The Danger in Identifying as “Fit”

There’s one surprising mentality that ends horribly at the gym. After nearly 15 years of doing this, I find that students who identify as fit people are uniquely positioned for failure. Hear me out.. 

The dynamic usually goes like this. A person with ten or twenty or thirty years of regular  gym attendance builds an untested worldview that fitness is a core part of who they are. It’s their whole personality in some cases. Meanwhile this worldview around identity hasn’t come with any of the rigor associated with finding out what real capacity looks like. Next they come into an environment that carefully gives people an appropriate, measurable stimulus. 

Trouble ensues. 

Soon these folks need to reconcile how wrong they might be about this worldview and that process can be frustrating and painful. Now, let’s be clear. This isn’t a holier than thou point I’m making here. 

In fact, I’d never identify as a fitness person or a strong person or any of that. Firstly, because I’ve seen real strength and this aint it. It’s a big world out there. Second, that isn’t what this is about in the first place. It’s about progression. It’s a journey, so any worldview that you’ve “arrived” lacks humility and surely doesn’t support further growth like assuming you are a white belt forever does. 

Stay humble.