Meet Maya Aviezer: Professional Track and Field runner. Israeli National Team – 400m Hurdles

We had the good fortune of connecting with Maya Aviezer and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Maya, how do you define success?
Talking about success is such a complicated thing. Younger Maya would have thought about success and immediately told you her plan for the next 10 years of her life. All the things she wanted to buy and thing to accomplish on paper, start a family, run a business, reach millions of people and make a name for herself. Now at the age of 26 I still think about some of those things for my life. I have some goals and plans but I don’t think about them when the word success comes to mind. Success for me now means you stopped caring about how everyone thought of you, you stopped caring about strangers around the world remembering your name, or talking about your accomplishments, you started caring about your happiness, sharing your beliefs, loving selflessly and helping others, not caring about what they think of you or if they will remember you.

Our society is so confused with attention and success. Because of social media we mesh the 2 together. The internet gives us access to see so many people doing SO MANY THINGS, showing us the highlight reel of each others life. We praise people with cool cars and fancy clothes. Young boys and girls look up to someone just because of the number of followers they have instead of what kind of people they are. So suddenly our success gauge goes a little out of wack and we are confused by what it really means… Attention does not mean success. Having lots of likes and followers doesn’t mean you’re special. Creating a multi-million dollar company or being the smartest kid in your class doesn’t define you or your greatness.

I know being a good person doesn’t cure cancer or get me gold medals, but it helps me remember what defines success in my heart. It gives me a sturdy and safe place to come back to within myself when all my dreams, passions and projects take me on a wild ride and I lose touch with what really matters.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
I run track professionally as I’ve mentioned but I also have a blog / instagram account called ohsomaika. I share alot of my life but in a different way than ive seen most people my age do. I try and be as unfiltered and raw as I possibly can. Ive always shared alot of my feelings and struggles with things that we all go through in our 20s, whether its hormone imbalance, heart break, mental health, body image etc things that I wish I had someone to talk through with, in the hopes that I can be that person I needed for a girl somewhere in the world going through the same thing.

At first I questioned being so open on the Internet. It felt wrong at times but ive realized its been such a blessing. Being so vulnerable infront of thousands of people on a platform that is filled with fake bullshit allows you to creates an amazing community of like-minded people that trust eachtoher and are able to connect with in such a cool way. Its like having a bunch of best friends all around the world helping and supporting each other through life.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
Wed start every morning trying my favorite coffee shops. Id go between, Carrara, peddlers fork/10 speed in calabasas, super domestic, go get em tiger or blue bottle. Then wed go for a workout at Churchill boring gym this amazing tiny gym in Santa Monica owned by movie director Pete berg. ITs a professional boxing gym where anyone can go train at. The energy is unlike any other gym in la. Other days id take you to a hike on los liones trial in the palisades. Its a beach view version of Runyon canyon without all the dogs and influencers.

gjusta bakery in Venice is one of my favorite spots to eat in la. The food is incredible and its a Great place to sit outside, eat amazing food and meet people. Order the soft scramble or breakfast sandwich for breakfast. lunch dinner you cant go wrong with anything on the menu but their burgers, salmon, chicken dumpling soup, falafel sandwich and French fries are my go-tos. Make sure you get a baklava croissant or carrot cake slice to go if you save room.

Erewhon market is like La’s mascot at this point. Its a Whole Foods on steroids with every single healthy snack, drink or product you could ever dream of in one store. They have an amazing wellness bar and hot food bar. Get the kale white bean avocado salad and buffalo cauliflower as a side for your meal and If they have their gluten free waffles make sure you grab those to go and have for breakfast the next day!!

Last place I will note is ARCANA book store in Culver City. Its such a beautiful shop and the employees are truly so passionate about what they do. Always incredibly helpful and help you discover books you would have never picked out on your own. Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
This is so typical but my dad has been a huge influence in my life. He’s constantly reminded me that achieving your goals is important but not what matters most. He taught me to appreciate the journey more than the destination itself because the things we learn and experience along the way is what makes up most of our life. If our happiness always relies in our accomplishments we will spend most of our life unhappy. I am training for the olympics and at one point in my life it seemed like the only thing that mattered. I felt it defined me. That once I achieved that I will be happy forever so whenever I was injured, ran a bad race or felt like I failed it completely crushed me and made me blind to all the wonderful things I could have learned from the experience. It was stunting my growth. So as I got older I’ve really been able to absorb what he’s been telling me my whole life and keep it in mind as I continue to train for the olympics but now its allowed me to learn so much and take many life skills from this journey that will stay with me and bring me happiness way beyond making an olympic team

Website: ohsomaika.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ohsomaika/