Perspective
You walk into the gym, put your stuff in the locker room, you got there a few minutes early so you have time to write down the workout of the day. You’re standing by the whiteboard. Your coach is standing up there, holding court, talking and joking with everyone; hoping to set minds at ease as to what the next hour of their life has in store for them.
He goes over the schedule of what you’re going to be doing, the game plan. You can feel that familiar knot of anxiety creep its way into your gut, maybe it’s a tortuous workout, a benchmark girl, a Hero WOD, or even a movement that you’re uncomfortable with.
You don’t know how you’re going to make it through the next 60 minutes…
But then your coach offers you some perspective.
He says no matter how hard the next hour is, it is only one hour of your life.
Now if we all live to the average life expectancy in the US of 78 years; that is 683,280 hours, or 40,996,800 minutes. Or if we look at it another way, that 12 minute WOD is 0.00000002927% of your life. So if we take that data into consideration, that hour, that 60 minutes, is nothing in the grand scheme of things. So the next time you’re doing that brutal 20 Minute AMRAP, just say to yourself, in the long run, this is nothing. I can do anything for 5, 10, 15, 20 minutes or longer because it is nothing, especially when we look at the big picture.
This idea can be applied to almost all aspects of your life, both inside and outside the gym. Your mindset is an incredibly powerful thing – and only you can control it. This may sound cliche – but you are a product of your own thoughts, what you think you become, and it is your responsibility to put yourself in a positive state and be ready to succeed when the opportunity strikes. If you find that you wind yourself up and get stressed and overwhelmed easily, you can take a second, step outside the situation and remind yourself that this isn’t forever. It is but a small speed bump on the road-map of your life.
-Coach Jacob Mourtada
