What not to do

As stated by Eleanor Rosevelt “Do something everyday that scares you.” This concept helps us step out of our comfort zones. Often at CrossFit Marin we ask you do do something that scares you. Sometimes it’s just intimidation from the written workout that’s looming. Sometimes it’s asking you to try something where getting hurt is a possibility. Sometimes it’s confronting you with a deep seated fear from a past experience. Either way being scared is normal. Fear is good. It keeps us from doing stupid things.

However, fear can also severely limit our lives. Many people live in constant fear. They never overcome this fear because they never step through whatever they are scared of. They get trapped in a prison of their own making. Extreme cases involve disorders such as agoraphobia where people are scared simply to leave their own homes. Do not allow your fears to limit your accomplishments.

One of my greatest joys is when a student breaks through a major wall of fear. When the only thing holding them back is fear and they make the hard decision to do it anyway. Once that success is made the freedom that comes from that is priceless. Sometimes it only takes doing something once to completely eliminate the fear, more often it will take repeated exposure to the fear. We have to create scenarios that confront these fears in a safe manner so that we can overcome them. We break things down into smaller components to work through pieces, rather than having to just jump in. These progressions allow us to accomplish amazing things.

Any time you allow yourself to “balk”, to walk away from something you want to do, but “can’t” because of the fear actually increases the fear. You have just justified the fear and given it more strength. If you simply can not make yourself take that last step, then take a step back. Try to work out what exactly you are afraid of. Is this a rational or irrational fear. Can you break down the situation into smaller chunks that you can take on one at a time to later integrate to it’s whole?

Doing something that scares you at CrossFit Marin generally means something physical. Making a big gap jump, snatching a heavy load, trying a new skill. Things that scare you do not necessarily have to be physical. Asking for a raise at work. Walking into a new situation. Talking to someone you are interested in. Sure, failure is always a possibility, but generally if you go after these things on a regular basis, your successes will far outweigh your failures. Avoiding the scary situation is a failure in and of itself. It is exceedingly rare that the outcome you desire is just going to happen on it’s own. It takes action. Action is scary.

As fear goes the worst hindrance due to fear I have ever had was mid-way through college. In early college my dismount off high bar was a double flyaway. That is releasing in the front swing, flipping twice and landing. Working up to this was scary, but not horrifying. That came later. Sometime early sophomore year I was working high bar and threw a dismount. Unfortunately I released early. This wouldn’t have been a major problem except that there was a trampoline about 20′ away from the high bar. If you release early you are going to travel a lot further than normal. I made the flip around, but crashed into the steel frame of a competition trampoline. I was fortunate that I did not break my arm because it was the first thing to hit. I tore up my forearm badly and couldn’t grip anything for about 3 weeks. After recovering it was time to get back to high bar dismounts. Not such a simple thing. I was terrified. I could throw them in the belt, but 1 in 4 dismounts I would panic and release early. It was severe enough that I could not overcome it before the next competition season. I shifted to dismounting rearward. I competed a Jager so the release and swing was already learned. This was a much more difficult dismount to land, but it got me away from the flyaway. For a long time on days I knew we were doing high bar I would actually be shaking in my other classes because I knew what was coming later in the day. It took a long time to get over this. It took other people pushing me to just start working on them again to get over it. I would never have gone back to flyaways on my own.

Step out of your comfort zone. Try something new. The most difficult part is not the new thing, but the fear of the new thing. In most cases this comes down to a choice. Fear is ok. Fear won’t just go away. It’s stepping out and doing the new things that will make the fear go away. Do something that scares you everyday.