Goal-setting for New Years: Where's your ladder headed?

Make sure your ladder's leaning up against the right wall. 

Drilling holes for a new pull-up bar in the basement of the second CFCC space. 

This is a piece of advice that has been extremely compelling to me in the last year or so. Truth be told, I can't even remember where I heard it. 

I think it's a very common thing to believe that excellence, the pride of a thing done well, and generally working hard is an inherently good thing. There's a part of me that has both taught and truly believed this in the past. But today, I think I hear the admonition to work hard with a caveat: work with the end in mind. 

As people settle into January, our collective tendency (mine included) is to start fresh, to break ties with old habits, and to begin remaking ourselves all over again. Before you are bogged down with the rush of it all, I'd invite you to take a second and really think about why you want something. 

Do you want that success at work because you feel that this will make you happy? Do you want that budding relationship because you feel that this will make you happy? Do you want the house or car of your dreams because you feel that this will make you happy? Do you want to fit into that size pant because this (yes, this!) will make you happy? 

Let me be frank: I have lived through phases of working tirelessly at a business, working hard to make a name for myself, gritting my teeth to make everyone happy, and working hard to look and feel a certain way. For a long time, I thought: "One day when I am done with this I will stop and love my family, reconnect with my friends, and provide time for myself to do other things that I enjoy - then, I will be happy." 

Over the summer, I was challenged by a mentor to think of my personal values from an entirely different perspective than I had been used to. I was always told to think of what I wanted right now to understand what my values were. If you had asked me three years ago I would have said: creating a thriving business that supports my staff and members, and physical excellence through CrossFit and weightlifting. Honest to goodness, I don't know that I would have said a thing about my family or my friends.

I was asked often through this time, "what do you want?"  And told, "follow that thing!"

This became a kind of infuriating prompt to me. 

I want to go out on a limb and say that there may be a problem with following after "what we want".  What we want, is not always what's best for us in the long run. I don't think we are as wise as we think we are. We are all two year olds. "I want what's in front of me." "I don't want to go to bed." "I don't want to eat my vegetables." "I want more."

Simply put, I don't buy that happiness is as basic as getting what you want. The big question is, can we re-align our loves? How does this happen if so? Is it even possible? Can we want to want something? And for me, can we want to want what is best for us instead of what is easy?

This past summer I was asked instead to think about my values the other way around: to think instead, "At the end of my life, when I look back, what do I want the high points of my time on earth to be?" This shifted my gaze from my slightly muffled present, to a hopeful future version of myself. I thought, "If I lived all my life, and never felt that I had time to learn to love to my friends and family, I would die with great regret." This has nothing to do with clean and jerks, you guys! 

I shocked myself with my answer. 

Here's the greatest illusion of all: none of us knows how much time we have on earth. We don't know if we will live to a ripe old age of smarmy sooth-saying or walk out our doors to trail our dogs behind us and keel over mid-step. Therefore the time to know what you want to live for, the time to lean your ladder against the right wall is now. In fact, it is more than now. It is always now. It is every day when you wake up, every breath you breathe, and every moment you are able to become conscious of the chance to lean towards what you want to want. 

I've been reading Walden during my Sabbatical and this passage has been specifically inspiring: 

“The millions are awake enough for physical labor; but only one in a million is awake enough for effective intellectual exertion, only one in a hundred million to a poetic or divine life. To be awake is to be alive. I have never yet met a man who was quite awake. How could I have looked him in the face?

We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aids, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn, which does not forsake us in our soundest sleep. I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by conscious endeavor.

-Henry David Thoreau”

I don't believe the perfect opportunity to take time to really care about what we say we care about ever comes to us - we have to wake up, and claim it right where we are. No one is ever going to stand right in front of you and like Willy Wonka, grace you with the golden ticket to life balance. We must learn, and I am still learning, to say 'no' to some things in order to say 'yes' to others. Frustratingly, we have to learn to do this not only day-by-day, but literally moment-by-moment. 

This occasionally means climbing back down a ladder we thought was giving us a leg up. As many in fitness know, doing anything backwards is never as easy as moving forward, but it must be dealt with, and it must be done. 

When I was in New Zealand I spent the better part of my time there hiking a trail called the Routeburn. Along the Routeburn there is a summit that is about a mile off the main trail which affords brilliant perspective to the surrounding mountain spires. The way up to the summit is also quite steep and particularly jagged and typically a bit wet. The tricky part of all of this, is that if you do decide to go up, the weather is very unpredictable and you can sometimes go up and see nothing at all. 

