Check your Ego at the door.
The following excerpt is from CrossFit Coastal.
If you don’t check your ego when you first come through our doors, one of two things will happen.
1. Your ego will go.
2. You will go.
In order to be successful at CrossFit Coastal, you need to develop a balance of confidence, strength and humility.
You must approach each class with the attitude that you are on a mission to achieve your goals. Sometimes, however, you might fall short of that goal for the day and that is when you will be faced with a choice…
You can point fingers at some external factor that caused a poor performance, beat yourselves up for not being good enough, or you might go as far as cheating (reps or range of motion).
… or we can accept our performance for what it is, evaluate it, readjust if necessary and continue on our journey to elite fitness.
If we check our ego at the door when we walk into the gym, the latter is much easier to do. We understand that letting go of that ego is a hard thing to do sometimes, especially when you have an established perception or identity of who you are or how strong you think you are. Our advice – approach each class as a sponge eager to learn – not to impress.
You know…sometimes you might not get that personal record you’ve been trying to achieve, sometimes you won’t come in first place, sometimes you’ll have to scale down the workout, sometimes you’ll have to sit out in the middle of a workout, and one day you might even be tempted to miscount a rep. when that day comes…Take a deep breath and remind yourself to “Check your ego at the door and take the time to achieve mastery.”
Sincerely,
Ezekiel
I know we’ve all had an ‘ego moment’ at some point in our CrossFitting career. Are you humble enough to share yours? Post thoughts to comments.
Great post and very true for all Crossfiters. Just tonight I failed at overhead squats at the same weight as last time. This was a real disappointment, but I learned from it. I am looking forward to trying it again…
First of all – love the logbooks! They’re going to be a great tool for keeping track of everything.
Love this post too – so true (and so oddly appropriate given today’s workout
)! I especially like the line:
“We understand that letting go of that ego is a hard thing to do sometimes, especially when you have an established perception or identity of who you are or how strong you think you are.”
Some things I have found ego-challenging at CrossFit:
Any workout with double unders – not unheard of for me to come in dead last. Similar with kipping pullups – still always a challenge.
After having been at CrossFit for a while, trying overhead squats for the first time and not being able to do the bar.
Backing off on weight when recovering from surgery/injuries, etc. Also, realizing that some days it just isn’t there and accepting it.
Not being where I should be with certain lifts (eg. push jerks, cleans, hang power cleans) because of technique. Again, having to back off in weight in order to get better using better technique.
Over the last few months, I’ve spent quite a bit of time thinking about some of these things & have been focusing more on process & technique rather than results. At first, some of this was enforced by Chad (doing kipping pullups with a band rather than continuing to do them wrong without a band, for example), but it has really helped to step back and think of it all as a process in improvement rather than thinking about it as a failure on a single day. And….no great surprise, the results do come!
Agree Sandra. I’ve faced many ego deflating moments. Sometimes with life events, the energy just isn’t there to focus on 100% intensity for a WOD. It used to frustrate me so much, but now realize how much of an impact stress (studying/exams) has on me physically and mentally. Yes I still have expectations of myself, but they are more realistic now.
Push ups, rope climbs, ring dips, HSPUs are all still very ego deflating.
For me it use to be having to RUN…I could NOT run 400m without 4 or more breaks… I remember the coaches “running me in” …amazing how far I have come…yes those results do come!
Skipping and having to pee every 30 sec… he-he!
There were so many humbling experiences before…Not even because I expected I could do it…
(I knew I couldn’t do those simple things) but i wanted to … I WAS DETERMINED…and i did get there!
NOW there are new ones in its place, new challanges I never dreamed I would even get there!
HSPU, all kinds of heavy wt’s, double unders and still coming in last even after 3 yrs…
I look at these challanges now as (wow… look how far i’ve come) and remember the 98 lb person who had trouble pushing the baby stroller never mind trying to hold my 20 lb baby.
I still don’t like to be last…so when someone steps in to finish with me or helps me with the final reps…it always makes it a little less embarrassing or whatever that feeling is….
Ego checked at the door, try to build confidence at the gym…if that makes any sense.