Who You Are Vs Who You Were

One of the hardest things an athlete will ever face has nothing to do with training, programming, or competition day execution. Its identity. More specifically, it’s learning to come to grips with who you ARE as an athlete today, rather than who you WERE. And I’ve seen this play out over and over again, at both ends of the spectrum.

The hardest part of being an athlete isn’t physical

I’ve coached athletes who, at one point, were among the best in the world. They were on podiums in the final heats and were the ones everyone watched. Then, over time, things start to change. Injuries stack up, recovery slows down, and the body doesn’t respond the same way it once did. But mentally, they’re still that athlete. That’s where the real struggle begins. Every training session becomes a comparison, every missed lift feels heavier than it should, and every result is measured against a version of themselves that no longer exists.

I’ve seen how frustrating and painful that can be, not because they’ve lost their work ethic or competitiveness, but because they haven’t yet accepted that they’re not that athlete anymore. And I don’t mean that in a negative way, I mean it in a real way. Because until you accept who you are today, you can’t fully invest in becoming the best version of that athlete. You end up stuck chasing something that’s already behind you.

When your performance outgrows your identity

On the other side of this, I’ve seen something just as limiting. Athletes who have become elite but don’t yet see themselves that way. Alex Gazan is a great example of this. There was a time when she was right on the edge, competitive and talented, but not yet one of the names people expected to see at the top. Then everything started to click. Her training elevated, her results improved, and she became one of the best in the world.

But mentally, that shift didn’t happen overnight. There was a period when she still approached training and competition as if she had something to prove, rather than recognizing that she already belonged at that level. That gap matters. At the highest level, belief isn’t optional; it’s required. You can have all the physical tools in the world, but if your internal identity hasn’t caught up to your external performance, you’ll hesitate, you’ll second-guess, and you’ll hold back in moments that require conviction. And often, that’s the difference between being in the mix and being on top.

When identity and reality don’t match

At first glance, these two situations seem completely different. One athlete is holding on to the past, while the other is struggling to accept the present. But the root issue is the same; their identity doesn’t match their reality. And when those two things are out of sync, performance suffers. You either chase a version of yourself that no longer exists, or you fail to fully step into the version of yourself you’ve already become. Neither allows you to move forward the way you’re capable of.

This is a conversation I’ve had more times than I can count, and it always comes back to the same place. You have to get honest about where you are right now. Not based on what you’ve done before, not based on what you think you should be, and not based on fear, ego, or expectations, just the truth. Who are you as an athlete today? What are your current strengths? What are your limitations? What version of you consistently SHOWS UP in training?

From there, everything becomes clearer. If you’re the athlete who used to be at the top, you have to stop chasing who you were and start defining what excellence looks like for who you are now. That might mean adjusting your training, shifting your goals, or finding new ways to compete, lead, or grow. That’s not regression, it’s evolution.

If you’re the athlete who has leveled up, you have to stop waiting for validation. You have to stop acting like you’re still trying to prove you belong, because you’ve already done that. Now it’s about owning it, training like it, competing like it, and thinking like it.

Train for who you are, not who you were

At HWPO, we talk a lot about standards, but this is where people sometimes get it wrong. The standard isn’t about holding yourself to what you did at your absolute peak, and it’s not about downplaying what you’re capable of now. The standard is about SHOWING UP and executing at the highest level you’re capable of today. That requires awareness, humility, and confidence. The goal isn’t to live in the past or question the present; it’s to align with reality and then raise it.

Every athlete will face this at some point, and the question is simple: Are you training for who you used to be, or for who you are right now? Because the answer to that question shapes everything: your mindset, your decisions, and your trajectory.

The athletes who continue to grow, at any stage of their career, are the ones who can answer that honestly, and then have the discipline to act on it, because the moment you stop chasing who you were and fully commit to who you are is the moment you give yourself a chance to become something even better.