“Commitment is an act, not a word.” Jean-Paul Sartre 

A few weeks ago one of our BSP NOVA members, Kristin, wasn’t feeling her best while deadlifting. Her hope for the day was to hit a PR (personal record), but everything just felt HEAVY for her on this given day.

Coach Pavlos and I walked over during her sets and gave a few pointers on technique and stuff, but the weight just. wasn’t. there… that day.

Afterwards, I saw her standing by her program, and she seemed a little down, so I approached to chat it over.

Kristin mentioned to me that she was disappointed in not having PR’d, since she was really hoping to do so that day. I emphasized with her, because of course it sucks not hitting our goals, but then I explained to her that it’s normal to experience days where we just don’t have it—some days we’ll feel like Hercules, while other days we’ll feel like Jar Jar Binks.

Those days we feel like Jar Jar Binks, though, are few and far between.

I assured her that she was capable of lifting that weight, but today just wasn’t the day. One day, hopefully soon, she’ll come in feeling better equipped to tackle that weight.

 

Perfect Doesn’t Exist

In a perfect world we’d walk into the gym and crush our workout. We’d be able to lift weights we haven’t lifted before, with better technique, and feel great while doing it. Unfortunately, that jerk, “reality”, occasionally shows its face and reminds us that progress isn’t linear.

It’s impossible to predict how we will feel on any given day. Of course we can do things to help prepare us for our workouts—such as eating healthy meals, and getting a good night’s sleep—but sometimes the cards still aren’t dealt in our favor.

And that’s okay.

A large amount of our training days won’t have us feeling exceptionally great or horrible, but just good.

Days where we simply show up to do the work required, then go on our way.

We show up and check the box.

Days where we build the habit of showing up and honoring our commitments.

Days where we do what we can with what we have.

When we consistently show up like this, and put in the work necessary to move us closer to our goals—especially when we don’t feel like it—we’ll be ready to handle those other days. We understand and accept that occasionally workouts won’t go as planned because we don’t have it in us… right now.

We also understand that some days we will have it in us, and on those days we can take full advantage of how great we feel and crush the workout.

 

 

Mindset and Expectations

If we walked into the gym every day expecting to feel like a million bucks, then we’d be setting ourselves up for eventual disappointment.  Along those same lines, if we walked into the gym thinking we aren’t capable of anything worthwhile every day, we’re guaranteed to continually be disappointed.  But there’s a middle ground…

We focus on setting realistic expectations, based on how we’re feeling on each given day.

If we let our emotions control the show, we’d never reach our goals. We’d let excuses run rampant and avoid working out because we didn’t feel great. Well, those days where we don’t feel 100% are more common than we might think; and we’ll never feel 100% all the time so we must do what we can, with what we have, on any given day. That means honoring our commitments and consistently showing up to the gym, despite the excuses we may dream up.  

Hence the title of the blog: “Operate On Commitments, Not Emotions”

Feeling crappy isn’t a worthy excuse to not do anything. Maybe you won’t set a PR that day on a lift, but you could work on the technique.

Getting some quality reps in on days where you feel like a pile of failure sets you up for future success.

This is where our use of “RPE” on programs is huuuge.

I’ve written about RPE in a past blog (which you can read here), and it can help us big time with our expectations for each workout. Because the “us” of last workout isn’t the “us” of today. We may have kettlebell deadlifted 56kgs last week for an easy set of 6, but now it feels like it’s burying us. So, we need to adjust accordingly to get the best of out this day.

For example, that 56kg deadlift may have felt like an RPE 7 last week, but an RPE 9 today. If our RPE for the given day was a 7, and if we’re being honest with ourselves, then we should lower the weight so we’re pushing ourselves the appropriate amount on this given day.

We can live to fight another day and crush that weight in the future…

 

Oh, and Kristin’s Deadlift?

One week later, Kristin posted this status on Facebook:

I think she hit the nail on the head when she said, “Stick with it.” No matter how hard we try to ensure a good workout—the preparation before the workout, properly warming up, being hydrated—it might not go well. But, that’s when we operate on commitments, not emotions.

We stick with it, and continue sticking with it. We chop wood, then chop some more wood, and then even more wood until that tree comes crashing down—and it will.

If we understand that most of our days in the gym will be filled with plain ol’ good workouts—neither exceptional nor terrible—then we have healthier expectations going into that workout. If we show up feeling iffy, then we do what we can on that day. If we show up feeling great like Kristin did that second week, then we take advantage of that and crush some PR’s.