We all start somewhere!
It’s often easy to look at a successful athlete and see them as an expert in their field, whilst forgetting that they started at zero just like everyone else. What turned them into winners was their strength, perseverance and determination to succeed against all odds.
When it comes to sports, it’s pretty safe to say that I am the least competitive person! As a child, team sports filled me with anxiety and I was never driven by a desire to win... much to the disappointment of many sports teachers 😂
It was only when I discovered a love of being active at the age of 22 that I realised “Hang on a minute... the real competition is the voice in my head that keeps telling me to give up when things get hard! That’s what’s keeping me from doing the things I really want to be doing!”.
I remember the first time I did a bootcamp class with the amazing @jaimebodkin way back in 2011 - I lurked in the back row pretending to “tie my laces up” as I gasped for breaths between burpees. I’d watch on in awe as the people in front seemed to breeze through the class.
After several weeks of contemplating throwing in the towel, one evening something switched inside my brain. I realised that these people were probably once where I was - the only difference was that they didn’t dream of become stronger, they took action towards making it happen. There was no medal at the end of the class and no one was chosen as a winner… their prize was feeling satisfied that they’d given it their all.
For years I’d had a narrative that “I’m not a runner” or that exercise “Wasn’t my thing”. In that fateful burpee moment, rather than keep thinking of excuses to sidestep the challenge at hand, I decided then that I wanted to have a personal win. I wasn’t interested in being better than someone else in the room or winning a “burpee-off”. Instead, I wanted to prove to myself that I could beat the self-doubt in my mind and actually smash the minute of burpees! Week after week I showed up and after a couple of months I finally achieved my goal of doing back to back burpees without wanting to hurl, which felt like a huge win 🙌🏻
Moral of the story here - we all start somewhere and it doesn’t matter what goal you want to achieve, just as long as you take action towards it. Winning doesn’t have to look like a shiny medal at the end of a gruelling slog. Sometimes it’s about the mini-wins, the personal victories and about proving to yourself that you are capable of smashing your goals!