At the New Year, we experience an influx of motivation in our gyms—we set New Year’s resolutions where we promise ourselves and our loved ones all the ways that we are going to become better humans this year. And as we all know, most of these resolutions are abandoned by February.

Those familiar with my work at The Forged Life know that I distrust motivation. Motivation is like a chemical high, unsustainable and fleeting. When we learn to rely on that high in order to reach goals, our progress is the same: unsustainable and fleeting. We gain the weight back. We discontinue our gym membership. We start eating sugar or drinking soda again.

When Love Turns to Dread

But what happens to the person who once loved to train and now dreads going to the gym? I have known so many athletes who become lost as they lose the motivation to train. They feel alone, isolated, and they often don’t understand why they feel the way they do. They fight as hard as they can to regain that love, but their mindset remains uninvested in training. It has turned what was once a joy into a burden.

Conversely, some athletes experience periods of extreme motivation, followed by periods of little to no motivation. This up-and down-swing takes its toll on our progress: one week, we’re PRing and hitting our workouts hard, and the next week we’re feeling weak and tired and we’re back to dreading WODs and are self-sabotaging our efforts.

How do we break these cycles, where our mental state is dictating the quality of our training and our progress on our goals? How do we break our addiction to motivation?

Whether you are an athlete who hasn’t felt motivated to train in years or an athlete who switches from super-motivated to completely unmotivated, the one thing we need to address is mindset.

The Goals of Mindset Work

It is first critical to understand what the goals behind mindset work are. Many may be surprised to learn that our goal is not to become thrilled to train every single day, but to maintain perspective over the natural dips that occur in training.

Regardless of whether we are a brand new athlete just learning to squat for the first time, an athlete who’s been training for years to maintain health, or a competitive athlete striving to reach the CrossFit Games, optimum results from our training come from a mindset that is process-based versus results-based, focused on the self rather than on others, and a mindset that embraces adversity. These components of a great mindset, perspective, process-orientation, self-orientation, and seeking out adversity lead us to maximize our potential.

Because of our culture’s addiction to motivation, we have built an idea around how we are supposed to feel about training: amped up all the time, super happy and focused, and always, always making progress.

This is an unrealistic expectation of anyone, from a competitor to a grandfather who’s working to walk without a cane. Sometimes we’re sick, we have work, or we have family stresses that are distracting us. Sometimes we’re experiencing self-doubt. As any coach will tell you, no one constantly makes progress.

Every single athlete experiences setbacks and plateaus, even the ones who do everything “perfectly.” One of our goals through mindset work is to maintain perspective over these temporary emotional perturbations so that we can rely on the habits of training we’ve built to withstand them.

Being a process-oriented athlete translates to remaining motivated to train. Accepting ourselves as a work in progress, and therefore currently imperfect but capable of limitless improvement, is critical. A process-oriented athlete can view setbacks as opportunities to grow and can emotionally withstand the inevitable plateaus that come with long-term training. Embracing the process allows us to sustain our motivation.

The Self-Oriented Athlete

A self-oriented athlete knows why they are training within the broader context of their life. So often, our training reflects what we see on social media or what the best athletes in our gym are doing or what our peers are focusing on—in other words, what everyone else’s goals for their training are.

A self-oriented athlete knows why they are striving for competitive greatness, if that’s what they’re doing, or they know how their training supports the hobbies they enjoy outside of the gym. Everything they do at the CrossFit box has a purpose, and that purpose is self-directed, uninfluenced by whatever is in fashion at the time.

The final piece to building great mindset, a critical component of maximizing our potential, is to embrace adversity—sometimes even seeking it out intentionally. If we think about how and why we give up on the goals that are deeply important to us but that we can’t pull the trigger on or sustain long enough to see results, it is often when we experience adversity that we give up.

Adversity triggers a protective set of behaviors (self-sabotage) that are intended to return us to a state of comfort. We self-sabotage by eating what we said we wouldn’t eat, by skipping workouts, or by allowing ourselves to become distracted from our goal. Maximizing our potential requires that we break free of that need for comfort.

