Why am I telling you this?
Stay with me - this is not a CrossFit story.
It’s been about 5 or 6 weeks that my coach and I have been working on my squat snatches - it’s something we discovered I’m not very competent at.
Week after week it hasn’t been going so well and I have yet to meet the prescribed weight & or reps on the workout that’s been programmed for me by my coach. This morning was another opportunity for me to practice this. So just like every other time, I loaded the bar to the prescribed weight and started.
I missed the 2nd & 3rd rep so I started the workout again. I missed the 3rd rep so I started the workout again. I missed the 1st rep so I dropped the weight down and started the workout AGAIN. And I still missed reps!
I got so frustrated because this has been something I have been working on for weeks.
I started crying...
Now normally at this point I would think the following...
God Jen you’ve been working on this for weeks & you still can’t do it... hopeless
Omg you’re never going to be good if you can’t even do this
You’re just not good at snatching
You should be embarrassed that you can't even do this
What will you coach think - he’s been programming this for you for weeks and you still can't do it
And so on.
But, that’s not the conversation I decided to have today.
I cried because I was frustrated. It was pure frustration over wanting to be able to do something that I couldn’t do, YET!
The expectation that “I should be able to do this by now” or wanting something so bad can cause us to make it ‘mean' something about ourselves. But we can't start beliefs about ourselves that are not true. We can't allow this thought to stop us from trying.
I let the emotion of frustration out & I let the energy pass through me. Emotions are just that - energy in motion. It’s okay to feel emotions, to observe them, they just don’t need to consume you, & you don’t need to start the detrimental story telling that can sometimes follow.
As I bent over to take some more weight off the bar, I told myself that it's okay, I’ll get there eventually, just not this week.
I'm sharing this because I want you to have awareness around what meaning you give to things. Because that meaning will either create a rewarding thought pattern/belief, which will allow you to move through future challenges, or a sabotaging thought pattern/belief, that will make you shrink over time.
You get to choose. Beliefs can be born in a moment, but last a life time!
Sport, business, product development, life, relationships, change - can be hard, and just because you might not get something right the 1st, 2nd or 10th time, doesn’t mean it’s not gonna happen, it just means it’s going to take a little more patience, a little more grit, a little more hard work, more awareness, & a little more time.
Choose your meaning, choose your story, choose your beliefs!
Jen x