I conducted a customary goal setting session recently with a 6-weeks-new member. We’ve found that 6 weeks is a good amount of time to get your feet wet, start to figure things out, and begin thinking about some short and longer-term goals. I was highly anticipating this session, as this member had already seen a complete 180 in terms of his movement quality, confidence, and consistent habit changes.
He had shared with us a few weeks into his journey that household duties had started to feel less burdensome and physically taxing. But what he shared with me at this 6-week mark just about made my heart burst.
To paraphrase:
I have always parked somewhat far away in parking lots. Even though I was out of shape and often got out of breath just walking to my car, my feeling was that because I CAN walk kind of far, and perhaps others can’t, I WILL walk that far to save the closer spaces for them …
All right, he already had me choked up at this point.
… Now I still park far away, maybe even farther, and people who ride with me always give me a hard time about passing perfectly good parking spots on the way to the back of the lot. But I don’t get out of breath walking in anymore. I feel good about moving now.
And as we continued with discussing his Bright Spots and then his more specific goals,
“It’s not out of the realm of possibility anymore.”
This same guy, who had just 6 weeks earlier was challenged in completing a jog in our On-Ramping sessions, ran TWO MILES in a 24-minute benchmark workout at the noon class just before our goal setting session. I was just inside the garage doors rowing my heart out in that same class, and you’d better believe I took it up a notch when I saw him coming in from his first mile at 12 minutes, all sweaty and full of belief in himself. He had joked during the whiteboard review that he may not even get a mile in. Yes, he can. And now, he knows he can.
Maybe I can go a little harder, too. Yes, yes, I can.
“Just Show Up” and “Simple, Not Easy” is painted on our walls. This guy was MY inspiration when I really didn’t think I had it in me to show up and do a workout solo yesterday. I just showed up and remembered him and his effort, and things just happened as they do. I ended the workout all sweaty and full of belief in myself and in my life’s work.
You are virtuous, brave, hard working people who walk through our doors. You’re bombarded with one decision after another all day long. And yet, you continually make that seemingly small decision to show up – for your families, for your customers, for yourselves — even, whether you knew it or not, for me.
Even if your fitness has been lagging, maybe for years, or maybe you’ve just had a “bleh” couple of months with your nutrition and workouts, continuing to show up and make those small, consistent decisions really will result in fitness as big and as life-giving as your giant, remarkable heart.
-Coach Mindy 🙂