It is easy to see how we maintain the motivation to train when our mindset is constantly directing us to maximize our potential. Motivation is no longer a high, but a state of doing what needs to be done each day to make progress on our goals.

When we recognize a weakness in our training, it no longer defeats us but provides us with an opportunity to grow, a challenge that we can rise to. Should we sustain an injury, we can see how the rehabilitation provides us with an opportunity to focus on weaknesses. When life throws us the inevitable curveball that affects our ability to train, we can maintain perspective and find creative solutions, rather than allowing ourselves to become overwhelmed.

When we step out of our comfort zones, we rise to the challenge rather than returning to old behaviors that no longer serve our goals. With great mindset, we can maximize our potential. Without great mindset, we will always get in our own way.

Building self-awareness is the first step in maximizing our potential. In order to move forward, we must intimately understand what has been holding us back—ourselves. To begin this process, ask yourself these questions:

1. Why am I training?
2. What purpose does training fulfill in my life?
3. What are the goals that are most important to me?
4. Why are those goals important to me?
5. How do my goals fit into who I want to be as a person?
6. How do my goals fit into the purpose that my training serves?
7. When am I having the most fun training?
8. What makes me feel the most like myself when I train?
9. How do I respond to discomfort when I train?
10. Am I avoiding discomfort? If so, why?

Mindset for a Lifetime

Much like nutrition, mindset work is not a short-term project; it is a lifelong practice. The habits we build through mindset work require as much dedication as weighing and measuring food. As we know in nutrition, the more consistent we are, and the more committed we are to maximizing our potential, the better our results will be.

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Competition Is Sacred

The ancient Greeks treated competition as a sacred endeavor. Competitive festivals were religious, held in honor of the gods and local heroes, and competitors offered their performances as tribute. More revealing, athletic events were accompanied by artistic competitions, including music, dancing, sculpture, and acting. Mastering any form of art or athletic event requires years of devoted training and practice. To the Greeks, all acts of mastery were worthy of offering to the gods, because there is virtue in struggle, in striving for better. All acts of mastery, those that require careful training and practice to perfect, therefore, are sacred. It was not to prove who was greatest among them in their chosen fields that drove the Greeks to compete, or to win prizes (the only prize was a wreath of leaves): it was to offer in tribute the effort, struggle, and the sacrifice that is required of mastery.

Etymology, the study of the origin of words, has a lot to tell us about the original intention of competition. The word compete is derived from two Latin words: com and petere. Petere means “to seek” or “to strive” and com means “together.” Every type of competition, from career to playwriting to the CrossFit Open, is an act of striving together towards greater human achievement. It is competition that drives the physical, artistic, exploratory, and innovative endeavors that define the greatest in humanity. Examine the history of many inventions (the sewing machine, the lightbulb, and the personal computer) and we find that it was competition with their contemporaries that drove inventors to perfect their designs. Return again to ancient Greece and we find that some of the greatest plays ever written were created for competition: at the Dionysia, Aeschylus, Euripides, and Sophocles presented their greatest tragic works. Without competition, some of the tales that have shaped human understanding would never have been created: The Oresteia, The Bacchae, and Oedipus Rex to name a few.

It may be difficult to see the connection between competing as a scaled CrossFitter in the CrossFit Games Open and the race for flight. Competition fuels the elite and the driven, but how does participating in competition impact those of us who have no aspirations to come in on top? Perhaps we won’t be surmounting Mount Everest or putting a man on the moon or writing Antigone (more feats fueled by competition), but we are giving ourselves a critical practice opportunity, one that has ties to every desire and goal we hold, and it is this, as a coach, that I see as the most important benefit of competing.

The Character of Competition

Competition is low-stakes practice at four vital character skills. These skills transfer to the whole of our lives (our careers, relationships, and goals) and are fundamental to achieving any desire.

