How we do anything is how we do everything.
I showed up early at the gym for my session with my trainer. I was ready to work, to play hard. He started me off easy with some high leg kicks into a lunge and twist and then on the way back, reverse lunges with an overhead reach. Figuring I needed to get my chest loosened for what was coming, he had me do 30 resistance band pulls as fast as possible — and don’t bend that elbow.
Reverse lunges, ouch.
I got this.
Now it was time to show up. In quick succession, I executed three sets each of (15) plyometric pushups, (20) stability ball chest flys, (12) reverse grip pull-ups, and (15) sledge hammer swings.
Water break.
Back to work.
Next up: rapid-fire leg extensions and leg curls, hovering at the top of each.
Time to bring it home with twenty split squats with a dumbbell curl to an overhead press, ten each leg, then switch.
Except before I started my second leg I paused. I put my head down and rested my hands on my thighs, leaning slightly forward. My nausea from earlier in the week, combined with a slight dizziness forced me to wait. I was going to finish. “I’m stronger than this,” I said out loud.
I completed my set and immediately berated myself for being weak, for slowing down, for pausing and asked, “What’s next?”
My trainer smiled and said, “I think that’s enough for today. Why are you being so hard on yourself? Look behind you at what you achieved. Remember where you started, and all that you’ve overcome to be here today. By the way, you did all that in thirty minutes. Be enough for you.”
Stunned, I realized I was stuck on the wrong side of success and achievement: the very thing in “real life” I work on with my coaching clients.
Immediately I wondered, “What if today I did enough for today? What if I achieved exactly what needed to be achieved for me? What if I stop comparing myself to a made-up version of myself and instead honor the woman here now?”
What if I am amazing?
I’m going to come from that.