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Tag: hard work

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Find Your Motivation

people swimming to find your motivation in large lake

CrossFit is hard work. It’s important to find your motivation – your why. You need to have a reason to get up and go to class every day. If you have a reason to cling to that’s personal to you, you’ll thrive so much more than you would otherwise.

I still remember my very first CrossFit class. I had just turned 24. For a long time, I had no interest in CrossFit. But one day, I realized the routine I had been doing was not working. So, I decided to give it a try.

I walked in and was surprised by who I saw. A pot bellied man in his 40s or 50s, a skinny kid who looked about 12, and a mom that looked like she had never worked out a day in her life. I’ll be honest, I looked at them and thought “If they are doing CrossFit, how hard can it be”?  I was quickly and aggressively humbled…

I don’t remember the WOD, probably due to lack of oxygen to my brain. But, I do remember feeling like my heart was going to explode. My muscles were about to give out and my lungs were burning so bad that I couldn’t stop coughing. I looked around and the three people I had previously thought were easy competition were lapping me. They were beating me so bad it made it look like I was standing still.

I assumed these people must have been doing CrossFit for a few months, so I asked. No one there had been doing CrossFit for more than 2 weeks! Humility slapped me again. A 24 year old who had played sports and worked out for his whole life couldn’t hang with middle aged adults and a pre-teen! It was a wake up call. I instantly became committed to this new lifestyle.

Starting vs. finishing

As many have before me and as many have since that day, I started. But here is the thing, starting is easy. Anyone, literally ANYONE can start something. And yes, starting new things takes courage and it is impressive to see people start down the road of self improvement. But, I have learned that becoming strong enough to go through trials and tribulations is much more impressive than starting.

A lot of people want to lose weight, get stronger, work out a little bit, or whatever their goal might be. And many of those people start down that road. They try it out for a few days, weeks, maybe even months. But then an obstacle pops up. Maybe they tweak their back, their work schedule changes, they take a couple weeks off which turns into a couple months. Eventually, they end up quitting all together.

Guess what. Given enough time, adversity comes for everyone. Life steps in front of everyone’s goal. Your goal might be to get in shape, or have a family, earn a million dollars, or restore a car. It does not matter what it is, but you will have to stay committed if you want to finish. 

And the further down the road to your dream you go, the further that finish line gets. You will reach checkpoints, but the finish line you originally pictured is a false peak. You have to keep pushing.

Many times in my CrossFit career both as a member and as an owner that finish line has moved on me.

Fail, cry, rest, or break down

If you want to succeed, you need to take quit out of your vocabulary. Seriously, do not even let it enter your mind. 

There can be no quitting if you want to reach your goal. You might fail, you might break down and cry. You might need to rest, you might need to seek out help. All of these are fine and, if you have worked towards your goal long enough, all of these will happen.  

The only thing not allowed is quitting. If you need to slow down from a sprint to a walk that’s okay. If you need to stop and catch your breath, okay. But you will continue forward, there is no turning back. 

You just have to realize pushing towards your goal is the only way. It won’t be easy. There will be tough challenges and situations that make you rethink your goal. But you must find your motivation, your why, and hold onto it.

My why helps me when I have had surgery, an injury or wasn’t sure if the business would make it. I remember my why and it drives me to not give up.

Find your motivation

To find your motivation, think to yourself: WHY am I doing this? Let it come to you.

Everyone’s why is different. Some people want to be the best, and win gold. Others want to be the top earner in a company. Maybe they just want to lose a certain amount of weight. Maybe they want to provide a great life for their kids. Some people have people relying on them to accomplish this goal, and their why drives them to it. 

Your why is that internal motivation. It is what makes it possible to keep going when you are tired or broken. Your why is what tells you to keep going even when you physically and mentally feel like you have given all. Your why isn’t mental, or physical, or logical…it is pure emotion. You can’t always rely on the physical, mental, or logical avenues. Why?