Character Skill 1: Grit

Grit is the skill of following through. Competitors use competition to create a plan for the following week, season, or year to improve their performance in the future. But creating the plan is only the first step. It is the daily follow through of working on weaknesses, even when results are not apparent (also known as “the process”), that earns results. Grit is a combination of discipline and focus. It is doing what needs to be done when motivation has long left the building.

Character Skill 2: Composure Under Pressure

Composure is non-negotiable for performing well in any arena. We are at our best when we are thoughtful, when we behave with intention, and when we are focused on the task at hand. Think of how valuable it will have been to have practiced remaining composed while we are nervous, upset, or angry going into a work meeting or a difficult conversation with a loved one. Think of how building the skills of mental fortitude and equanimity will benefit our friends and family when they need to lean on us in times of trouble. Under the worst-case scenarios in life, composure under pressure transforms us into a harbor in stormy seas, for ourselves and for others.

Character Skill 3: Resourcefulness and Adaptability

Inevitably, life is going to throw challenges our way. Our ability to be flexible in our plans, to embrace change as a certainty, gives us an advantage in competition, career, and relationships. Think of how it will benefit us to have practiced resourcefulness if we were to lose our homes or our jobs. Think of how adaptability plays a huge role in making ourselves more valuable to the teams we are on (both personal and professional). Going with the flow, determinedly seeking answers and solutions to problems, is a skill worth practicing.

Character Skill 4: Recognizing Our Value

Today we see competitions as a place for the elite to display their prowess. The CrossFit Games Open is the first step on the way to the CrossFit Games, the winners of which are titled The Fittest Man and The Fittest Woman on Earth. For those of us without aspirations to win, those of us who train to be a healthier, better version of ourselves, we may be asking, “What do I have to contribute towards the greatness of humanity?”

Listen, and I will tell you: you have everything to contribute towards the greatness of humanity.

Participating in a competition of this scale is about recognizing that our effort is as valuable as the effort of the fittest athletes we train with. After all, effort is effort. It doesn’t matter if we get 100 reps or 30 reps. The only thing that matters is that we gave everything we had.

We have been told by our coaches that giving our best effort is what is important. Do we understand that our best effort is an honor that we bestow upon our fellow CrossFitters? Much like the Greeks honoring the gods, the effort we give in the Open is a tribute: to ourselves, to our friends, to our coaches, and to our fellow CrossFitters. It is sacred to give full effort to any endeavor, regardless of the results.

You Will Become a Better Human

Imagine now how viewing everything we do as a tribute to what we love focuses us and changes us into more thoughtful humans. If we give our best effort to our relationships, our careers, and our bodies, how does that change our lives? If we treat every one of our interactions and every facet of our work as practice, as a step towards attaining mastery, does our life become richer, more meaningful? If we learn to value those people or movements that drive us to think and work harder, to value our nemeses (another word whose origin is telling: the goddess Nemesis’ purpose was to eradicate the hubris of humans), how does that change our relationship to challenges and struggles outside of the gym?

We can see easily that competition drives human achievement among the elite, but competition has so much more to offer us than simple assessment. It gives us, the regular, wonderful people in the gym with all of the potential in the world, opportunities to practice character skills that transfer to the rest of our lives. Practicing grit, composure, and resourcefulness gives us the ingredients for success in any aspiration we hold. Learning to recognize that it is our effort, not our results, that has value enriches every experience that we have. Competition benefits everyone. It’s time to participate.

Photos courtesy of TJ Danenza.

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Source: Erica Robinson

Ask yourself: do I want to stay the same, or do I want to be different? I have no doubt that the universal answer is that we want to be different. Not only do we want to be different; we want to be better. This desire is a beautiful quality in human nature. Our drive to improve ourselves and our surroundings demonstrates our faith and investment in the future. In short, we are an optimistic species.

Optimism is a valuable quality, but it is often tempered by fear. Easily swayed by setbacks or distracted by external and internal factors, we want to change, but we self-sabotage or give up before we’ve put in the time and effort to achieve it. We are intoxicated by the promise of transformation, but we allow fear to take the reins all too often.

“What if I fail?” is the question we ask ourselves, instead of, “what will it take?”