The day I went up many of our party stayed down below and I figured it wouldn't take that long to go up and "YOLO". It rained most of the way up and was a bit of a trudge but I survived. When we got to the top it was absolutely freezing but I could see where we were headed, and where we had come from. It was stunning, but also - merely a moment of the journey. 

The way down in fact, was far more treacherous than the way up. My husband, Arrus, ended up accidentally crushing his phone along the way and a few in our party just flat out fell very hard multiple times as they climbed. 

The view.

Some paths help us to see better where we need to go, but they aren't the end goal. Often the longer, higher, or harder the path has been, the more terrifying it will be to come down. In my twenties, I feel like I have had to learn to be brave enough to ascend. In my thirties, I am feeling lately that I have had to learn to be brave enough to descend. 

The truth is, I don't know if we ever really "get" where we are going. We choose the paths we walk, the company we keep. I believe we can choose what we want. As Annie Dillard says,

“How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.”

We spend it on coffee, on sleep, on training, on friends, on family, on cell phones, on books, on walking, on biking, on driving, online, on waiting in line, but we spend it. And we have the autonomy we have always sought. We can use what we have as we see fit. I believe we have this ability all the time - every year, month, day, hour, and moment. 

So I'd ask you now, given an image of your whole life's journey, before you set yourself to eating less, drinking more water, and pursuing that never-ending picture of a perfect you, is your ladder leaning up against the right wall? Will the work be worth it in the end? Is it worth it now? 

What do you want to want? 

Let me leave you with this piece by Mary Oliver: a challenge to me to be conscious: 

THE FOURTH SIGN OF THE ZODIAC (PART 3)

I know, you never intended to be in this world.
But you’re in it all the same.

So why not get started immediately.

I mean, belonging to it.
There is so much to admire, to weep over.

And to write music or poems about.

Bless the feet that take you to and fro.
Bless the eyes and the listening ears.
Bless the tongue, the marvel of taste.
Bless touching.

You could live a hundred years, it’s happened.
Or not.
I am speaking from the fortunate platform
of many years,
none of which, I think, I ever wasted.
Do you need a prod?
Do you need a little darkness to get you going?
Let me be as urgent as a knife, then,
and remind you of Keats,
so single of purpose and thinking, for a while,
he had a lifetime.

-e.

How Practicing Mindfulness Made Me a Happier Athlete

This past summer I was fortunate enough to be gifted a course in Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (or MBSR) through Jefferson's Myrna Brind Center. During our first year of marriage, Arrus and I got the chance to dedicate 3 hours of every Wednesday evening to attending this 8-week course. Though 3 hours in the middle of the week is a big commitment for any busy individual and certainly was for us, I am so glad we invested the time - this course was nothing short of life-changing.

What is mindfulness? It is the everyday practice of moment-to-moment non-judgmental awareness. 

I have always been someone who approached fitness from the perspective of what it has been able to do for me spiritually, as well as physically. I know not everyone sees it that way, and that's fine enough.  For my part, I love that movement allows most of us to feel alive (even if at the end of "Fran" we are pretty sure we are actually dead).  I love that there is a curiosity inherent to beginning CrossFit that is almost as magical as the way that children first learn to walk, crawl, run, look in a mirror, and find out what falling feels like. I love that the changes we can experience through good nutrition and lifestyle habits can alter our perspective on our relationships, our days and - let's face it - our lives. CrossFit Center City exists because I have a serious addiction to bearing witness to these changes.

Sometimes though, a lot like mixing paint colors, all these colorful changes in so many lives can blend into black or worse, like a muddy gray. Life can become muted and dull in spite of being around so much vivid color. This is what mindfulness has given me: a lens to look through when the picture is too big to absorb properly. And, true to form, I want to share this with all of you.  Here is what the last year and a half of learning about mindfulness taught me about being an athlete.

1. Everything I do is impatient.

Even as I write this post I want the words to come more quickly. I have found that impatience is one of my central characteristics as a person and as an athlete. I have the sneaking suspicion that many of you are in this boat with me. To be impatient is not all bad, you get a lot done most of the time when you don't like waiting. As an athlete this may be reflected in the way you take on new challenges, learn new skills, and wait with baited breath for the whiteboard to appear.

But when you rush (and when I rush!), you miss everything. In fact, you literally miss the thing that you most wanted. Maybe you miss the intricacy of a movement pattern unfolding before you. Maybe you miss the moment that your WOD rabbit revolutionized your world. Maybe you miss celebrating the success of another or hearing someone celebrate yours. Maybe you're simply skipping a step.