On the road to achievement you can’t let logic tell you what to do. Because logic will rationalize quitting. Logic will allow you to give up, and tell you it’s okay that you didn’t accomplish what you set out to do. Emotion will push your limits beyond what you logically or physically or mentally knew was possible. Your why is an ace up your sleeve. No one and nothing can take it from you. Doesn’t matter how big, or intimidating the challenge is – your ace can beat it.

If you don’t know your why, start trying to find your motivation. And once you do, hold onto it. Sometimes you may not need it, but when you do let it carry you towards that finish line.

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Digging Deep For Mental Fortitude

woman working on mental fortitude through exercise in park

Mental fortitude: this is the mental and emotional strength when we’re facing a difficult or adverse situation. It’s a strength of mind that allows a person to encounter danger or bear pain with courage.

Gaining and maintaining mental fortitude is just as important as physical fortitude. For the majority of people, life will require more non-voluntary mental fortitude than it will physical. Most of us are not placed in a dangerous situation that demands us to physically rise to a courageous level.

But I think you could argue just the opposite for mental/emotional situations. In life all of us will deal with experiences where mental fortitude is needed. The death of a loved one, a person teases us and makes us upset, our commute to and from work. These are just some examples. 

Just like we gain physical fortitude with exericse, we can develop our mental fortitude the same way.

Mental fortitude and working out

There are certain workouts (not your typical bro-sesh) that push you to a different realm. This realm isn’t so much a physical place as it is a mental one. It’s known a few different ways: the pain cave, happy place, or sometimes referenced with the comment embrace the suck.  

If you have ever been on an athletic team or had to go through military or first responder training then there is a good chance you have entered this world.  

This happy place is a requirement for these types of people. They are expected to do more than the average human. So, they must be pushed into the pain cave to find out just how strong they are. This is one reason why some people from these careers and lifestyles are so inspirational. It’s as though nothing rattles their cage. That’s a trait we all want. 

But did you know that going through an intense workout does the exact same thing for all of us normal people too? Going to that pain cave and forcing yourself to push past those limits you are uncomfortable with helps to build your mental fortitude.

How does it help me – the average person?

For that question let’s use one of my favorite benchmark WODs: Karen. For those who don’t know, Karen is 150 wall balls for time. 

This means that 150 times, you take a medicine ball that weighs between 14 and 20 pounds, hold it in front of you, squat down and up. As you come up, you throw it to a 9 or 10 foot target. The goal is to catch it on the way back down. This feeds you into your next rep.

If you have never done it, just looking at it on paper is enough to make you sweat. But after you do it you realize, sure, it was awful – but you survived. The more you do it, the faster your times get and the easier it becomes. So let’s break that down.

You gain a successful view of yourself

You go from thinking wow, that’s a lot of reps, I don’t know if I can finish to wow that’s a lot of reps, I can’t believe I finished that.  Eventually, you get to ok 150, here is my game plan for doing that. You start to see that you are successful at completing it and that starts to build a positive self image.

You start setting goals

Maybe you do it on purpose, or maybe you don’t even notice. The first time I did Karen my goal was just be able to finish. After that it was to get a faster time than I did last time. My next goal was to take as few breaks as possible. I was shooting for a break after 50 unbroken reps. Then it was to try to get 75 unbroken reps. Now I try to get 100 unbroken reps. I’m still trying to get there.  

Maybe your goals are less formal. They might be more on the spot while you are mid rep. You might decide to do 5 more before taking a break or to go for another 30 seconds. But, you are mentally setting goals for you to achieve which is great.

Visualization

When you do a wall ball, you have to visually picture where you want that ball to go before releasing it. You are visualizing the perfect rep before you even do it. This technique is used by everyone from life coaches, military, CEOs, Olympic athletes and more. They visualize the outcome they want, over and over.

This makes them believe what they want is possible, and then it allows them to reinforce themselves that they can do it. It sounds cheesy but being able to see your target, even if it doesn’t exist yet, allows you to know what direction you need to take your shot. This massively increases your chances of success.

