After the Grand Canyon, I chose to step up my physical game in CrossFit. It affected (in a good way), everything in my life.
CrossFit became the place where I really stretched myself to limits that I didn’t know I had in me. And it added dimensions to my life that previously were out of my reach.
The only thing that got me through those initial workouts was that I was so “done” with screwing around in my life. I was sick of the inconsistency…always starting shit and stopping shit, making excuses, and giving into the pain or the fatigue that I felt in my body.
It’s kind of funny, but sometimes, I wouldn’t even tell anyone that I was going to do something.
My strategy was that, if no one knew about it, when I quit, I wouldn’t have to explain it to anybody. It makes me laugh, now, to think of that, but that’s where I was, then.
Anyway, since I knew that my pattern was one of failing to complete, and since I knew that I was the master of backdoors and excuses, I committed to ending that cycle in my life – with CrossFit.
When I Started CrossFit, I Closed Every Back Door, and Burned Every “Ship” In My Life
I wanted there to be no retreat.
In my mind, it was “Win or die.” So, I prepared in every area of my life from the food I was going to eat to how many hours I would spend doing every, single activity.
I left nothing to chance.
And this leads me to another, brief segue on the power of commitment.
Commitment precedes every, great accomplishment in the world.
And anytime that you approach anything in your life with a half-assed commitment, with all your plans to escape from what you have chosen to accomplish, you’re fucked.
If you wonder why you’re stuck, why you have half-assed relationships, half-assed money, and a half-assed life, it’s because of your lack of commitment.
If you want to master the art of life, one of the first steps is mastering the art of commitment.
If you want to know exactly how to commit…
- Don’t commit to shit that you don’t want to do.
- Only commit to things you do want to do.
- When you make a commitment, keep it.
- Know how to renegotiate a commitment when it’s not working.
Here Is How My Own Commitment Worked On My Behalf As I Prepared For IronMan
When I first signed up for IronMan, I was scared shitless, but I also felt this expansiveness and knowing inside.
“This, I must do,” is what I told myself.
I knew it was my next step, even though I was scared and didn’t know how I was going to do it, and physically, I could not understand how my body could handle it.
I had bad knees. I had had them since high school.
I figured that, as I was training for IronMan, I would probably be rubbing bone on bone, having the most miserable, painful experience, ever.
What actually happened was fascinating.
The knee pain that I had been dealing with since high school disappeared.
In fact, my knees are perfect, now; I have no problems with them, whatsoever.
All my reasons and excuses are gone.
And the same can be true for you if you commit.
Your excuses are the things that are holding you back in life…but it need not be this way.
CrossFit Became My Life’s Pattern Interrupt AND My Life’s Blessing
In CrossFit, since I knew my pattern, I knew it was time to break and liberate myself from every aspect of my life that was holding me back.
Just in case you think that this is about vanity and calling myself a BadAss for the sake of calling myself a BadAss…please take a moment and think again.
Those of us who choose to compete in IronMan and who do CrossFit every day do it for the purpose of self mastery.
We do it so that we can accomplish what we came to this planet to accomplish.
We do it so that we can become the spouses, the parents, the businesspeople, the leaders, and the inspiration that we were meant to be in the world.
Here Is How I Burned My Ships In CrossFit
I have 5000 friends on my personal Facebook profile and a massive following. My business depends on my Facebook following.
So, I posted on Facebook that I would do CrossFit a minimum of five (5) days a week without excuse. Period. It didn’t matter if I was sick, traveling, or tired. I was going to be at the CrossFit Gym based on my commitment and nothing else.
I also told people that if I broke my commitment, they should not hire me or trust me. They should consider me a hypocrite and someone who quits easily.
My reasoning: How could I lead someone else to greatness if I could not lead my own self to greatness? How could that even make sense?
So, yes…I posted that publicly to the whole world. I got myself an accountability partner, too, and his role was to come get me at 5am, every morning, no matter what excuse I threw his way.
The fact was that there WAS no excuse because we had both committed to that level.
It ended up being very helpful to commit with someone else. Accountability is a big deal once you do choose to commit to something big.
How It Felt After I Committed To Iron Man Via CrossFit
In those first six (6) weeks, the pain in my body was tortuous. I can’t even describe it well enough.
What I can say is that I was scared to go up any stairs during those first six (6) weeks. My body hurt too much. Just the thought of a flight of stairs was enough to almost reduce me to tears.
It hurt like hell.
And I got blisters on my hands as I adjusted to weight lifting.
But pretty soon, those workouts didn’t hurt the same. And I stopped even getting sore even when I put myself through greater intensity workouts because my body was becoming more used to doing hard things and my capacity was increasing.
I have a pretty incredible story to tell about one, particular CrossFit workout, but I’m going to do that in the next article.
Expect to see that, pretty soon, too.
In the meantime, if you want to join us in Limitless Legion, the private Facebook group I created for people who want to live a life of unlimited expansion, you can click right here to join us, now.
If you’ve read enough and are ready to up-level your life, START HERE.