It's old news, but good news: it's a relief to stop, take a look around and really get a chance to release yourself from the constant pressure of what you are eager to become, and instead breathe in the air of what you are.

2. Mindfulness is falling awake, even if you're falling asleep…

Confession: with early starts and late nights and well, being human - I struggled to stay awake through about 90% of my time in MBSR (Mindfulness Based Stressed Reduction Courses). I would spend my first few sessions wishing I had prepared better, slept more, been able to be a higher order of being and able to stay awake for unlimited amounts of time. I soon found that there were tricks to waking up: drinking coffee even though it wasn't the most zen beverage of choice, opening my eyes instead of closing them, and sitting in postures that were best for me and not always pretty.

But I eventually realized, I may always be tired. I may never be perfectly prepared. And that may never change.

Like, literally NEVER for the rest of my life.

In your training, you may always have to favor the mornings or the evening WOD after a long day. You may be in on a Saturday after another night out spending your recovery on Buffalo Billiards (been there, guys - skeeball!). You may have kids/family/spouses/roommates/dogs who keep you from doing ___fill in the blank____! Whatever your situation is, you may be powerless to change it, but you can change your attitude towards that very moment. You have the power to make the very moment you are reading this more alive than the moment before it.

You have the power to open your eyes.

3. The distraction is the meditation.

In our very first mindfulness class there was a bumblebee.

An actual bumblebee.

This softball-sized (slight exaggeration) bee was hovering above us all. And who were we? A small cohort of doctors, working professionals, new mothers, grandmothers, nurses, teachers, therapists, ex-convicts, and cancer patients - all earnestly attempting to shut out the sound of a bumblebee in an otherwise empty room. We debated openly: Could anyone remember if bumblebees were vindictive enough to sting you? Would this one bend that way? Would you be next for the swoop or me? People literally screamed... in Mindfulness Class... On the FIRST day.

I'm still not sure if that bumblebee wasn't planted as a test for us by the Myrna Brind Center.  But here is what I have learned through Maddox interrupting my 2k time trials, a drop-in kindly asking for my attention 15 minutes into my training session, or simply the fact that something will ALWAYS be happening when I am rolling out my yoga mat to stop for 5 minutes - when you have noticed that you are distracted, this is the meditation.

That is the very moment that you are now here, and not "there" anymore. Embrace it. Learn from it. Try not to judge yourself for wanting it to be different. Welcome it as what was meant for you and be curious as to why.

4. Pain is perception.

In the last year or so my Coach has gone from giving me the daunting task of doing six 500m Row repeats on a Saturday by myself in a corner (after strength work, after 4 hours of coaching), to giving me twelve (TWELVE!) 500m Row repeats on a Saturday by myself in a corner (after strength work, after 4 hours of coaching). The funny part about all of this is that I thought six was bad...

What in the name of all that is good has this taught me?

That pain is a great teacher. Resent, even more so. 

Those of you who know me, know I am not a great rower and I'm not an athlete who comes to CrossFit with a broad conditioning bias (unless you count my being biased AGAINST conditioning) - despite having ACTUALLY rowed in a boat at one point in my life.

I think rowing in particular is a daunting task for most of us not because the act itself is incredibly difficult but because our pace, our limitations, and our perception of the length of the task is ALWAYS very clearly in front of us. Aside from an Assault Bike piece (which many of us haven't even had the pleasure of really delving into) rowing is the only thing you'll do in CrossFit that will show you where you are the ENTIRE time. 

If you are not keen to accept the present, you will spend the majority of your time on erg fearing what's next, or thinking of how you have felt before. Raise your hand if you have spent an entire 2k dreading the last 100m. The more time you spend doing this, the less time you spend focusing on the task at hand: this pull, this recovery, that breath. You are missing the entire point: to be rowing.

I row faster than I ever have today (even if that's not saying much relatively) and the majority of my improvement has come from one thing: I am not afraid anymore.

In mindful meditation, you will sometimes be asked to sit with what is uncomfortable. Literally, sometimes in the most ill-adapted position, or with an itch that you want so badly to itch. You will sometimes be asked to simply observe your pain (emotional or physical), examine it, identify the flavor, the scope, the texture - and to watch how your body responds.

Oddly, sometimes when you do this, you will find that the pain was never there at all. This, friends, can have a powerful effect on your performance, as well as your perspective.

