Embrace the Struggle
“No price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself.”
- Rudyard Kipling
I had the worst workout of my life. And I had just finished my bench press. I didn’t get close to the "scheduled " numbers to hit. I just sat up from my last disappointing set. I looked in the mirror in front of me and shook my head. I stood up and told myself that I “sucked”!
The night before this workout I watched a reel on social media that said if you could bench press 225 pounds, you were in the top 1% of the world. The weight that put me in this mood was considerably more than 225 pounds, and I did it for more than just one rep, but that didn’t make me feel better.
The table was set for a pity party. What a great way to start a Monday.
I looked around at the other gym occupants … and you know what? Nobody had noticed. They were doing their thing, living their own struggles.
That’s life. Nobody knows the struggles that you go through. And … spoiler alert … nobody really cares.
How did I deal with my struggle? I took a deep breath. And laughed at myself.
I had two choices. Let this ruin my day or attack the problem. I chose the latter.
We All Struggle
Too many think the dragons, demons, voices, them, they, it—whatever name you give to your struggle —are much bigger than anyone else’s.
“You wouldn’t understand.” They say. I say, “Try me. Let’s go head-to-head.” You might walk away thinking, “Dang, that MF is messed up.”
Struggles are not unique to anyone. We all have had those times that have left scars, sometimes visible and other times unseen. But none of us have had a clear path through life. In fact, no one in history has had an easy path.
Join the club. It may be hard to fathom that you are just like everyone else, but those are the facts.
The Difference
The difference is in the way that an individual goes about understanding their struggles.
Step away from the struggles and look at them from a different perspective. Stop blaming everyone for once. Look inside and own your role in instigating and fanning the flames that consume you.
If it isn’t you, get away from those who are the problem. If it is family, get away from them. If it is your circle of friends, move on from them. If it is your work, find a new job. If it is your past, learn from it and focus on the present, you can’t change what has happened. If it is a mental or physical issue, be brave enough to ask for help.
When you have eliminated all the outside influences, all that is left is YOU!
Baby Steps
When you get to the root of your problem, YOU, then embrace the struggle. Once you wrap your mind around what you are dealing with, know that you are on your way. The only person holding you back is YOU.
Whatever triggers your pain needs to be left behind.
In my case, with the bench press, I am fully aware this is a minor issue, but all issues need to be handled similarly.
I begin by understanding why I am struggling.
I believe my bench press was caused by the training program I designed. I did not make the right choices. I will step back, do high-rep work to cleanse my training system, and then rewrite my program. I may even modify my entire training program for Monday and Thursday, which are my pressing days.
The key is that I will only do one modification at a time.
All too often, people change EVERYTHING. And when it doesn’t work, they give up on everything.
If I modified all of my training on my pressing days AND rewrote my bench program and it didn’t help the problem, which was the wrong move? If I rewrite my bench cycle and it helps, then the program was at fault. If I rewrite the bench program, and the problem still exists, THEN I can rework my Monday and Thursday programs. Baby steps!
Nobody Really Cares
Ultimately, you need to accept that you are your biggest critic and most likely the cause of most of your struggles. People are so busy living their lives that they don’t have the time or ability to focus on your life and their lives at the same time, so they are only interested bystanders in your life. Don’t blame them.
Whatever your struggles are it’s up to you to push through them. If it is a lifestyle issue, nobody cares how you look, or what you call yourself. It’s your world, live your life. You will only run into a problem when you think everyone needs to recognize your struggle and make it part of their life.
See, no one cares how you dress, what pronouns you are comfortable with, who you socialize with, your religion, politics, or gender. They are so busy dealing with their own struggles that they have little time or patience to be pulled into your struggle.
This is where the “nobody really cares” idea hits a snag. They will begin to care negatively when you make them deal with your struggle.
If it was already a struggle for you and now you have to deal with others who are raining negativity down on your life, you have bought this issue all by yourself. Remember the old saying, “When you pray for rain, you must deal with the mud.” This equates to: If you want attention, you will have to deal with the negative aspects of the attention that you asked for.
Embrace the Struggle
We all have our struggles. I look at mine as something I GET TO deal with daily. I GET TO solve MY problems. I GET TO challenge myself to be better every day. I GET TO measure my progress. I GET TO make the small adjustments to get myself back on track. I only bring others into my struggles when I need help. I don’t ask them to crawl into my struggles, but I ask for ways that I can help myself get out of them. Most importantly, I will ask them to be truthful with me. Tell me when I am wrong and tell me when I am on the right path.
As a writer and a public speaker, I do this when I ask someone to critique my work. Don’t tell me it was “good” without telling me why it was “just” good, but how I could have made it GREAT.
The struggle is real for all of us. Embrace your struggle so you can understand it. When you can identify it, you will be able to fix it and move past it.
Own it, work on it daily, solve your problems, ask for help when in doubt, but never stop moving forward in your life.
Have an amazing day!
