It's easy to get caught up in the big goal and how close or far you are from it.
It's much harder to spot and appreciate the little things along the way. The bits that make the journey and the end goal much more enjoyable and rewarding.
In the last three weeks we've been doing the CrossFit Open at the gym. It's been easy to look at the workouts and performances and say, "I can't do that" or "I'm still not where I want to be".
Yes, we may not be at the end point. But the interesting bit about sports like CrossFit (and human nature) is that often we move the goal posts as soon as we get to them. Maybe even before.
We nail one thing and then something we hadn't thought was possible, suddenly is in sight and becomes the next goal. Without a chance to reflect on how much progress that involved to get there.
This year, my goal was to get through The Open without getting in my head and being overly competitive. I also wanted to get through without injury.
My reason behind this is that it would be kind of cool to do a competition again, but my mindset hasn’t allowed me to do this in an enjoyable way before. Instead, I got too caught up in how I performed, over trained and made myself ill for no real reward. I wanted to take this chance where there’s not too much investment (travel, days away, cost, etc) to see how I got on with it.
I was super pleased to see that unlike previous events and opens where I’d get really caught up in it being the Open and therefore I must perform well. This time I could look at it more objectively.
I still had moments of, “Oh I wish I could’ve done better in that” but then I also took the time to appreciate that a year ago, a workout with wall walks nearly crippled me and this year I flew through five without too much thought. In the first week, yes I wish I could’ve got a ring muscle up, but dips have been my focus and actually, I never could have imagined doing a section of 50 toes to bar - ever! And I crushed a load of shuttle runs and burpee pull ups before doing a near body weight thruster.
I could easily and nearly got caught in the bits of, “I still don’t have this”. I'll admit I had a sulky 5 minutes on the floor thinking "what have I achieved in 10 years of doing this sport", but then I realised - all the things I just said above, friendships, a strong relationship, incredible self confidence, a fuck load of strength.
So if you’ve also done The Open this year, or started working on something and feel you’ve not yet seen the direct progress you want.
Remember: You’ve not finished the journey yet and look for the other benefits that are coming alongside it!
Take a minute now and write as many wins as you can think of, the things that make you proud and think about why they're important and make you feel that way. Keep those things close and keep pushing on!
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