I Challenge YOU……. to Greatness
Every once and awhile it’s good to push yourself out of your comfort zone; in fact I’d say you should probably try to push out of your comfort zone on a daily basis if possible. I’m going to help you get out of your comfort zone by challenging you to a little bit of good ole fashioned greatness. All I’m asking is that you decide to do something you may have thought at one time or another was impossible. A good example of this could be completing all of your WOD’s RX, snatching body weight, qualifying for the 2014 CrossFit Regionals, or completing an Iron Man Triathalon. All I’m asking is that you set a really hard challenge for yourself that is going to require you to leave your comfort zone for greatness on a daily basis, for an extended period of time. This should sound familiar as this is what we do on a daily basis at CFP.
WARNING : this challenge will take you at least a year or longer to complete.
Once you have your “self challenge” it’s time to get to work! First things first, lets get rid of all of your excuses! (I have 3 that should pretty much take care of the rest, if not come talk to me in person)
“I don’t have enough time to train to accomplish my goal”.
Julie Foucher almost won the CrossFit games and went to med school at the same time. Train earlier, train later, there are 24 hrs in a day, you have plenty of time to get 6-8 hrs of sleep. Practice being a tougher individual and eventually all of your excuses will evaporate. Nothing can stop you!
“I don’t want to waste all this time training or whatever, and then fail”
This is what is called an irrational fear, there is no time limit on your challenge, and the fear of failing is not real, it’s just a feeling. PRO TIP: go start training as soon as you feel this so called “fear” feeling and it will quickly evaporate. Your challenge is done when you have completed what you set out to do. You are the only person responsible for your success or defeat, and your challenge only stops when you have reached your goal or when you are dead. Little secret if you stick with it long enough and put in a consistent effort on a daily basis you will accomplish your challenge long before you die. In fact you will probably have enough time to accomplish hundreds of challenges like this one in your lifetime.
“But what if this takes like more than a year”
Make sure you pick a worthwhile challenge that you really think would be cool to accomplish and then you won’t have to worry about how long it will take. Worrying about how long something will take to complete is completely irrelevant because the time you would have spent training, and becoming a kick ass human being, will pass anyways. So go be the most bad ass mothertrucking version of yourself that you can be, what else would you try to be in this lifetime?
Now it’s time to start training for your challenge. When learning any new skill you must first master the technique. Maybe your gym hosts seminars; go to those, read books, contact already skilled people, do everything possible to understand and master the basic technique of whatever you are doing. This may take weeks, months, even a year, but is the ground-work for accomplishing what you set out to do. On some level you will always focus on technique but ingraining great technique at the start is crucial.
Eventually you will be faced with picking some kind of a program to follow; here’s my two cents on how to pick one. One of the only equations I’ve ever cared about was Consistency x Time = Results. I don’t really care what program you are on, if you don’t believe in it or work at it on a daily basis it doesn’t matter. Again read books, look at other programs, ask tons of questions, e-mail and talk to people already established at what you are trying to do. There is no perfect program but you can develop one that is perfect for you. This will take time and you must be willing to try new things for greater gains. The most important thing is to have a base program that you can always return to. From this base program you can then add in new stuff as you get better, like multiple daily training sessions or different exercises. Usually you will be able to tell fairly soon if a new exercise or training technique is making a difference. Make sure you only introduce 1 – 2 new things at a time in your program, this way you will be able to track what is actually helping you in your training. Now that you have a base for your program make sure every time you step into the gym you remember what you are training for, and remember to expect great things to happen every time you train. Maybe the weight that was once heavy is becoming lighter, or maybe that hill you couldn’t bike all the way up without stopping you now cruise up like you’re wearing a jet pack.
There will be some very hard days ahead, days when you don’t think you can do it anymore but remember, those are the days when you are closest to greatness. It’s making it through the hard days that allows you to feel your body growing to meet your challenge, and to one day pass it for an even greater challege. Practice hard, train often, and repeat until you succeed.
Written by:
Nic Scudamore
(check out the sources at the bottom for some extra motivation / preparation for greatness)
Sources/inspiration :
Oh snap! I do like a good challenge!
Great post Nic.