Earn Confidence Through Action

We as a society have a habit of attempting to intellectualize our way to confidence. By that I mean that we try to talk ourselves into feeling good. Unfortunately, confidence is not something that we can think ourselves into. If it were, if there were some magic phrase that unlocked confidence, we would have discovered it by now. No, confidence is not a state that we can convince ourselves into. Confidence is something that we earn through action. Specifically, self-confidence is built when we take actions that make us uncomfortable.

Discomfort is non-negotiable when it comes to earning self-confidence, and it is a prerequisite for achieving transformation. If we could sit-on-the-couch our way to a six-pack, we would. If we could coast our way to promotions, we would. But we cannot—and we should be thankful for that. Things that are easy to achieve are not worthwhile pursuits. In order to transform into a more confident, fulfilled human, we must invest our time and put ourselves at mental risk. We must reach.

Reaching is a universal human quality. Seeking new territory and new challenges is what we are born to do.

Get Your Mind Right

Think of the most memorable, most meaningful moments in your life. Think of the times when you achieved something that you had to work hard for, when you were really proud of yourself. It may have been getting a promotion or starting a new business, or it may have been graduating from school or a program that you’re proud of, or perhaps it was the birth of your children or committing to a relationship. Remember how those moments felt.

The common thread of discomfort is still there: in order to earn a promotion or start a new business, we have to put a lot on the line, sometimes everything that we own. Graduating from school or a prestigious program requires our time and energy. In order to fall in love, we need to make ourselves vulnerable to another person. And more so, the act of reaching is in itself a risk. Can you remember the times that you reached for something and you felt more alive?

To be sure, losing 100 pounds, running a marathon, or gaining enough strength to back squat 500 pounds would be transformative. Our bodies would change from eating smarter, from running further, and from training with more intensity. Our habits would have to change in order to achieve any physical transformation.

The Process of Taking a Risk

It is the process of reaching, of taking a risk and going “all in,” that is the most transformative aspect of goal setting. It is there, in the minutiae of meal prep, of walking 10,000 steps per day, of saving pennies, of studying in the early morning hours, of learning new ways to communicate with our loved ones, where transformation, the change that we ache for every day, occurs. Setting the goal and allowing it to collect cobwebs reinforces the inner voice that says, “Don’t try too hard.” The small, planned acts that make us uncomfortable, that force us to think and behave differently, are the acts that build our confidence.

Do you want to stay the same as you are now, or do you want to be even better? What challenge would make you proud to be you? Where is your comfort zone, and how can you step outside of it?

The moments that make you the most uncomfortable are the most valuable of your life. Devote yourself to what will make you proud to be you. Embrace your discomfort, because on the other side of it is transformation.

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When I was sent Fresh to the Roots sportswear freshener for review, I was skeptical. Could a simple spray made with essential oils really keep a crew of hard working CrossFit coaches smelling fresh throughout long shifts? Would it ruin clothing by causing colors to run or bleach out?

Our gym staff tried the Sportswear Freshener and Natural Disinfectant in Lemongrass, Citrus Explosion, and Fresh Mint, and the Athletic Shoe Deodorizer in Mint Walking Shield.

Sportswear Freshener + Natural Disinfectant

We tried these on our workout wear, our coaching uniforms, and in our gym bags.

The Fresh to the Roots Lemongrass was a staff favorite, with many returning to it several times over our test period for their shoes in particular. A bright and verdant scent, if you like lemongrass, this will please you.

Citrus Explosion was enjoyed as well. A spicy orange scent, this was the most complex fragrance of them all. A great choice for extra sweaty, stinky athletes.

Wild Mint was used the least by our crew. A very simple fragrance, fresh and sweet, but not quite as effective as the other two.

Effectiveness: 4.5 out of 5

Scents: 5 out of 5

Length of Effectiveness: 4 out of 5

Athletic Shoe Deodorizer

A very true and inoffensive mint scent upon spraying, but once the spray had dried, we found that it didn’t mask the odor of our shoes. It only added a minty smell to them.

