I have spent a lot of time lately discussing goals with a whole range of folks. Be it my children, and discussing what the feel is the most important to them, my clients and what their goals are or my students and the goals they are required to set in order to get a good grade in their fitness class. At the same time, we ask “how will you know when you get there?” of ourselves and those we do goal setting with, and it is funny how the answers change as the journey toward the goals unfolds.
I spent some time with one of my older students yesterday, discussing the fact that the younger students often don’t want to listen to the instructors, and that sometimes we all struggle with the balance of learning o listen to the needs of the body while not giving up or cutting short the push to reach for our goals (and even beyond the goals). This particular student is a testament to never giving up. He is self described as the smallest of the brothers in his family, the least physically inclined. Yet in his return to college, he took the time to take classes in becoming a better student and has listened to the feedback of the instructors whenever we talk with him.
From a distance, this student is the big bulky weight lifter many strive to become, do-rag and all, former service member and champion arm wrestler. He comes every day, is completely comfortable in the gym, has a catalog in his mind of hundreds of exercises. But he has spent this semester going back to basics to overcome injuries and redefine his goals, has decreased weight significantly and used that refocus to become stronger than he thought he might. He takes every opportunity to learn new things and try things. And despite his experience, he never acts above others, and takes time to get to know the young guys who are just stepping into a gym for the first time. He is a great example.
While I don’t know his whole story, I always enjoy his positive attitude. We were discussing yesterday he younger students who don’t always want to take direction. One younger boy had been very defensive to another instructor recently, and this student was a bit put off by his unwillingness to learn or talk with the instructor. And he has been taking some of the younger students under his wing. One of the students he had been trying to encourage was one I have been working with regularly, a sixteen year old who is trying to learn everything he can and find his own goals. Funny he brought him up, because that boy had left me thinking earlier in the week.
It was after my usual teaching shift, and I had corrected something for the boy and discussed different modes of cardio after finishing my own workout. He didn’t really want to try my suggestion, and I was trying to figure out what was really motivating his questions. I asked if there was something in particular he wanted to try. He asked about the workout I had done with a student the previous afternoon. This brought a lot of clarity for me. The student he had seen me working with was a football player who is sitting the year out, working through college and trying to get stronger to try out to return to the team next year. He does much of his lifting on his own, and works with trainers a couple times a week on intense plyometric work.
For this young student, I answered that we could certainly teach him a couple new exercises. It wouldn’t address the area he was pointing to, though. I explained I would be glad to give him a few plyo options to try, but he was going to have to practice them a bit before he could start with the larger box he had seen the day before. I asked a loaded question, not sre what the response would be “What are you hoping to get out of these exercises, so we balance your workout properly with the cardio and strength training?” Ouch, the sly grin came with the slow response I had been hoping not to learn. He wanted to get the muscles stronger and bigger. And he wanted to look like the other student.
This young boy, who is several steps ahead of his peers academically, is very detailed and conscientious, but is not really predisposed genetically to the large muscled shape he is looking up to. As I talked to this young student, he revealed a lot about himself. He is still slowly becoming comfortable in his own skin. He really looks up to this other student, whose confidence and muscle and laughter sound like what he feels he is missing.
Funny, the student he seems to want to be like is struggling with a very long commute to school, working, attending school, and trying to figure out how to properly eat and maintain everything simultaneously. Maybe it isn’t as simple as it looks on the outside.
On top of that, my entire yoga class had turned around to look at one another during an advanced option early in the week. So much for focusing on their own mat.
As I was speaking with this first student yesterday, we were talking about how hard the balance is, and how everyone seems to look at one another for comparison. This student said to become “your own best self.” Funny how hard that can be. He reflected on the ups and downs of his own training and the challenges we all face. I agreed that this is always a process for so many, myself included. But watching the interactions of the week made for such a profound statement for me. I will keep trying, for my own balance and for the example of that I set for others.
How will you be your own best self? And how will you know when you get there? What then?
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