Success and Time

I think we can all remember a time that we lifted our all time heaviest weight. We call this a PR or PB, which is your greatest effort at that moment. This is a fantastic tool to measure progress over time. A PR and your max potential are not the same. Theoretically they eventually may come together, but for most of us our progress is a constant journey to bring our PR up to our genetic potential. You can imagine the amount of variables involved in this equation. There are plenty.

I want to expand a bit on the PR, that moment in time you realize you are better than you ever have been. A very demanding effort, followed by a rush of adrenaline, and the warm sunshine of glorious victory feels amazing. You just outperformed any other day ever. Take this and run like hell. Don’t get PR drunk. Don’t be the guy that throws on another 20 pounds and can’t stand the next squat back up. Think about the long game, don’t just think about today. You see, a true max effort puts a large amount of stress on the system. This is a good thing, but only to a certain extent. It’s very possible to reach the point of diminishing returns, where your continued efforts will lead to nothing productive. If you go get a PR/PB, thats the goal. Get out and lift another day.

Training is just that. You’re not on stage at the Olympics, you are training to become stronger and better. If you are on stage, congrats to you. Progress is success. Extrapolate this day over the course of ten years. Imagine all of the training sessions you have in ten years. Imagine all of those hits of adrenaline and all of that accumulated success. It’s a damn windfall. Now imagine the opposite. Imagine if every time you went for the second rep, you took the greatest moment of achievement and threw a wet blanket over it with a failed attempt immediately after. I would imagine your confidence in your ability will be much stronger with an innumerable number of successes under your belt. Change those into failures, and all of a sudden going back to the gym eventually feels different.

We are here playing the long game. We are here for betterment. Better is better. If you do better, bask, baby, bask. It’s yours. You earned it! Now is your time to enjoy the journey. There are going to be plenty of days that you don’t best your previous efforts. Accept a one pound improvement. The longer the journey, the smaller the progress. Come get some more tomorrow. Make the success last for years to come. Believe me, the time will definitely pass. One thing you can be damn sure of is your success and your failure are both dictated by you. Play smart and enjoy the ride.

 

Danny Lesslie

@dannylesslie