Effectiveness: 2 out of 5

Scent: 5 out of 5

Length of Effectiveness: 2 out of 5

Big Thumbs Up

I started as a skeptical reviewer but was completely wowed by this product. Normally, my coaching uniform lasts for one shift and then needs to be cleaned, especially in the summertime, but Fresh to the Roots extends the life of each washing by about three extra days, meaning my uniforms will retain their shape and colors for far longer. I can’t imagine going back to not using it. And, every item I sprayed it on retained their colors, as promised on their packaging.

It freshened shoes, gym bags, and clothing, and the whole crew found the scents pleasant, if not delightful. Having many fragrances to choose from was a bonus. We would suggest skipping the shoe-specific spray and just purchasing the Sportswear Freshener, as it was more effective at keeping our shoes fresh.

Fresh to the Roots has a team of diehard fans in this CrossFit gym. If this spray can keep our staff smelling fresh all day long, it can keep everyone smelling great pre- and post-workout.

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Every one of us has experienced frustration in the gym. Some skill or weight goal seems somehow beyond our reach, and we’ve all but given up on trying to achieve the milestone. I’m here to tell you that frustration is not a “bad” emotion. Frustration is a product of caring and being at a loss for what to do next. The good news is that there are a lot of things we can do to improve, we just need to have a few character traits in order to see it through: caring, humility, courage, and discipline.

A favorite motto among CrossFit coaches and athletes is, “seek out your weaknesses.” This can be a life-changing principle for athletes to embrace because we have been taught to avoid discomfort in most aspects of our lives—the cushiest running shoes, driving instead of walking, taking diet pills instead of engaging in mindful nutrition practices, the elliptical machine over running sprints, or reading the CliffsNotes version of Jane Eyre instead of the full novel in all of its glory. These are all shortcuts in order to avoid discomfort.

What is more uncomfortable than seeking out our weaknesses? Think in terms of life outside of the gym. How many of us ask our spouses or friends, without prompting, “What can I do better for you?” When was the last time you asked your employer or professors, “What do you see as my greatest weakness?” outside of a scheduled evaluation? In general, we do everything we can to appear as close to perfect at our relationships and jobs that we can. Some of us have been taught that we protect ourselves by doing that. Now think of how that would translate in the gym: believing that we execute every workout without flaws is ridiculous to us, and that’s why we have coaches.

Courage and Humility

Athletes who embrace seeking out their weaknesses in the gym learn two qualities that create a more fulfilling life: courage and humility. Humility allows us to learn from anyone, to accept our faults, and to improve on them. Courage leads to more honest discourse with the people who are important to us, deepening our relationships, and it is the quality that allows us to be good decision-makers for ourselves. In short, humility and courage allow us to face discomfort, and discomfort is where change and transformation grow from.

Coaches talk a really big game about seeking out our weaknesses, but what we have failed to do for our athletes is take them to the next step: what exactly to do once they’ve found a weakness. Time and again I see athletes recognize and own a weakness, and then wander aimlessly at figuring out a plan of attack, perhaps practicing a bit more or deciding to no longer cherry-pick WODs. We start out with caring, humility, and courage in facing the weakness, but there is no discipline created after the initial motivation wears off, and discipline is what will carry us through frustration.

Unchecked frustration becomes resignation and then apathy. As athletes, we must prioritize building the habits that lead to discipline if we wish to change. As coaches, we are responsible for guiding our athletes through frustration and transforming it into empowerment, and we empower our athletes by giving them the tools they need to build discipline.

Athletes, Pay Attention

You may know that overhead squats are a weakness for you, for example, but you need to understand specifically why you struggle with them. Is it thoracic mobility? Midline instability? Are your ankles or hips too tight to get into good positions? These issues require different approaches to sort out. Like most of life, one size does not fit all. Schedule a private session with a coach to have yourself assessed outside of class, then proceed accordingly.

