Redefine Your Measure of Success
It's amazing how God uses the everyday things in your life to teach you when you stop to listen. I am training at a new gym with a whole new training philosophy and techniques. If you haven't read this blog before, I'll just clue you in that I'm a recovering perfectionist. It's not comfortable for me to do new things in public before I master them. Which is ridiculous, I know. Being in a new place with new people and new training techniques is challenging me for sure, but I'm loving it. I have been doing lots of exercises to max fatigue level (aka failure) the last 3 weeks. The point of this training block is hypertrophy. The medical definition is: the enlargement of tissue from increasing the size of the cells. Jonny's basic definition: We're ripping your muscles apart so there's room for them to grow. Sounds like fun right? (I'm learning all kinds of new words, and it's been fun hearing the reasons behind the exercises I'm enduring. Good thing my new trainer is a patient man with all my constant queries.)
It gets really frustrating when tasks that seem really simple are so difficult. I was doing incline presses just today and had this ah-ha moment. Here I was struggling through the last set, making faces and straining hard to get my right arm up in the air. Jonny was there to spot me and keep everything in line. Rep 4 was getting pretty ugly. By rep 5, the struggle was real. Sixth rep didn't even happen. Now, I've been doing some variation of bench press for years, yet I couldn't finish out the exercise today. I was irritated at myself, aggravated that my body wasn't doing what I wanted it to and annoyed that I couldn't finish. Nevermind that it was the end of an hour spent working my upper body or that Jonny kept increasing the weight. NO! I want to be perfect now! I must complete every challenge put before me! (I'm not competitive at all.)
So here I am being all grouchy, and Jonny tells me, "Good job." Really man? I'm over here being annoyed. You're messing with my pity party. He went on to explain that it's okay if I don't finish because I'm working up to my fatigue level. Over time, my muscles will grow and that level will change, but we'll never know how hard to push my body if we don't know the current limitations. Not being able to finish all the reps doesn't mean I wasn't successful. I still accomplished the goal.
I heard a quote this week that really hit home. One of my favorite humans as of the last few years is Me Ra Koh. She and her family spent 6 months last year living out of their suitcases and producing a family travel show. They came back from filming their TV show with $15 to their name. One of her very wise friends (thank God for those) said,
I heard a quote this week that really hit home. One of my favorite humans as of the last few years is Me Ra Koh. She and her family spent 6 months last year living out of their suitcases and producing a family travel show. They came back from filming their TV show with $15 to their name. One of her very wise friends (thank God for those) said,
"You're going to have to redefine your measure of success."
I'm sure Me Ra needed to hear that, but I felt like she told that story just for me this week. I so often find myself setting standards and markers of "success" that work for other people or are commonly accepted in our society. Sometimes these are good, like finishing a days work. Measuring your success in this instance is easy. You either finished your task or you didn't, but not everything is so easily defined. Take Me Ra's Adventure Family for example. She was not seeing their lives as a success because they didn't have have money saved up for a rainy day; they didn't a fall back plan. They were filming a family travel show, living life, taking big risks and teaching their kids that making your dreams happen is possible. Just because they didn't have money at the end of their trip doesn't mean they weren't successful.
So I am learning to redefine my success measuring stick. Training at Performance Vault is challenging me in so many new ways. I'm learning to allow myself room to grow while pushing myself past my current limits. Definitely working on that mental toughness. It's not easy finishing the 50th deadlift when you've already sprinted and done plyometrics, but you make it happen. I'm also super challenged by the other people training around me.
They run a non-profit organization called Adaptive Training Foundation, where people who have any type of physical disability can come train. They restore hope to people through movement. It's so inspiring to see marines missing limbs pumping out reps or guys who've had walking crutches for years be able to stand up on their own. They are great people who are truly inspiring and are helping me redefine what success looks like. It's becoming very clear to me that being willing to put your current limitations aside, allow yourself to fail and just keep going is a success in itself. And not beating yourself up over the failure is another huge success. I love this quote from Winston Churchill:
Winston knew what was up. Now I just see my current failures as leaving room for improvement. The key is not giving up if your fail, but to pick yourself up and simply soldier on. Never give up. So once again, sports and training are teaching me life lessons. I will leave you with this food for thought. Do you need to redefine your measure of success? Allow yourself the liberty to fail and the mental freedom to do so. Don't lose your enthusiasm. Failure is no fatal, and it is not final. It is the courage to continue that counts.
So I am learning to redefine my success measuring stick. Training at Performance Vault is challenging me in so many new ways. I'm learning to allow myself room to grow while pushing myself past my current limits. Definitely working on that mental toughness. It's not easy finishing the 50th deadlift when you've already sprinted and done plyometrics, but you make it happen. I'm also super challenged by the other people training around me.
They run a non-profit organization called Adaptive Training Foundation, where people who have any type of physical disability can come train. They restore hope to people through movement. It's so inspiring to see marines missing limbs pumping out reps or guys who've had walking crutches for years be able to stand up on their own. They are great people who are truly inspiring and are helping me redefine what success looks like. It's becoming very clear to me that being willing to put your current limitations aside, allow yourself to fail and just keep going is a success in itself. And not beating yourself up over the failure is another huge success. I love this quote from Winston Churchill:
Success consists of going from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm.
-Winston Churchill
Winston knew what was up. Now I just see my current failures as leaving room for improvement. The key is not giving up if your fail, but to pick yourself up and simply soldier on. Never give up. So once again, sports and training are teaching me life lessons. I will leave you with this food for thought. Do you need to redefine your measure of success? Allow yourself the liberty to fail and the mental freedom to do so. Don't lose your enthusiasm. Failure is no fatal, and it is not final. It is the courage to continue that counts.