Making Progress

Pushing yourself past a comfort zone can be scary. At crossfit if you can't do a pull up you learn on a band. As you get better you go down through the bands to the ones that help you less and less. Right now I'm in between. Well not really. The band I've been using is far to easy now. It holds too much of my body weight and gives me to big of a push without really having to do anything. The next band down makes me HAVE TO WORK. It's a struggle to knock out 5 pull ups. It doesn't sound like that big of a deal but I know that if I commit to doing my wod's with this blue band it's going to really impact my time. I'll be the slowest and I'll struggle. But it's NOT supposed to be easy! I have to tell myself that. I'm not going to get better if I don't try harder. I totally got called out today on how fast I can do pull ups on the green band. So now it's official, blue band from here on out (well of course until I can do without one).

Everyday I walk in to class I have to let go of all the fears that build up in my head. I make myself try everything. Even stupid hand stands. But some of those fears from early on are now things I enjoy. I no longer hate box jumps, I've discovered I can jump a lot higher than I thought, and while I still haven't gotten double unders down, I'm pretty good at jumping rope (singles).
The mind is a powerful thing. I think it's why so many people don't make the changes in their lives they want to make. We let our mind defeat us before we even give ourselves a chance to try. We think of all the negatives. Like when I first tried to do a hand stand I really didn't even want to attempt one. My mind told me I couldn't, I would look stupid, I'd fall on my head, etc. But I tried it. And trust me I looked stupid, I fell on my head, but I kept trying. I'm not there quite yet, but just like with pull ups, I'll get there.

Instead of starting a consistent workout schedule or clean eating plan, people let their minds convince them of all the reasons why they can't. It's too hard, it's too much work, you don't have time anyways, It won't matter you won't see results. But these things are NOT true. You learned how to do your job didn't you? On the first day of work you had no idea what you were doing. But you learned as you went along. And with each day you got better and better at it. And now you're training the new employees. Learning to workout and eat clean are the same thing. You won't know what you're doing at first if you're new to it all. But with time you'll get better at it, and you'll learn as you go. There will be bad days, but over time you'll get stronger and stronger and it will be effortless and a part of every day life. It's that initial fear that we have to overcome.
If there's something in your life you want to change or try, give it a chance. All the wishing and hoping in the world won't make anything magically happen, you have to go out there and get it.