• Identify the source of your frustration. Have a talk with your coach about where you feel your progress is stalling. Their job is going to be to establish what your goals are, what reasonable expectations for yourself are, and to help you create a game plan for making a change.
• Stick to the plan. Starting a plan only to give up on it later is a recipe for further frustration. You do not get to complain about your progress stalling if you give up! If you haven’t made progress after following the game plan for the established amount of time, then it’s time to try something new.
• Prioritize building discipline. It is discipline, rather than motivation, that creates results. Discipline is what gets us to follow through when we are tired or overwhelmed. It outlasts motivation by a lifetime. If we have always relied on motivation to keep us focused on our goals, we will find ourselves making excuses when we are tired or “too busy.”

The best advice I can give for creating self-discipline is to follow this simple rule: no excuses, no complaining. People who do not complain find a way to stay positive in the face of adversity. People who do not blame others look at themselves and what they can control. People who do not make excuses find a way—they take action. And on the other side is success.

Coaches, Pay Attention

We often tell our athletes to seek out their weaknesses, but what are our athletes to do when they’ve found them? The answer is more complicated than “keep working on it,” and in fact, that answer is what leads to a lot of unwarranted frustration. Take the above example of the overhead squat. An athlete coached through specific, unique pitfalls in performance and discipline is going to have more success than one that follows a one size fits all program.

When an athlete expresses frustration to you:

• Avoid trying to talk athletes out of their frustration. Phrases like, “don’t feel bad,” or “you shouldn’t be upset” never work. Reassure them that you are a team and you’ll figure this out together.
• Ask the athlete what they have done so far to work on the problem. It is important to let them lead the conversation, because their perception of how much effort and attention they’ve put in is vital information for us. It will tell us their commitment level so far and whether they have realistic expectations of their results.
• Create a game plan. This is a critical teaching moment: focusing on process over progress and effort over results will create many small wins that lead to overall victory. When setbacks occur, we’ll be able to return to how they’ve been doing on their day-to-day game plan. The plan can include reaching out to a specialized professional.

All plans require a time component, whether it is asking an athlete, “What can you do today (or who can you reach out to) to start working on this?” or giving them a 6-week program to follow. Open-endedness leads to aimlessness.

You will quickly learn the difference between an athlete who is looking for help and one who is just complaining. Simply, an athlete who is complaining won’t take action beyond expressing frustration, and it is frequently because they don’t believe that they can change. It will be on the athlete to decide when they are ready to take a deeper look at why they hold that belief, but coaches have a responsibility to build up athletes with low self-esteem. Ask them what they plan to do about their problems to show that you’re ready to help, call them on negative talk with positivity, and relentlessly believe in their ability to change. Our unwavering belief has the power to give them the courage to face adversity.

Act on Your Frustration

Frustration in any aspect of our lives is a wake-up call. This call announces to us that we care about an issue, but we don’t know how to fix it on our own. Is it time to accept things as they are and find a way to make peace with them? Or is it time to make a change? Either of those options are available to us. Only we can decide what is right, and making the decision will require courage. What is not a viable option, which I define as one that will make us happier and more fulfilled, is staying the same and complaining about it.

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Before we talk about leaderboards, let’s talk about the benefits of competition. Among them are:

• Getting out of our comfort zone.
• Extending our experience beyond our current knowledge to learn new things.
• Increasing the value of our training by giving us goals.
• Doing better at something we love.

Competing allows us to learn by creating adversity, which is how we improve. But it is wise to know why we are competing. Is it to put ourselves to a higher test? To learn new things? Or is it to confirm our expectations of where we stand?

The Leaderboard Addiction

Many people learn to hate competing because they have not learned the difference between these ideas. I was one of them. As a mediocre teenage athlete (both mentally and physically), I didn’t need to compete to know where I stood, and so it only served to reinforce my already shaky self-confidence in my abilities. On the other hand, I had teammates who knew they were good, and they loved competing. Seeing themselves at the top of the scoreboard was a major dopamine boost.

