CrossFit 2024

In the Mariam-Webster’s Dictionary, Confidence is defined as ‘a feeling or consciousness of one’s powers or of reliance on one’s circumstances’ and a second definition that clarifies and solidifies the first is, ‘the quality or state of being certain’.

A huge component of success is mental fitness – A state of psychological well-being, having a positive sense of how we feel, think, and act, that improves our ability to enjoy life – all of which is solely self-determined. This concept applies to more than just success in the gym, but in all aspects of your life and health. Maintaining mental fitness requires utmost confidence from yourself, or the ability to know that you can rely on yourself when needed.

Assessing Confidence

Understanding your WHY is the utmost importance when beginning the first step into consistent confidence. So, ask yourself, ‘WHY?’. To see any improvement over the duration of a long period of time, you must write everything down, this applies to diet, lifting numbers, and even confidence. So, a consistency exercise you can try is, start by asking yourself the previously stated question, and on a piece of paper, journal, on the bathroom mirror in dry erase, or anywhere you won’t forget and will look over frequently, ponder over and write down your WHY for completing or working on a task. Again, this could be for the gym, diet, or work/life.

These “WHY” statements need to be intrinsic; pleasure you get from the task itself, or the sense of satisfaction from completing the task. Anything that is extrinsic, pleasure derived from the reward of the task, such as receiving money for work and enjoying the money received but not the work, SHOULD NOT be recorded.

THIS NEEDS TO BE PLACED WHERE YOU CAN SEE IT DAILY.

After you have created and complied your list of WHY, go back through the list and assess each one individually. Address where the motivation stems from, whether it comes from approval, acceptance, validation, recognition, or a feeling of social satiety, safety, or support. Whichever fits the description, consider ways in which you can satisfy those same motivational needs through your own means. The idea here is to null-out any WHY’s that you require reassurance or validation from others. If you come across a WHY that you cannot readjust in a way that doesn’t require others for motivation, then you should consider if that is truly a motivation force behind your success.

THIS LIST SHOULD BE REASSESS AND UPDATED A MINIMUM OF ONCE WEEKLY, MAXIMUM OF ONCE MONTHLY.

Just as we change and grow through life, so does our wants, whys, and reasons for our motivations and successes. As such, your WHY journal should be assessed as well.

Consistency, Mindset, Doubt

The key to mental fitness upkeep is constant self-assessment, acceptance, and consistency. If you have forgotten why you started a journey in the first place, at first sign of difficulty, you will forget why you even begin and feel like giving up. The secret to success is simple, it is not about winning, its about not quitting. Often people believe successful mental fitness comes naturally to some like a genetic gift or trait. The truth is, while some exude happiness and success, and others seem to not, it comes down to habit. Being able to maintain the mental fortitude to succeed is a skill, just like double-unders, muscle ups, or meal prepping. If you don’t constantly flex, exercise, address, and practice your mental fitness, then you will not reap the rewards. So, if you find yourself in the gym wondering, “Why am I doing this? Why haven’t I lost any weight? Why is this movement so difficult? Ect.” Then you need you ask yourself WHY. Only then can you begin to set attainable goals for yourself.

YOU EITHER WIN, OR YOU LEARN; FAILURE ONLY EXISTS IN DEFEAT.

“What confidence is has nothing to do with winning or the leaderboard, what confidence is, is knowing that you giving your best effort, is enough.” -Ben Bergeron