Of all values I’ve appreciated in peers, teammates, classmates, colleagues, and coaches, the most valuable attribute in all of my relationships has been honesty. No other trait has given more value to the relationships I’ve formed in early adulthood or helped me figure out how to become a better person. However, this wasn’t the case until I set a goal to get strong with powerlifting. Setting a goal to get strong forces you to be brutally honest with yourself and your teammates about what you are capable of, all the while pushing against those same boundaries. The reason for this, as many other people have mentioned, is that even if you aren’t honest with yourself, the weight will never lie to you.
I’ll put it into perspective: have you ever been to a powerlifting gym and seen a spotter curling their partner’s bench press while screaming, “It’s all you”? I haven’t, but I’ve seen it in commercial gyms. Heck, I’ve seen coaches do this to their athletes. I can’t think of very many instances where lying to your partner is a helpful thing to do. This is the most basic level of honesty I learned when I started training. Powerlifting requires this. If you KNOW that your partner’s last rep was horrific, or that that they need to deload the bar, why wouldn’t you tell them? I only know one possible answer: you don’t truly care if they get better.
I’ve nearly punched myself in the face (and been punched in the face) because I didn’t know how to spot a squat properly. These are things you learn along the way. It’s knowledge you absorb as you become familiar with your surroundings, but when that happened I realized that I had failed my partner by not being honest. Powerlifting has taught me a lot about my willingness to look deep inside myself as well as stepping outside of myself to get the most out of my training partners. It’s a two-fold learning process that has taught me more about teamwork than I thought I’d ever need. Indeed, it shapes and will continue to shape my character. But then, there’s a more complex facet of honesty that I’ve become familiar with, and it involves my own goals, aspirations, and hopes.
We live in a world of constant want—material and immaterial. In fact, we use the word “want” so casually that most of us don’t even know what we truly want until we are forced to make sacrifices when something is swiped from beneath us. That’s when you see the breakdown of aspiration and it becomes evident whether or not you want to reach your full potential.
Deep down inside, every single one of us knows whether or not we want to be what we say we want to be. It’s just a matter of admitting the truth. I know how far I’m willing to go, how many hours of sleep I need to function on a long term basis, and where I will tap out emotionally and mentally.
Training to become stronger has taught me ways to gauge and prioritize those goals, in addition to other aspirations I have as a mother, writer, and student. When you say you want something, there are three questions you should ask yourself. These three questions will require you to pause and reflect:
- Is there a way to measure my goal?
- Do I know what I need to do to achieve this goal?
- Am I currently doing what it takes to achieve my goal?
For any and all goals, knowing what you want to achieve is the easiest part, but it’s also where people mess up. What are you trying to do? What do you want to do? It’s that simple. But most people don’t have goals that can be measured. Yes, there will be a broad principle behind your goal, but if you don’t have something specific to shoot for, you will not be able to track your improvement. If you do not yet know how to measure your goal, you need to decide how to do that before moving on to the second question.
Knowing what you need to do to reach your goal is the tricky part. It’s where you get outside help from somebody who knows more than you do. This is where surrounding yourself with the right group becomes extremely important. You need somebody to tell you where you fall short. It doesn’t matter if you think you look great in the mirror; you’re only seeing one angle of yourself, and even then you’re probably twisting your body in some weird contortion to highlight your best parts. Likewise, having honest training partners who will say “yeah, that looked good” or “that looked horrible” or “I don’t fucking know” is necessary. This goes for any sport or hobby. Eventually the truth will come out — would you rather it be in the gym or on the platform in front of an audience?
For most of us, the challenge will be to answer question number three, because it requires complete honesty. It requires you to be vulnerable to yourself and actively decide whether or not you will look back on your life with satisfaction or find another path to travel. Knowing whether or not you are willing to continue on this quest will save a lot of time, heartache, and disappointment.
If you know what you want and what you need to do to get there, answer the final question: am I currently doing what I know I need to do to become what I want to become? If the answer to that question is no and you have not yet found a way to make it happen, then you are currently unwilling to adjust some aspect of your current situation to do what you know you need to do. There’s really no need to make excuses. If you answer “no” to question number three, find a way to answer “yes” as soon as possible instead of trying to convince yourself that you’re doing everything you can. Once you can answer yes to all three questions, you will be unstoppable no matter what goal you are applying them to.
1 Comment