A while ago I was shown a YouTube video by Jocko Willink called GOOD. I have sat and watched the video many times and thought about what Jocko says realising that each and everyone of us who is chasing a dream or a goal goes through similar challenges but it is how we deal with those challenges that determines if we prevail in reaching and achieving our goals or not.
I like to think of it as
Are you brave enough to look at a ‘challenge’ as a way to push you forward and attack against or are you willing to let it crumble you. Will that challenge help push you one day closer to your goal because you decided you would work harder and not give up. Are you, one-day tougher and stronger because you didn’t wallow in pity and can you enjoy the grit and the struggle enough to dig deeper chase harder and enjoy that struggle that little bit more to help you prove that ‘challenge’ was just a building block to where you can go.
Think about it!
Unexpected challenges come up in our lives from time to time and this is the same for everyone but not everyone will cope or react in the same way. Some will find the challenges too hard to deal with and they cannot seem to look past them so they don’t carry on and keep moving forward. This is where the champions or those that will achieve are set aside from those who will just never cut it.
Challenges to me should be seen to help you grow, attack harder, learn, build, get better, feel alive, fight harder, never coast and never become complacent.
None of the words or phrases above are new thoughts or feelings but they are thoughts and feelings that need to be used in the correct way to help build a person instead of pushing them down. It takes a certain individual to be able to do this, turning what can be seen as a negative word or phrase to a positive. An individual who is often good at doing this has a growth mind set and is able to see the positive in every situation and use it to help them grown. I guess you could say that the way an individual speaks plays a massive part on how successful they are. I can’t remember the last time I saw someone win who said
“I don’t think I can win this race” or
“I’m feeling really tired today and I can’t be bothered”
If we look back to the YouTube video Jocko says
“When something is going wrong or bad you say ‘good’ …. Some good will come from it”
“It’s more time to get better, to learn, to find a solution”
For me, this sums up everything I am trying to say no ‘challenge’ missed rep or competition is bad it’s ‘Good’ it gave you time to grown, build and learn. A chance to find what went wrong and not let it happen again. A way to learn to control your emotion and help it push you forward. Nothing you want bad enough is going come easy so use the journey to help you, build you and grow and always remember when something ‘bad’ happens say ‘GOOD’, I learned, now let’s show them what I can do.
The best time I like to think of the phase ‘Good’ is when people say
“I would never do that workout, I would give up” Good
“I don’t know how you train on your own, I couldn’t do that” Good
“I am not sure I could be as disciplined as you” Good
Why?
Because then I know I’m doing something that other people, or not many other people will do and that will help me towards success.
I have had times when I have achieved my goals but I have also had times when I have ‘met challenges’. The biggest being not getting to the CrossFit Regionals in 2017. Something I had worked hard all year for and given up so much to achieve.
After this I had two choices, either let it set me back and give up training all together. Or I could use it to build me up, get my sh*t together, work hard and fight for it even harder this year!
I’ll let you guess which option I took