Words With Lisbeth

We hear the phrase “every second counts” and we apply it to our workout, but do we really understand how it applies to everything?

Every second counts. Every one.

How many times today have you not really paid attention? Let your mind wander, let your attention drift. You gave away those moments. Discarded them. Whether it was with someone else (your boss, your co-worker, your coach, your friend, your partner, your child) or just by yourself — there was some time in the last day (probably even the last hour) where you just stopped paying attention. You were bored and you failed to use your own self-discipline to focus on the task or the person in front of you.

Those seconds meant nothing. You threw them away. And, sadly, you can never get them back. Discarded moments of your life where you just stopped being present.

Being present is hard. You have to focus and persevere. You have to really listen to people — listen to what they have to say to you — and not just wait for your turn to speak. You have to look and learn and really pay attention. And sometimes being present means not talking at all. (For those of us with Chatterbox Disease, this is not easy. But it needs to be done.)

We teach discipline in the gym — discipline in your set-up, your movement, your workout. But the most important discipline is not in your muscles, it’s in your mind. If you can learn to be present, you can increase your PRs in every aspect of your life — in the gym, in your work, in your relationships, in your life. Sometimes the lessons will come from others, sometimes from you, sometimes from the task itself, and sometimes just from the surprising results that occur when people really feel heard.

Every second counts. Don’t waste them.

You can decide to make something in this world, or you can decide to destroy something in this world. But, be forewarned, the former is enormously harder than the latter. And enormously more rewarding.

When you create — whether it’s a program, an essay, a workout, an invention —  you take a big risk, but you might get a big payoff. When you complain, you take little risk and … you get little payoff. You made little effort, right? So you don’t get shit. It’s an instance where life is supremely fair.

[box]It takes far more effort to create, to try, to fail, to try again, to persevere. Complaining is over in a second — and so is its impact.[/box]

Complaining doesn’t last. It’s quick and cheap (and fun) but no one ever said: “Oh yeah! Remember that great bitching? I still use it today! Heck, my kids use it! Changed our fucking lives! Holy shit, imagine if we had never spent that minute yapping our traps! Imagine how small our lives would be without complaining!”

Work lasts. Complaining fades. There’s a reason.

Make your choice: create or complain.

At my first L1 Seminar, Greg Glassman (CrossFit Founder/CEO) asked us: “How many of you are really sore? Raise your hands.” (Many hands went up.) “How many of you kinda dig it?” (Almost all hands stayed up.) “You all are some sick motherfuckers.” We laughed, but, inside, we all knew he was (sort of) right.

Why do we dig the soreness? Some folks point to our obsessions as unhealthy, particularly this one. They say it’s not normal to be sore often from exercise. That it’s unhealthy — that we are unhealthy in our health. That something is wrong with us because we don’t mind the soreness and that, sometimes, we kind of exalt it.

Somehow, tied up in this condemnation, is the core belief in our society that life should be painless. That achievement means less pain. That to “make it” means you have it easy and good and sweet and lazy.

Well, that’s fucking wrong.

Or, if it’s right — if the goal of life is to be painfree and swaddled in cotton and doped up on food and couches and “leisure time” — then I’m okay with being wrong. I’m okay with feeling a bit of discomfort and feeling alive because I feel … something.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m no pain junkie. I don’t have a lot of scars or tattoos or piercings or brands or anything else the outside world might use to judge me and say I’m pain addicted. You’re not going to find me putting my hand on a hot stove or slamming the stapler on my fingers for fun. But I do kind of like the soreness the day after a good WOD. Not pain, like something is broken or torn. But sore, like I did some work yesterday, and the day before. Like I used my body for a purpose. Like I pushed myself to places I needed to go.

That’s all the soreness means for me: I’m alive and I can feel this life. I’m not anesthetized. I’m not numb. I am here. And I’m breathing. Bring on the challenges. I’m ready.

(Image courtesy of Nicole Bedard Photography.)

Do you know — really know? Can you say where your breaking point is? Or at least feel when you’re darn close? In your body. In your brain, your guts, your heart. Can you tell?

Some people think the time we spend in the gym (and the importance we attach to it) is silly, misguided, overblown. Maybe it is. Or maybe we’re finding out more about ourselves — our strengths and our weaknesses, in body and mind and heart — in an hour than many people are finding out over the course of a day or a week or a month.

[box]Sitting and contemplating your limits will rarely teach you anything. But action will. It teaches me about me — and it teaches me about you.[/box]

So get off your butt and act. Find out who you are. It’s not just exercise. That workout’s a lab — an experiment in life — every single day, if you want it to be. The lessons are there. Find them.

(Image courtesy of Nicole Bedard Photography.) 

The world is full of broken dreamers. People who have tried and failed, for whatever reason: money, will, circumstance, faith. The cause of their loss is not germane to their story, although they may spend inordinate amounts of time trying to explain it. Affixing blame becomes a priority for some folks, after the loss. Listen and move on. Don’t linger. This is important. Your dream is not theirs — although both might look, sound, and smell very much alike. But your dream is yours — and you are you.

Broken dreams happen to everyone. There is not a soul among us who has received everything they ever wanted in this life. Not one. There are, instead, people who choose to take the lessons of the broken dream and move on. Use that pain to make the next dream a reality. They sit on those stories no longer than the cat on the hot stove. Lesson learned. Time to do something else.

If you would better yourself, then do the same. Learn to quickly identify the broken dreamers in your life and limit their contact with you. Enough  to learn, not enough to permanently scar.

You have bigger dreams. You have the heart to achieve them. You will be better than you are. Go make it happen.

(Image courtesy of Nicole Bedard Photography.)