Embrace It

I read some articles recently on personal growth and pursuit of our dreams. After all, the goal at CFG is to make your life better. One of them asked, “What are you willing to struggle for?” as an alternative way to determine what goals and dreams to pursue. We may want to be extremely wealthy, but we aren’t willing to suffer through the risks, the meetings, the travel, and handshakes, the… whatever it takes to get there. You may dream of becoming a rock star, but don’t want to suffer the rejections, the late nights in empty bars, the endless hours of practice to get there.
Determining what you are willing to suffer to achieve is important.
Another phrased it in a kinder, gentler way, “Find joy in the struggle.” Again, it pointed out that if we are happy with the slog to the goal, we can make it. But let’s face it, there is very little joy in any struggle; that’s why it’s called a struggle.
But you do have to be willing to suffer a bit to achieve anything worthwhile.
We may have heard this from the motivational speaker in the corral at Tough Mudder, and I know that those in the military say “Embrace the suck.” You know that the struggle is going to be hard, so just accept it.
Only then can you reap the award of accomplishment.
The Suck can’t last forever.
Improved fitness is a goal, but getting there is hard. Few of us actually find joy in counting macros, getting sore, ripping our hands or scraping our shins in the pursuit of elevated fitness.
But we can embrace it.
We can know that it’s going to be hard but in order to get to the finish, we have to get over the hurdles. To reach a summit, you have to walk uphill. There is no shortcut.
It’s important to keep one thing in mind as you walk in and prepare yourself to embrace what I throw at you: you’re not the first, not usually. When faced with a new challenge, like a Tough Mudder obstacle or like I did when I opened CFG, I think, “other people have done this. AND THEY ARE NO BETTER THAN ME.” That means I can do it, too.
Sure, others may have a skill you don’t. But that just means they started working on it earlier. At some point, they couldn’t do it either. It does NOT mean they are “better.” It just means they got over that particular hurdle already.
Each day we know that “The Suck” is going to last for about 10-15 minutes. It probably won’t be joyous. You will sweat. You will push. You may get discouraged. But it’s the only way toward the goal, seriously.
And other people have done it, maybe thousands of them, some of them right next to you cheering you along. That means you can do it, too.
Embrace it.
The others that have are no better than you are.