Fit For You & Fort Fit- Traverse City’s Gym
Learn to be Comfortable with New Things
The other day I read something that blew my mind. A website I frequent claimed that most of us do not fail enough.
Let’s face it, failure makes us uncomfortable. Whether you are starting a new job or stepping into the gym for the first time in months, it’s difficult to avoid that feeling of: “what if I do it wrong?”
I’ve talked before about the pitfalls our brain creates for us and its desire to attain stability and certainty. Once again, this doesn’t bode well for us when we want to improve.
Ultimately, improving at anything requires putting yourself out there, trying something you may not have done before and the possibility of not being good at whatever you try.
Our society places such high importance on doing more, greater productivity, and creating wildly ambitious goals. And the pressure to achieve those things without complication is staggering.
So the temptation to sit back and become comfortable is real. It’s easy to look at successful people and get discouraged at our inability to be where there are. However, we forget the volume of new experiences they needed to perform to reach their current success.
To quote the blogger I mentioned earlier, “It’s not failure, it’s a test.”
Framing any new endeavor in that light will help take the pressure off ourselves.
The key is to have the experience… because that is how learning happens.
Plutarch tells us,
“I did not so much gain the knowledge of things by the words, as the words by the experience of things.”
Many of you probably don’t know the fourth week of the Reebok Open is upon us. Please see the link for official schedule from the company. For some of you, mention of the sport of Fitness conjures a slew of negative an uncomfortable images.
“Those workouts hurt people.”
“I’m too old to do that crazy stuff.”
“Woah! Those workouts are only for super intense people.”
“I can’t do stuff like that.”
The Open-Fort Fit Athletes Compete in Traverse City
Yet, the essence of The Open is doing it for the experience.
Once a year, for five weeks, athletes around the world have an opportunity to compete against one another and see how they measure up on a global scale.
Each week, a new workout is announced and athletes have 96 hours to try it. Many competitors must modify the workout or can’t fully complete a workout because they have not mastered the more complex movements.
Our athletes at Fort Fit have a wide range of abilities. Some may not be able to do every movement yet they are still participating. They did not wait for that perfect moment to figure it out.
Even if that meant spending a large portion of workout trying to get that one movement.
The Open is an opportunity to fail… and succeed. Every athlete who tries is celebrated by their fellow members. Even if they are not the best, the fastest or can’t do a movement. They still receive applause and encouragement.
So even if you’re not doing the open you can still have an experience. The key is to do something… anything. To have the experience. To not wait until you are completely ready to do something.
I will leave you with this final quote:
“We act as though comfort and luxury are the chief requirements of life, when all that we need to make us happy is something to be enthusiastic about. “
-Charles Kingsley
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