it.

I continue to practise, and I would genuinely love to succeed one day.

But I sometimes ask myself what exactly would change if I finally managed it.

Would I become a better person? A more valuable one? Would my relationship with myself fundamentally change?

Probably not.

And yet, I know how satisfying it would feel.

There is nothing inherently wrong with wanting to achieve, improve, or feel proud of ourselves. Physical accomplishments can offer a powerful experience of competence, vitality, and confidence.

Sport is one of the many ways we can support and regulate our sense of self-worth.

But when does that support become a demand?

When does “I want to become stronger” quietly turn into “I am not enough unless I become stronger”?

Leaving the Leaderboard, Missing the People

After approximately sixteen months, I left CrossFit and spent four months training independently in a conventional gym.

Part of me wanted to step away from the competitive atmosphere. I wanted to find out whether I could simply exercise for myself, without constantly comparing my results with those of others.

I could.

I continued training regularly and with discipline.

But something important was missing.

The people.

The shared effort. The encouragement. The experience of doing something difficult together.

I realised that I did not want to leave the community behind. I wanted to change the way I participated in it.

Eventually, I joined another functional fitness gym.

The community was there again, and so was the opportunity to compete.

But this time, I made a small decision: I stopped recording my results.

And because I no longer followed the leaderboard, I no longer knew who was ahead or behind.

It may sound insignificant. Yet for me, it created a surprising sense of freedom.

The constant pressure to improve, to catch up, and to think about what I should master next became much quieter.

I could still work hard, enjoy a challenging workout, and feel proud of my progress. But I no longer needed to place every performance on a public scale.

My life was also happening elsewhere — in my work, my family, my children, and the many ordinary responsibilities that make up a full life.

I began asking myself whether I truly wanted to invest more and more time in catching up with people whose priorities, circumstances, and abilities were different from mine.

And what would catching up actually give me?

I had not stopped wanting to improve.

I was beginning to question whether improvement always needed to be measured against someone else.

Strong in One World, Ordinary in Another

There is another paradox I have noticed.

Inside a CrossFit gym, extraordinary physical abilities can begin to look ordinary.

People lift impressive weights, perform handstands, walk on their hands, and complete demanding workouts. Surrounded by such abilities, it becomes easy to forget how unusual some of them may be outside that environment.

But step into another social world — a professional meeting, an academic gathering, or simply a group of people whose interests lie elsewhere — and the perspective changes.

A person in their forties or fifties who can perform these movements may suddenly appear remarkable.

The same body. The same abilities. A different social field.

And perhaps a different experience of oneself.

Within the sporting community, we may feel that we are constantly trying to catch up. Outside it, we may discover a sense of competence, distinction, or even pride.

This raises an interesting question about self-worth: how much of what we feel about ourselves depends on the people around us?

Sport can give us something genuinely valuable — the experience of being capable of things we once thought impossible.

But being exceptionally capable at something is not quite the same as being a more valuable person.

Perhaps the challenge is to enjoy our achievements without needing them to establish our worth.

When Sport Supports Us — and When It Begins to Demand

As a Gestalt psychotherapist, I am particularly interested in how our sense of self develops and changes in relation to others.

We do not train in a psychological vacuum.

We train alongside people whose achievements inspire us, whose recognition matters to us, and whose standards gradually influence our own expectations.

Sometimes nobody explicitly tells us that we are not doing enough.

We simply begin to feel it.

A missed training session can bring disappointment or guilt. Another person's progress can become a measure against which we evaluate our own.

And somewhere in this process, the boundary between personal desire and collective expectation may become less clear.

Yet I do not believe that regulating self-worth through sport is inherently problematic.

We all need ways to support ourselves psychologically. We find them in relationships, meaningful work, creativity, learning, achievement, and countless other experiences.

Sport can be an exceptionally constructive way of doing this.

It can provide structure, belonging, vitality, emotional regulation, and a tangible experience of personal growth.

The difficulty may begin not when we seek confidence through sport, but when sport becomes the only acceptable way to feel confident.

When resting feels like failure.

When physical limitations become evidence of personal inadequacy.

When we continue pushing not because we want to, but because we no longer feel free to stop.

From a Gestalt perspective, this brings us to the importance of awareness, contact with our bodily experience, and flexible self-regulation.

Perhaps the question is not whether sport helps us regulate our self-worth.

Of course it can.

The more interesting question is whether this regulation remains flexible enough to support our lives rather than begin to dominate them.

The Freedom to Choose

I still admire athletes who push themselves to extraordinary achievements.

I still enjoy challenging workouts.

I still want to learn that handstand.

And I still sometimes feel disappointed when I train less than I had planned.

I do not imagine that I have somehow become immune to comparison, ambition, or the desire to improve.

Nor do I think I need to.

What matters to me is the possibility of remaining in contact with myself while pursuing these goals.

To notice when effort brings joy and when it begins to feel like an obligation.

To recognise the difference between a challenge I freely choose and a standard I have silently adopted from others.

To appreciate what my body can do without forgetting to listen to what it needs.

Perhaps genuine strength is not only the ability to push beyond our limits.

Perhaps it is also the freedom to recognise them.

And perhaps the most important question is not simply:

“What am I trying to prove — and to whom?”

But, more importantly:

“Am I still choosing this — or am I trying to become enough?”

This personal reflection accompanies my qualitative research project, “Performance, Self-Worth and the Boundary of Health in Adult Athletes,” exploring how recreational athletes experience achievement, self-worth, bodily limits, and belonging within high-intensity sporting communities.

Jurgita Vozgirdaitė - Kučaitienė

Psychologist/Gestalt Psychoterapist/Supervisor/Lithuania