Dopamine is the hormone responsible for seeking behavior, associated with the anticipation of a reward. Recently, a talk with Simon Sinek, author of Start With Why and Leaders Eat Last, has been circulating regarding millennials and their literal addiction to social media: each like or double tap is a dopamine boost, which is the same hormonal reaction we get from smoking, gambling, and drinking. Millennials are known for compulsively checking their phones for notifications, seeking a high.

I have seen the same behavior from CrossFit competitors. During competition they cannot tear themselves away from the leaderboard. Constantly hitting “refresh,” they are seeking that addictive high from being near the top. Athletes who need to confirm their expectations of how good they are will be the ones melting down if they fall short.

If you compete to tell you what you already know, you can’t grow. (Photo credit: Jorge Galvez)

Do You Compete to Grow?

When we compete to confirm our expectations of where we stand, we lose the greatest benefit of competition: learning through adversity. Over time, we may begin to see being challenged as a bad thing. After all, adversity takes away our identity as being a “top athlete” or “the best” or “one of the strong athletes” or “one of the fast athletes,” and so we compensate by avoiding challenge or making excuses about why we aren’t near the top, or why we don’t want to take on a more difficult competition. This is known as a fixed mindset, and it holds us back from our potential.

Growth mindset competitors compete in order to learn what their weaknesses are. Their goal is to root out their weaknesses, not because failure is fun, but because knowledge is power. Only by learning what their weaknesses are can they improve at the sport they love.

Now back to leaderboards.

A leaderboard is a useful tool, but only if we know how to use it. Think of football players reviewing tape with their coaches. Are they only watching the scoreboard to see who gets the points, or are they reviewing the details of their performance, regardless of whether they won or lost? If we are a growth mindset competitor, focused on learning, then we don’t need to see the leaderboard until the end of our competition. The information, up until that point, is incomplete. It’s like asking for a test to be graded when we’ve only addressed a quarter of the material.

How to Leaderboard the Right Way

Seeing how our placings stack up in a CrossFit competition is a great way to use a leaderboard to our advantage. There is usually a workout or two that stand out as being much lower than the others. Our weaknesses will show up in lower placings compared to our co-competitors, giving us instant insight into what we need to work on. It’s important to remember that the purpose of CrossFit is being a well-rounded athlete. Being strong is great, being fast is great, but being both is the whole point.

To clear up any potential misunderstandings, let me say now: leaderboards are not evil, and looking at them is not always a sign that we are overdependent on external feedback to confirm whether we are doing well. But it often is. If our emotional fortitude is going to be shaken by seeing that we’re at the bottom of a leaderboard, let’s skip it.

As we start the spring and summer competition season, remind yourself why you are competing: to create adversity in order to get better at something you love. During the competition, focus on what you can control: warm-up, recovery, and positive thinking. The leaderboard will be there at the end of the competition to learn from.

The post Leaderboards Done Right: Adversity and Growth appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

3 Keys to Positive Change

If you’re reading this, it’s because you’re having trouble staying motivated or you have struggled to stay motivated in the past and want to do better this time around. There are three keys to making positive changes in our lives:

1. Want the change. Knowing that a change is good for us and the desire to make the change are two different things.
2. Believe that the change will make life better. Buy-in is critical if we’re going to stay motivated. The most common roadblock to success in nutrition changes is that athletes don’t really believe that the dietary changes their coaches are asking them to make will actually work. For example, eating clean is typically an easy sell, but telling an athlete that they need to eat more in order to lose body fat is much more difficult for athletes to accept and implement.
3. Believe that we are capable of the change. Finding resilience in the face of setbacks is critical for staying motivated, and this is where having a coach in our corner can make all the difference. Ultimately, we are responsible for believing in our ability to achieve our goals, but when the going gets tough, a coach can remind us of where we started, how far we’ve come, and can remind us that the day-to-day process is the focus.

What are the little things that must be done, day in and day out, to reach your goals? [Photo credit: Jorge Galvez]

Learn Focused Practice

The resources available to us to stay motivated are just about limitless. Formal accountability programs, like nutritional counseling and challenges, informal accountability programs, like getting our friends to text us and ask if we ran this week, and the many books, articles, and studies that have been conducted in order to figure out motivation are sought out constantly—not to mention internet meme sensation “Motivation Monday” providing weekly reminders to stay motivated and focused.

