Life is so ironic. But seriously, it is. One of our coaches and owners from our sister gym, CrossFit 732, Mark, gave me a book after returning from nationals: “The Obstacle is the Way.” I’ve been reading it slowly, picking it up whenever I have a spare minute here or there. Essentially, it’s about looking obstacles dead in the face and choosing to emerge stronger from each and every bump in the road.  One particular line stood out to me while reading:

“The obstacle in the path becomes the path. Never forget, within every obstacle is an opportunity to improve our condition.”

Every time we face adversity, we have a choice, we can let it destroy us, or we can learn from it, allowing it to make us stronger. I’ve been trying to apply the many lessons from this book in my own life. Is it easy? Nope. Am I always successful? Nope. But do I try to see everything that’s happening in a new light? Yes. Because naturally, when ti rains, it pours. And it’s pouring right now.

You hear about it often, defeated people rising from the ashes of their mistakes to become successful men and women. It often seems as though the more adversity some athletes or business people face, the more successful they emerge; the thing is that they didn’t just let shitty things happen to them. They used every failure or mistake as a lesson, a reason to learn and move forward.

Failure, often times, is our best teacher. Whether it’s in school, in relationships, or in the gym. But it’s the way in which we choose to fail that really matters. Will we lie in bed defeated, refusing to face another day, or we will understand that the things that happen today, will only prepare us for tomorrow? The choice is always yours. Once I realized this, I changed my perspective in all aspects of my life., particularly in the gym.

Over the past month, I’ve been having issues with my infraspinatus, the muscles in your shoulders that help rotate the humerus and stabilize the shoulder joint. Once my chiropractor discovered where my pain was stemming from (we literally figured this out yesterday), everything made sense. Overhead movements and cleaning have been exceptionally rough this last month. Basically everything has been a battle because I need my arms for everything always. It’s been weeks, aside from a select few days, since I have been able to finish an entire day of training as it was programmed.

Limitations are tough, especially when you’re a month out from a national meet, but what’s one meet in comparison to my entire lifting career? What’s one month of taking care of my body, rather than destroying it to get every last rep? Naturally, this has been really frustrating, but then I realized that there was only so much that I could do. So, I better do it well and do it right.

There’s more. I’ve recently developed some pain around my tailbone area, limiting squats. So I can’t use my arms, and I can’t squat. Now what? Now, I take a step back and reevaluate what’s important to me: growth. Giving everything I have on a daily basis is important to me. Whether it’s only accessory work or all the clean and jerks and snatches, I’m going to give everything I have every day until I can perform these movements pain free.

The hardest part has been learning to be content with the things that I can do. We’ve all been told to give it our all at least one or twice in our lives, but sometimes, our all doesn’t seem like very much. And that’s ok. That’s part of this process. Everyday is spent working towards the bigger picture. All of these bumps we hit along the way are only helping to pave our paths to success. And this is exactly how I have to interpret these last few weeks.

Of course, this doesn’t only apply to training in the gym, but life too: work, school, relationships, any and everything. And that, I think, is one of the most intriguing things about weightlifting: everything you learn can always be carried over into real life.

So a big thank you goes out to Mark for giving me this book. Bring it on, life. I’m ready for you.