Sonya Looney

A Life of Adventure

By InnerVoice

June 22^nd, 2018

What is next?

Stagnation is my greatest fear. I remember earlier this year someone asked me about my racing goals for the season. I was surprised at myself - I didn’t have a goal. The satisfaction I get out of racing has evolved over the years. I used to want to win races to prove to myself and to others that I was good, but I learned that self-worth shouldn’t come from achievements. I’ve been fortunate to win a lot of races over the course of my career, but winning and success mean something different to me now. For me, it’s less about beating someone else and more about pushing my own limits and learning about myself, regardless of the end result. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a highly competitive person and when I line up I’m racing to win, but my feelings of satisfaction and achievement are more connected to questioning myself: “Am I proud of myself for getting through that, for giving my best, for welcoming discomfort and the unknown, for overcoming a huge challenge? Am I walking away from this a better and more aware person?” And the bonus is I can achieve all of those things without winning, which is really cool. So when someone asks me what my goals are, to say “winning” simply isn’t enough. I can win races and not check any of those other boxes. My goal is to go places I haven't gone before; to tackle new challenges in life, and on the bike; to learn more about myself as a person; and have new life experiences. My next big race is a 6-day event in Poland and I'm really curious about the country. But I'm trying to figure out where I want to go next with my racing. I’ve accomplished far more than I ever imagined for myself in mountain bike racing, which is such an incredible gift, but I need to continue doing things that make me nervous and are a stretch. My bike is a vehicle for personal growth, and to continue growing, I need to continue finding bigger challenges.

The question is...what is next?

I found confidence

I played soccer and tennis growing up. Music was also a big part of my life. I self-identified as more of an academic and musician as a teen. I was the top flute player in my school and also in the running for valedictorian, but I still did not feel confident in who I was. I was picked on a lot and was more in the "nerd" crew. I just wanted people to like me and think I was funny, but it seemed like the harder I tried to fit in, the more awkward things were for me. Someone I looked up to in my senior year calculus class said she thought marathons were cool. One year later I ran my first marathon. I also started going to the gym daily. Through this process, my life changed. I found who I was, I found confidence. I did all of my training on my own, but it showed me what I was capable of and taught me who I wanted to be. Because I finally started finding more self-love and confidence, the way I carried myself changed and people started treating me differently. Instead of trying to fit in, people were looking to me as a leader! I didn't really know what I was doing with running and I kept getting injuries, and eventually a stress fracture. I went to a spin class for some cross training and I loved it. I didn't even know cycling was a sport. A few guys from my work invited me to go mountain biking and I decided to try. Two weeks later I did my first race and went all-in. That was 14 years ago. I still can't believe the trajectory that my life has taken from a few small decisions.

I ended up getting my Master's Degree in Electrical Engineering, and studied biomedical instrumentation in grad school. I realized I loved health and medicine. After grad school, while working for a solar start-up company, I decided to take the pre-med courses I was missing and do volunteer work. I was planning to go into the medical field because I wanted to inspire people to lead healthier lives. I was also writing a blog about my racing adventures, which at that time were limited to Colorado. In 2008, I wrote a review about a backpack on my blog and it sent so much traffic to this company's website that they contacted me.

I ended up racing on their team (Topeak Ergon) for 5 years and also took a role traveling the United States and Canada doing sales and marketing to build the brand. It took me off the path of going into the medical field, but the amazing thing is that now, every day I get to inspire people to eat healthier, be braver, and pass on some of the tools that have helped me be the best version of myself. Personal growth is a huge part of my life and is what drives me every single day.

A life of no regrets

Having the right people around you is so key. My biggest inspiration and support is my husband, Matt Ewonus. He pushes me to expect more out of myself, encourages me when I feel frustrated, and creates a positive, supportive environment at all times. For me, it's not just about racing and getting results. I'm interested in finding untapped potential and applying it to all areas of my life so that I can lead by example and show others that they can do it too. I really believe that! I do a lot of other things besides racing to create stories, content, and even products to help people ride, and live inspired. The ripple effect of that is massive and you never know what impact you can have on the world simply by being vulnerable, sharing your journey and approaching each person with a 'how can I help?' attitude. I love racing and winning races, but my "why" is to have an adventure, share the story of what I learned, and have that help someone. I also pick other athletes to spend time with who are positive, don't complain, and don't put limits on themselves or others. I also think that the media greatly affects us, so I love consuming podcasts, books, and social media that build me up and reinforce self-belief and hard work.