If resources abound, then what are we missing? Some would say that a lack of willpower is why we are unable to stay motivated enough to complete a task or make a lifelong change, and I would agree, but I think it goes deeper than that. Knowing and remembering what we want when faced with temptation is what allows us to resist temptation. That focused practice may be new to us and may make all of the difference.

From psychologist Kelly McGonigal’s book, The Willpower Instinct:

“When you think of something that requires willpower, what’s the first thing that comes to mind? For most of us, the classic test of willpower is resisting temptation, whether the temptress is a doughnut, a cigarette, a clearance sale, or a one-night stand. When people say, ‘I have no willpower,’ what they usually mean is, ‘I have trouble saying no when my mouth, stomach, heart, or (fill in your anatomical part) wants to say yes.’ Think of it as ‘I won’t’ power.

But saying no is just one part of what willpower is, and what it requires. After all, ‘Just say no’ are the three favorite words of procrastinators and coach potatoes worldwide. At times, it’s more important to say yes. All those things you put off for tomorrow (or forever)? Willpower helps you put them on today’s to-do list, even when anxiety, distractions, or a reality TV show marathon threaten to talk you out of it. Think of it as ‘I will’ power—the ability to do what you need to do, even if part of you doesn’t want to.

‘I will’ and ‘I won’t’ power are the two sides of self-control, but they alone don’t constitute willpower. To say no when you need to say no, and yes when you need to say yes, you need a third power: the ability to remember what you really want. I know, you think that what you really want is the brownie, the third martini, or the day off. But when you’re facing temptation, or flirting with procrastination, you need to remember that what you really want is to fit into your skinny jeans, get the promotion, get out of credit card debt, stay in your marriage, or stay out of jail. Otherwise, what’s going to stop you from following your immediate desires? To exert self-control, you need to find your motivation when it matters. This is ‘I want’ power.”

Hone the Process

In general, we know what we want when we come to the gym. We want results. The ability to remember what we really want when faced with temptation (staying in bed instead of going to the gym, eating junk food instead of healthy food, etc.) is an important first step in reaching our goals. Visualization can be a powerful tool here: picture yourself as the finished product of what you are working towards. How do you act? What do you think about? How do you walk? What are you eating? What do you look like? Now acknowledge that you only get to be that person if you do the hard work.

Beyond a lack of willpower, or what I’ll now refer to as focused willpower, with the focus being that powerful image of ourselves as the finished product, there is also our need for instant gratification. It’s a buzzword for good reason: we expect cause and effect to take place within a very short window. Unfortunately, that’s not how things work. The scale will fluctuate and the numbers we squat will rise and fall based on many, many factors. Progress is not linear.

These types of setbacks can completely derail us, and so an important practice, one that is often missed, is taking it one day at a time. Alcoholics Anonymous has it right. Each day is an opportunity to do the things we need to do to reach our overarching goals, those big scary ones, like lose 20 lbs or do a pull up for the first time or make it into the top 500 in the CrossFit Open. What are the little things that must be done, day in and day out, to reach those goals? Those are the focus. If we don’t do those things, if we mess up for whatever reason, then we do them tomorrow. It is liberating to be focused on the process rather than the goal.

You win the day if you do your work, and that is what it takes to reach a big goal.

Do the Work Every Day

The best part of training is that our training is never complete. Think about it: if you reach that big goal, that successful person that you pictured earlier, are you going to stop there? It is very unlikely that you will. You’ll set even bigger goals, because humans naturally seek out challenges. Training is a lifelong process, so when you experience failures or setbacks, remind yourself that you have tomorrow to do better. Stay true to that picture of yourself as a completed project, remember that it’s what you really want, and do the work every day. That is what it means to stay motivated.

Reference:

1. Kelly McGonigal, The Willpower Instinct (New York: Penguin Group, 2012), 16.

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