5. May you be as strong as YOU can be.

One of my favorite meditations from my time in my first Mindfulness course was called the Loving Kindness meditation. While it sounds relatively fruity (and really, it's ok if it doesn't resonate with you - not everything will!) there is one part of it that felt just right for CrossFit. There is a variation of it here.  Within the course of this meditation, you will go from a series of sort of wishes that you will attempt to give to someone who is easy for you feel kindness to, to giving them to yourself, to giving them to everyone around you. The script of the wishes goes as follows:

May you be peaceful and happy.

May you be safe from harm. 

May you be as healthy and strong as you can be. 

May you live with ease of well-being.

It's a shock to the system to go straight from the striving of every day at CrossFit Center City to hearing this and attempting to a) accept it, but b) give it. I have been doing CrossFit - that is - keeping score, encouraging people to aim for more, straight-up weeping alongside athletes who feel they are not good enough, and ultimately, striving for growth in every direction for the last nine years of my life.

What if you could stop all that and simply accept that right now, you could aim to be as healthy and strong as YOU can be - not as someone expects you to be, as you expect you to be, but simply, as you can be - right in this very moment?  What if you could give that kind of grace to someone else? 

I think the journey becomes more joyful. I think the goals seem more like a part of your story instead of a threat. I think the people around you seem more like companions than competition. 

It's a brave hope, but that is the best thing about now - it is actually the only moment in which change is ACTUALLY possible.

How can you start learning more about Mindfulness?

As a start, I'd say that the HeadSpace App is incredibly helpful, especially if you're short on time and/or money, and definitely a very easily approached way to begin practicing. This will provide you with 10-minute pieces for lots of different situations, but it will also take you through a short beginner's program to give you the lay of the land in your mind.

I would also highly recommend attending a drop-in session through Jefferson's Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction program. They host sessions that are only $20 to drop-in from time to time. You can find more information about that here.

Related specifically to Mindfulness and the life of an athlete I would highly recommend CrossFit Invictus's book, The Invictus Mindset: An Athlete's Guide to Mental Toughness. Invictus also has a series of Meditations and Visualization Practices that you can use for cool-downs before bed, or after a workout. Visualization is not Meditation, but it is closely tied to the practice.

If you're a bit spooked by this whole thing and just generally need to feel more mobile and maybe a little more chill, you can also check out a trial membership at ROMWOD - ROMWOD is not for everyone, but there are daily posted videos that run between 20-40 minutes of very gentle stretching specific to the needs of CrossFitters. There's also some guided breathing and occasional touches of mindfulness and visualization that are different every day and also searchable by specific body part needs.

Finally, CFCC's Stability WOD class aims to provide about 10-15 minutes of Mindfulness Meditation at the end of every class. I am not a certified instructor by any stretch of the imagination, so I often use recordings I have found, or scripts that I have been able to experience myself. I think this variety has been helpful, but for any of my steady attenders out there - let me know if not! We spend about 45 minutes to reset movement patterns, and the remainder of class trying to take a hot second to allow for some time to listen to our bodies. You know how people are always saying that with regard to injury: "Listen to your body,"? Turns out, you actually have to make time to do that so that your body doesn't have to start screaming...

If you have any questions about Mindfulness or any of the above, please feel free to reach out. This has been a topic that I have continued to spend more time with in the last year since my summer course in 2015 and I'm very passionate about allowing others to experience the relief I have been privy to through my time in meditation. I also really had to work hard to only write about five things in this blogpost. As I've said, it's not for everyone, but for those of you who feel that any part to this resonates with you, I'd love to help you in any way I can.

I'll leave you with one of my favorite quotes:

"You cannot move forward from some idealized point in the future that has not yet arrived. If you are to move forward, you must do it from where you are now. Though it may not be perfect, it is plenty to get you going. Wishing for more, or feeling resentment because you don't have more, will only waste your precious time.  Although there is no guarantee that your actions will be effective, one thing that is certain is that nothing will happen if you take no action at all."

- James FitzGerald, aka OPT

Q&A: Should I get a CrossFit Level 1 Certification?

"hey! quick question: thinking about getting crossfit level 1 certified bc ultimately would love to work on the side as a coach would you recommend waiting until i get a better hang of my skills, or is the earlier the better?"

-----------------------------

This is SUCH a good question and one I've actually been asked multiple times before so I felt it was time for a more formalized answer.

Of course, the answer to most questions is always going to be some version of "it depends". So what does it depend on in this case?

First: What's your end goal in becoming a Coach from a timeline perspective?

