Appreciate The Struggle

Written by Four Barrel Coach Lindy Barber

What happens when you give your best and you feel like that it’s still not enough?                   

You lift the heaviest weight that you can, but it is not as much as others have lifted. You improve your score, but not as much as others have improved theirs. It is an extremely tough feeling knowing that you finished your workout, gave it absolutely everything you had, and you’re still left with the nagging sensation: I should have done better… I should have done more.

How do you handle this? How do you stay satisfied with the fact that you improved in some way and that you are now fitter than you were before, but you still feel like you are always chasing everyone else?

YOU HAVE TO LEARN TO APPRECIATE THE STRUGGLE.

You have to learn to appreciate the moments along the way that you DID feel “good enough.” There are ALWAYS going to be people that are better than you, especially in the sport of CrossFit.  There are ALWAYS going to be movements that you are weaker at than others, and there will ALWAYS be workouts where others will beat you. That is both the beauty AND the most frustrating part of this sport. You work as hard as you possibly can. You give most of your life to this sport. You work constantly to overcome your weaknesses without allowing your strengths to suffer. You fight to improve your training day-in and day-out. You feel like you have been pushing yourself to the limit, but the thing is, so has everyone else.

Everyone who is in this sport is working tirelessly, day after day, to be the best that they can be. That, again, is the beauty of this sport. It makes everyone better. It builds better athletes, better people, better friends, better everything. It changes lives. It has changed my life, and it’s likely that it’s changed your life and everyone at your gym’s life.

SO LEARN TO APPRECIATE THE STRUGGLE.

Cherish the payoffs when you achieve them. If this sport – this fitness routine – has changed your life for the better; then you have earned the right to celebrate. You have earned the right to truly value every single improvement you have made, no matter what it is.

What we do is HARD. CrossFit is HARD. Showing up to the gym every day and putting yourself through workouts that challenge you physically, mentally and emotionally is HARD. Despite all this, you keep coming back. I keep coming back. I know that it is making me better. I know that I would not be the person that I am today without it. I know that I pour everything I am into these workouts. I have worked extremely hard to be where I am, to overcome the things that I have. No matter what I score on a workout, no one can take my struggle, or my appreciation for that struggle, away from me. I know what I have been through, and what it has taken for me to get every “first”, every PR, those extra 5 reps, or those extra 10 pounds (no matter how many more reps or pounds others get). It is my success, and nothing can change that.. This is true for all of us. The struggle you went through to get to where you are is YOURS and don’t EVER let any comparison diminish or take that from you.

YOU ARE AMAZING!

Your accomplishments are amazing! What you have done is amazing! You have no idea just how many people you are inspiring. Your workout score. That lift you completed. The time you had on that workout… Enjoy it… You earned it.

You went through the struggle to get there. You put in the work to get there. Be proud of what you have done. I am proud of myself and my accomplishments no matter how they compare, because I know what it took to get them.

Learn to appreciate the struggle, and what you have done to overcome.

THE STRUGGLE IS WHAT MAKES US WHO WE ARE.

Written by Lindy Barber

Lindy is a program director and coach at Four Barrel CrossFit.  She is an elite level CrossFit athlete, having competed at the CrossFit Games, and is now a professional athlete for the Boston Iron in the Grid Functional Fitness League. Lindy is extremely passionate about CrossFit and believes in its importance in giving people the functional fitness that will improve their everyday lives. She is just as passionate about the fitness goals of the members that she coaches as she is about her own!