Practice and simulations

Visualizing what you want is awesome because you can do it any time and any place. But eventually you have to put the rubber to the road. 

If you want to get better at a sport you don’t just go scrimmage, you practice specific drills. You use a simulated drill to act out a situation that may come up during the real life thing to help you practice what the proper reaction is.

A good coach won’t allow Karen to be the first wall ball WOD you do. They will give you smaller rep counts and allow you to practice and build up to 150 reps as fast as you can. Maybe your first time you are scaled to 75 reps instead of 150, but a good coach knows this will be enough and it simulates the real deal. It helps prepare you for when you do 100, or 150. And it does so in a way without crushing you, it builds you up, it doesn’t break you down.

We want to know what your pain cave workout is! And tell us how you mentally decide you are going to push through a tough workout.

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5 Similarities of Fitness and Retirement

fitness and retirement require hard work

Fitness and retirement? How would those two ever be in the same article?

I’ll tell you how: they are both major life goals of many. 

Most people in the world want to retire someday, and most people also want to be healthy and fit. Accomplishing these goals takes planning, practice, and experience. But, if you look at them next to one another they can be more alike than you knew. 

Disclaimer: I am in no way a financial advisor.  You should always seek the help of an actual financial advisor to answer any questions or you know, advise you.

For both fitness and retirement, the earlier the better

Get started with your fitness and your retirement plan early in life.  Starting sooner gives you a couple advantages. You have time to recoup any setbacks you might have. You are also able to maintain and improve as opposed to fix and rebuild. 

Both your finances and health are compounding assets. In other words, they are heavy but quickly gain momentum. By starting earlier you are able to get the ball rolling sooner. The earlier you can start pushing that ball the faster results come and the more momentum it carries. This makes the results are easier to maintain.

Find what works for you

There are so many different options for retirement out there, it’s almost as numerous as different activities people do to stay healthy. 

For retirement savings: real estate, the stock market, investing in businesses, 401k, social security, IRAs, CDs, the list goes on. 

And for fitness? You’ve got: CrossFit, Pilates, Yoga, MMA, running, basketball, hiking, triathlons, etc. 

Both retirement and fitness have many avenues you can choose to invest in. Finding what works for you is important because you will then take an interest in it, by having that interest you actually care and want to see it improve.

Diversity is key

Everyone knows you don’t put all your eggs in one basket.  For retirement that is important because the more financial ‘legs’ you have to stand on the more stable you are. If something happens to one, you still have the others to help keep you from falling. Fitness works the same way. The more specialized you are, the more likely you are to have a chink in the armor. This leaves you vulnerable.

Understand I am not saying you should do CrossFit. I mean, you should, its awesome, amazing and does a little bit of everything to make you a functional human in all modes of movement, but I understand my thoughts on this could have the appearance of being biased. Anyway, if you only want to run marathons, then fine, that’s great too. 

No matter what, you should be incorporating some strength work, sprints, mobility, etc. into your fitness as well. Without doing so then yes, you might be really good at running. But what happens when you have to lift something heavy? Injury will come easier, and no one wants that.

Realize there will be hard times in fitness and retirement

No matter what you do, setbacks do happen. You pull a muscle or have surgery and can’t exercise for a few weeks. Or, the company you worked for goes under and you lose the majority of your retirement. 

The point is that hard times happen.  Nothing worthwhile comes easy. You just have to work through the problem and get past it.  After this happens a few times you learn that this is just part of it. Obstacles are thrown in your path, find a way to go over, around, or under them.

Research and find a coach

Knowledge is power. The more you understand about something the more informed decisions you can make. This is true for your health, finances, having kids, building a table, buying a car. No matter the task, it’s best to be informed.

There are definitely those who can do all this research and learning on their own, and maybe you are one of them. But having a coach/mentor/advisor allows you to have access to their years of experience, as well as any years of experience from the person/people they learned from.

To end

I won’t answer any financial questions or give financial advice. But if you have any health or fitness questions then I want to help. Let me know what I can do!

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