Scalability in Life

I've decided that, no matter what, I'm going to start writing everyday. It doesn't matter if it's 3 sentences or 3 pages I'm just going to do it. I've always loved writing and have often said that I communicate better through writing than talking(I'm not sure if this is actually true or not or if my writing is any good but here it goes).

Today, I'm going to be talking a little bit about the WOD(Workout of the Day) that I endured this morning and how it offers much bigger lessons to life in general. The WOD today was Double DT. And, for those who aren't familiar DT is a CrossFit Hero WOD that is 5 rds. for time of 12 Deadlifts, 9 Hang Power Cleans and 6 Push Jerks all at a barbell weight of 155 lbs. for men and 105 lbs. for ladies. Notice earlier I said DOUBLE DT. That means 10 rds. at that weight. Now, you have to be pretty dang strong and pretty dang efficient in your movement to get through 10 rds. of that at a reasonable clip. So what did I do? I scaled the workout down to a 135 lb. barbell. Partly because I don't move a barbell particularly well in a workout like that and also because the altitude has been absolutely smoking me as I continue to acclimate myself to it. And then what happened? I still got smoked and was the last one to finish in the class. Now, we have to ask why was that the case? Was it because I don't have the fitness level to complete the workout at that load in a faster time? Was it because of the altitude and me gasping for air after round 5? Or was it simply because I didn't scale the workout down enough to get the intended stimulus of the workout? If I'm going to be honest with myself than my answer may not only surprise you but it also may hurt my ego just a little bit! The answer is plain and simple, I did NOT scale the workout appropriately for myself on that given day. Plain and simple. What should I have done? I should have scaled back to probably 115 and ensured that I was demonstrating good movement and also was able to attack the workout in bigger sets. Thus, moving through the workout much more quickly than I did.

Now, you're probably wondering, how does this relate to my everyday life? And my answer to that is scalability is all around us. Sometimes in life, we need to scale up or we need to scale down. We don't need to eat that whole pizza every time(although it is tasty), we don't have to binge-watch entire seasons of TV shows on Netflix in one night, and we sure as heck don't have to do six workouts a day to get fit. Sometimes less is more. On the flip side, sometimes we do need to scale up and do more. At times we get complacent and we start to slip into old habits or stop doing things we know are good for us. In those instances, of course, we need to put more on our plates and chow down. But not always. I believe that this is the balance of life and these things are only learned through experiences and experiments on yourself. Believe me when I tell you that I'm one of the last people that will ever tell you to let up or slow down or you're doing too much. But, even I have started to learn that at times(not all the time) that less is more.

Now, I challenge you to do a full-scale evaluation of your life and be honest with yourself. Identify the areas in your life that you need to scale back and also the ones where you need to scale up. This requires you to be honest and vulnerable with yourself and others. This is where great leadership stems from. If you're a leader then you need to show your troops that it is okay to struggle, that it's okay to come in last place sometimes. You need to put more emphasis on the effort and the work than the end results. If you can be open and honest with yourself and identify and work on these areas in your life I can guarantee that you will learn a ton about yourself because of it.