This is probably a question worth asking upon having to make any decision - but what do you see the progression being in this particular genre of life choices? In 1 year, do you see yourself occasionally subbing at your local CrossFit gym for a class here and there? Or, in 1 year, do you see yourself entertaining the option of integrating your life as a Coach into a full-fledged career involving Coaching of any kind? In 3 years, do you see yourself being interested in the full autonomy of any coaching position you are placed in? Or, in 3 years do you see yourself placing coaching on the back-burner, and using your time as a Coach to inform whatever profession you are headed towards?

The CrossFit Level 1 is an investment for sure. But the act of becoming a Coach, of forging the trust that it takes to be able to bear that title, is heavy, and in my humble opinion, should never be taken lightly.

Last night I attended a volunteer meeting at a at-risk youth non-profit organization where I used to be an intern over a decade ago. One of the first volunteers that got up to speak made a very simple point: don't start something you aren't at least sure you want to commit more than the time that is necessary. Committing to a relationship with at-risk youth is no small matter - and in a lot of ways, people who are eager for coaching aren't that different. They are where they are because they have sensed a great need. The stronger the bond between Coach and Athlete, the greater the capacity for good. But that works both ways, that bond of trust, if broken - can never be repaired quite back to what it was at the outset. It's like trying to put toothpaste back in a tube - some things just don't work the other way around.

From what I have seen in teaching interns, in coaching all kinds of people in all kinds of places, over the last 9 years, is that the time that is necessary for someone to be committed is at least a year of CrossFit. You need to be doing CrossFit for at least a year, no matter HOW good you begin, before you can consider yourself really read to commit to making it more than just a hobby.

Is this number purely conjecture? Yes. But it seems to work. If someone is obsessed for at least a year - I know it's realer than a "phase".

Second: What are you thinking you are going to receive from Coaching? What are you thinking you are going to be able to give? Have you seriously considered whether there are other outlets for you to receive and give these things?

Are you becoming a Coach because you love sharing information about movement or because you love being a source of information about movement? Are you becoming a Coach because it seems like a fun thing to do one night of the week or because you'd like to make a living making people feel better? Are you becoming a Coach because you want to spend more time in the gym, win the CrossFit Games (oh boy!), or get a back like a map?

I am all for this profession in its many, many forms - and I think more doctors, lawyers, congressmen and business gurus could do with a little bit of exposure to coaching. You learn so much about how the psychology of habit change can play out in real life. You learn so much about the difference eating an omelette versus a bagel in the morning can make on a person's whole attitude toward life. You learn how to speak to people, how people learn, and how to work with others.

But at the end of the day, there SHOULD be something about JUST coaching (in your case) CrossFit that REALLY and SUPREMELY appeals to you. If you're way more into aesthetics, CrossFit will never be what you're looking for though it may get you halfway. If you're way more into athletics and the study of physiology, CrossFit will never be what you're looking for though it may get you halfway. If you're way more into the psychological effects of aggressive exercise, CrossFit will never be what you're looking for though it may get you halfway. AND, my favorite, if you're into CrossFit to make some extra cash, well… just don't.

Some excellent advice that I have been on the receiving end of and have tried to implement in my life: always be aware of when you are using someTHING or someONE as a means to an end, rather than an end in itself. Coaching for the sake of love of anything other than coaching will ALWAYS yield disappointment - maybe not immediately, but it WILL happen.

Third: How are YOU going to give your gift in a way that is a unique expression of who you are?

I actually don't have any judgments to give on any of the reasons above. I think defining your end goal will actually shed some light for YOU on what your move should be. That is, if the goal is to use Coaching to inform a later less Coaching-dominant profession, then yes, you can dabble, you can start the Level 1 ASAP. If the goal is to use Coaching as an end in and of itself, understand that the Level 1, though it can be done at any time, is absolutely only the beginning; the tip of the tip of the iceberg.

So, how are you going to whittle down the wide world of "ALL THE THINGS THAT YOU DON'T KNOW" after you get done with your Level 1? In no way do I even believe that those who instruct the Level 1 believe that it is wholly sufficient for the production of good coaches. The Level 1 is just that: LEVEL ONE.

It provides its attendees with a baseline for movement patterns, perspicacity, and CrossFit's framework for what a Coach should aspire to be learning about all the time (nutrition and health, movement quality, scaling, instruction and cuing, program design, and triage) - but it is not the end of a Coach's education. It is simply a stop along the way.

If you are definitely interested in Coaching as a life-long profession - that is a VERY different blog post, but I'm happy to chat about that too.

I hope all of the above gives you some good questions to ask yourself as you pursue your progression as an Athlete and a Coach!

-e.