I started working out at Black Hills Barefoot Fitness around three years ago, after probably close to three years of prompting from Jeannine!
When I started most of what we did felt foreign and if l’m being honest a bit awkward. I’ve never been a “gym guy,” never felt like I belonged. At Barefoot, that all changed. From the instructors to the other crazy people that wake up and hit the gym at 5:20am, it has become a place of comfort, a place of growth.
One of the first times early on when I had to talk myself out of quitting the gym was the first time we did Turkish get-ups. For the life of me, I could not make my brain and body move in the right order at the right time. The movement, at that time seemed impossible. “Maybe l’m not meant to be here after all” was the thought that raced through my head in the moment.
Fortunately, I’m a bit too stubborn to give up on many things that easily and kept working until I figured it out.
Today, I set a PR by completing a TGU of 75#. I failed on my first attempt on my left side, and the inner dialogue tried to tell me I just wasn’t strong enough to do it. That there was no use trying again. That little voice was kicked to the curb rather quickly and I completed it with my right side.
I could have quit here, but the thing is I knew exactly what went wrong on the first attempt for my left side. I gave myself a bit of time to recover and go through a mental checklist of what I needed to do different. On my second attempt, I was able to successfully complete the lift on both sides.
This isn’t meant to be a veiled attempt to brag, but rather I hope it inspires someone who feels like they aren’t good enough, that they aren’t smart enough, or any other multitude of reasons we talk ourselves out of the next challenge in front of us. Failure will happen. It doesn’t define you. Learn from your failures or shortcomings and fix the small pieces that caused you to fall short, they aren’t as difficult to overcome as our minds try to convince us in most situations!