To find my “why”, I went through a process of reverse engineering things. I don't want to go through life with regrets, so the question became how do I avoid having regrets? I started thinking about what kind of life I wanted and things like How am I going to feel if I don't do this? And in my relationships, in my family, in the adventures that I take on, in the risks...it's driven by Am I going to regret this if I don't do it? You always hear stories of people who are on their deathbed saying they wish they would have done x, y, z. And I can honestly say if I die tomorrow, I wouldn't have that. The only thing that I might say is maybe I shouldn't have worked as much, which is what a lot of people say. But I don't ever want to look back on my life and say I wish that I would've done that.

I want to keep giVing back

I am giving back to my community every day, in the best way I know how: with my time. I am mentoring people to become better mountain bike athletes (whether it be coaching, Q&As, choosing equipment, training questions, how to get sponsored, etc.), helping people take the next big step in their lives, and creating free content to teach mental resilience, self-awareness, and to show that you can do whatever you want so long as you’re willing to try!

When I am not racing full-time, I want to create more content on how to live a high-performance life, which is the subject of all my podcast episodes (The Sonya Looney Show) and also my speaking career. I also host a free Facebook group on healthier living (The Plant-Powered Tribe), write regular articles both in and out of the bike industry, and I answer any questions people might have via email, social media or my website.

I'm really interested in continuing to grow my podcasts and expand my frame of reference. Podcasting is hard, especially now that I've been doing it for just over a year and I always have to be coming up with new topics and new guests. I'm getting really curious as to where I want to take the show next. My podcast is honestly my favorite thing right now because I get to feed off somebody else's positivity and their knowledge, and I get to share that too. I like to try and keep the show dynamic so it's not just about one topic, but the theme that ties everything together is mindset. People have also really resonated with my stuff on plant-based nutrition - it's crazy how many emails I’ve received about that.

“My dad once gave me some advice: "It's not can't, it's won't." Don't say ‘I can't.’ You always have a choice. Thanks Dad!”

Embrace the challenges

I think that challenges are good. If you don't have challenges then you're not going to live a life that you're going to remember. The challenges are what you remember. I actually intentionally seek out things that are going to be hard because I've learned over time that those are the things that matter to me. And those are the things that show you what you're capable of in other places in your life. If you never challenge yourself, you never even get a glimpse of what that potential might look like.

I think that by attempting things and being able to get through them, it gives you a point of reference so that the next time you do something difficult you’ll have this resume of experiences that you can look back on and say, ‘Wow, well I got through that.’ I've seen it show up in some of my races. An example is this year I did a 6-day race in Spain and it was supposed to be this beautiful Mediterranean weather, but it was pouring rain, muddy, cold, and everyone around me was just melting down mentally. But I chose to love it. I know it sounds crazy, but I had fun and I was happy. I had the most fun on the days with the worst weather because I'd done it enough times that I was able to look at it and say, ‘No, this is an adventure, this is awesome.’ Having a point of reference for things makes everything else easier, and I think that mental toughness comes from taking on challenges and being able to get through them and then realize that you're going to be fine. You end up learning to enjoy them.

CHOOSE HAPPINESS

We always have a choice. We get to choose how we react to a situation. We get to choose our inner narrative. There's this book I love called The Happiness Advantage by Shawn Achor and he calls it your explanatory style. You get to choose how you tell yourself a story about a situation, and if you start telling yourself stories with a negative frame then that becomes your habit, and then your entire lens on life changes. We can feel how it is to be around someone who's always negative and always complaining and we know what it feels like to be around somebody who chooses to be positive and who chooses to look at things in a different way.

I'm a pretty positive person and there are times where I've struggled to stay positive (I'm a human being), but for some people it’s a big challenge to be positive because they've spent so much time around negative people, or are just negative themselves. If you work at it, it actually restructures how your brain fires. There's neural connections that change whenever you start looking at the world and choosing to spin the story in a more positive light.

Never stop having fun

I honestly do not have any regrets. Everything that has happened, regardless of whether it was disappointing or not, has helped me become who I am. I'm thankful for the hard times because they have made me resilient. I obviously don't love it when things go wrong, but those times have been my best teachers. Now I look at it as an opportunity to practice all the things I've worked on over the years - reframing, creating opportunity in every setback to learn about myself, learning how to process and accept it when things don't go well (and that it's okay to feel sad), that we have a choice with how we view everything that happens to us. No regrets!

I think it's important to be goofy in your life and to keep that child-like mindset. I'm a really goofy person and I laugh a lot. I feel like I'm a big kid and I think that it's important not to lose that. It’s important to not be afraid to stop and smell a flower, to have curiosity for everything, to do things without worrying so much about failing, to laugh at silly things, to make funny voices or dance funny. There's lots of things that kids do that for some reason we just stop doing as we age. I think it's really important to have fun and not take yourself so seriously, and try your hardest not to worry what other people think.