Our approach to developing a fit human starts right where it should. The human. No unhappy podium finisher can be made a winner. No amount of physical fitness will make you whole if you create holes in your social fitness or mental fitness by chasing it.
Fitness is developed through understanding that all three fitnesses are tied to each other. You can visualize this as a tangled knot. It’s interwoven with thread that starts and ends with it’self. Even if untangled, they inseparable and must all be cared for as if they were one. Fitness is predominantly grown through growing your character to wield an indomitable positive attitude towards the variables in your control and accepting that the rest is not. Understand, mastery is not found outside of you.
Character:
“Character” defined, is the mental and moral qualities distinctive to an individual. For clients in our team setting, qualities like the following are common among our fittest and happiest members.
- Human bonds are more valuable than workout scores.
- Training sessions are deep practice to improve on one’s own abilities and aspirations, instead of tests against others.
- An indomitable positive attitude that allows a member to maximize whatever is put in front of her is valued over the newest or most expensive equipment.
- Factors outside the athlete’s control like; missed reps, the performance of others, or a mistaken judge, are not focused and ruminated on, while that mental space could be better rented to what you can control.
Indomitable Positive Attitude:
Attitude is your way of thinking and is shown in your behavior. Don’t confuse attitude with mood. There are many times where you feel counter to what you want, but because you have a winning attitude, you still do what’s necessary to be successful in your pursuit.
When you become complacent, driven by ego, or find yourself in circumstances that don’t align with supporting all 3 versions of fitness, rely on our protocol to re-center yourself. Ask the questions.
“What’s my desired outcome?” & “What can I control?”
- Your sleep will be interrupted.
- Your training schedule will be thrown off by deadlines at work.
- You’re going to miss a lift and face getting mental about it.
Understand, these are all your situations.
Control
You control your part in the outcome, not it’s entirety. The world’s champions and best of the species in their sport, and out members happiest with their fitness, controlled only their part in their outcomes. Not the entire journey towards it. Not even the championship where their title was earned.
Examples of exercising the protocol:
- Your sleep will be interrupted by storms.
You can take 20min during lunch the next day to nap or meditate in a darkened room. - Your nutrition will be thrown off when you forget your meals for the day.
You can leave prepared meals at work or put a reminder on your phone to grab your food when you leave in the morning. - Your training schedule will be thrown off by deadlines at work.
You can buy used weights, cheaply and leave them at home to get your workout in. You can still get a great bodyweight workout and expand your body control/ gymnastics skill at home. - Your routine will be disrupted by injury.
You can work around your injury until it recovers. Maximize other areas where you are lacking. - You’re going to miss a lift and face getting mental about it.
You can video your lifts to pinpoint what’s happening. If you’re in the middle of a workout, you can take a breath, reflect on the lift, “whats one thing I know I can do better in this next lift?” Then, do it. if you miss again, repeat. The options are to A) reflect and earn a chance to make it (which you may still fail at) or, B) surely fail by getting frustrated on what you cannot control (the missed lift) it’s in the past. Let it go, learn, and advance with the confidence of the new lesson. - Your equipment will be moved or taken in the middle of training.
You can accept that people are not machines. Mistakes will be made. They won’t affect you near as much as your response to the mistake. You don’t know why someone does something, let alone if it was personal so don’t waste time trying. In training, you can grab unused equipment or space. In competition, you can alert a coach or judge to keep your lane safe or direct you where to go. - Your judge will “no-rep” you, deserved or not.
You can move better than your last rep Exaggerate your perfection of the movement you’re doing. Ask the judge “why” and do it. Disagreeing or giving a bad attitude is pointless. You can control your part in the outcome, not their choices. - You’re going to be passed by others.
Others performances do not affect you in any way. Your focus on others will. Remember your attitude. What can you control? Follow the protocol.
What this approach does:
We are all affected by negative ego at some point. We become driven by our concern about the view others have of us. We want to win at what we are already good at, rather than work on our weaknesses. We will feel safe in complacency. We serve our ego this way, rather than our growth, rather than our community.
Developing whole fitness in the manner above brings the ego to the light so it can be confronted.
What would you do without negative ego polluting your positive attitude? You won’t waste time on arguments or ruminating for hours on their meaning. You won’t point fingers outside yourself. You will be an example to yourself. You will be in control.
This is your challenge and also your exit from complacency. Your ego will still exist, but you won’t be dominated by it. You will control your part.
It’s simple, not easy.
You won’t always win over your ego or circumstance. But having a character and attitude to control it is still the way.
I’ll leave you with the best example of this protocol that I know.
There is a boxer named Vinny Pazienza who came to fame after winning a couple of world titles.
This boxer, after getting into a near-fatal car accident, broke his neck, and the doctors told him he will never be able to walk again, let alone be able to box again.
After hearing this, Vinny, controlling what he can and not ruminating on what we cant, doesn’t give up. He rests, recovers to baseline, trains hard from out of one of the biggest deficits imaginable to a human being. He has one of the most iconic comebacks of sports history.
During an interview with a journalist, the journalist asks him, “What is the biggest lie you’ve been told?”
He says, “It’s not that simple.”
The journalist doesn’t get it immediately and she asked back, “What’s not that simple?”
He says, “No, that’s the biggest lie. People keep telling you that something’s not that simple, and this is the most important reason, that keeps you from doing things. Because people tell you it’s not that simple, and you believe that.”
She asks him back, “If this is the biggest lie you’ve been told, what’s the truth?”
He answers, “The truth is, that is actually is. Once you do what people tell you that you can’t, then it’s done. And you realize that it is as simple as that.”
This is all a choice. If you choose to control your part in your outcome. You will not be good at it immediately. It takes practice. But you will get better. You won’t look at variables that you wish were better but instead, you’ll look in the mirror at the master.
