These are my Crossfit Hands. Slowly becoming more and more callused each day…and I love them!

 

They may not be pretty but they stand for something far more important than beauty. These hands represent my hard work, dedication and determination.

Completing a Crossfit WOD is no easy task and yet I’ve managed to do it about 75 out of the past 90 days.  Today’s WOD was one of the hardest I’ve done yet…eh, who am I kidding, every day is the hardest.  Somehow, I have no idea how, but somehow they NEVER seem to get any easier.  Just when I think I’ve got the hang of it I have to run farther, lift heavier, move from a modified movement to the real thing, yet I keep going back for more.

There have been countless times throughout my life that I have quit…. I’ve quit jobs, quit relationships, quit diets, quit dreams…quit, quit, quit!  All because they got too hard.  I have quit so many things because I didn’t think I was good at them.  But I’m finally learning, for the first time in my life, that just because I’m not good at something, just because something is hard, that doesn’t mean I won’t get better.

I don’t know how I missed that integral part of growing up where you truly learn that hard work pays off, but I did.  I only ever did things that came easy…acting and singing were my main two.  Those were the things that I didn’t have to work for…or at least I didn’t think I did.   When I was a big fish in a little pond it was easy but when I moved to being a small fish in a huge, gigantic pond (LA and NYC) I gave up…fast!  I didn’t fight for it. It never occurred to me that if I kept at it, if I kept training, if I kept auditioning that I just might be successful.  Nope, when I didn’t get the first few roles I auditioned for I just gave up and that was that.

I’ve done that my whole life with everything I’ve ever done.  It was a family joke that I couldn’t stick with anything because of my A.D.D.  Turns out, I just didn’t know how.

This past year as taught me that I AM capable of working hard and that hard work pays off. Crossfit has influenced that new mindset the most.  For the first time I’ve stuck with something that wasn’t easy from the get-go and hasn’t gotten any easier since…BUT I’m seeing progress, measurable progress.  Today I ran, though passed by all my other classmates, over 800 meters in less than seven minutes.  That is HUGE for me. I ran the whole thing and didn’t even think about walking, not ONCE…a major first!  I bench pressed more than I’ve ever benched today, I did overhead, weighted lunges for the first time today and, though modified, I “climbed” a rope for the first time today.

Every day is a new challenge, a new WOD means a new victory and it turns out that I don’t have to be “good” at it in order to do it.  Getting BETTER is good enough for me!

This is the first time in my life that I’ve actually really WORKED at something.  It’s the first time I’ve fought through pain and not been a quitter.  No matter how hard it gets I never give up which is a whole new world for me and I LOVE it!

Here’s to my hard-work-callouses. I wear them PROUDLY!

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