Credit: @benbergeron / Instagram

Pushing ourselves in demanding workouts doesn’t just build physical strength and endurance.

The mental and emotional “muscle” we develop through hard training directly translates to greater resilience in any challenging situation.

• While the benefits of exercise for reducing stress, improving mood, and boosting brainpower are well documented, less obvious are the practical lessons that dedication to intense fitness instills.

Lessons that, once internalized, lighten the burden of life’s inevitable trials.

Bringing awareness to how your hard work in the gym carries over to your daily life can help you reap even more rewards from your sessions in the gym.

For an episode of the Chasing Excellence podcast, we recently talked through five lessons that hard training teaches us, each of which has the power to ease the struggle of facing life’s everyday obstacles:

Drop the Weight of Judgment and Expectation

The heaviest weight to lift isn’t on the barbell. It’s the mental burden of judgment and expectation. Drop these two weights first.

Judgment and expectations, whether from others or ourselves, are distractions that stand in the way of progress.

They make us feel inadequate, anxious, and afraid to fail.

But when we’re in the middle of a grueling workout, it becomes clear that the only thing that matters is the present moment – not what we “should” be able to do.

By consciously letting go of the desire to meet arbitrary standards and instead focusing on giving our best with what we have today, we free ourselves to fully engage in the challenge at hand.

• Takeaway: Let go of judgment and expectations to stay focused and perform your best in the gym and life.

Struggle With Others, Not Alone

Having like-minded people beside you doesn’t reduce the weight of the challenge, but it transforms meaningless struggle into meaningful progress, making any burden feel lighter.

Tough physical challenges don’t get easier with company, but they do take on a greater purpose. There’s a shared understanding that by voluntarily embracing discomfort together, you’re becoming stronger as individuals and as a unit.

A community with shared values makes even the most daunting tasks feel worthwhile.

This insight applies just as much outside the gym.

Intentionally surrounding yourself with driven, positive people who lift you up can turn life’s trials into fuel for growth. Conversely, if your environment pulls you toward unhealthy behaviors, resisting them requires tremendous willpower.

• Takeaway: To lighten life’s load, tackle challenges alongside others who share your values and push you to be your best self.

Habit, Not Motivation, Is Key

People who rely on motivation fail, but people who build the habit of consistently showing up succeed. Inspiration doesn’t last, but habits will.

Motivation is an unreliable, fleeting feeling that can’t be summoned on command. Waiting until you’re in the mood to take action is a recipe for inconsistency.

But when training is a non-negotiable part of your routine, not a decision to reevaluate continually, you remove friction and increase follow-through.

• Takeaway: Stop relying on fluctuating motivation. To achieve any goal, make consistent, habitual action your aim.

Adversity Reveals Ability

You can’t know how strong you are until the weight gets heavy. Our clearest lessons always come after our hardest challenges.

In the gym, it’s called the overload principle – you must consistently lift more to get stronger.

The struggle signals the body to rise to the increased demand. Only by pushing limits can you discover your actual capacities, which are likely far more significant than you realize. Each triumph over adversity builds resilience.

Hardship serves the same clarifying purpose in life.

It strips away the nonessential and spotlights what matters most. Challenges we think will break us often reveal deep wells of fortitude we never knew we had.

Hard times forge strong character, and strong character creates positive change.

• Takeaway: Embrace challenges as opportunities to cultivate inner strength and clarity. You are more capable than you know.

Start Before You’re Ready

You don’t have to be good at the difficult thing to do the difficult thing. Of all the skills to master, the only one you need today is the skill of starting.

The only requirements to transform yourself through training are showing up and pushing yourself, even if you’re out of shape.

Lifting weights is what makes you stronger. Running is what makes you a better runner.

Confidence is the result of taking action, not a prerequisite for it.

Whatever goal you aspire to, the biggest obstacle is simply beginning.

• Takeaway: Waiting until you feel qualified is an infinite delay. Take the first step before you’re fully ready, and you’ll already be far ahead of those still paralyzed by self-doubt.

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Ben Bergeron & Patrick Cummings co-host the Chasing Excellence podcast, a weekly show about building health, unlocking freedom, and being fully alive.

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Schedule for this week-  Monday-Friday 5 am, 6 am, 4:30 pm and 5:30 pm.  Saturday Poker at 8 am

In April the Saturday Poker will move to 7 am.

WORKOUTS THIS WEEK-  Run/wall walks/toes to bar triplet, PARTNER lunge/push press/muscle ups, Row/deadlifts, BENCH PRESS, KB swing/Run and POKER

SEE YOU AT THE GYM

3,2,1 GO!!

DEAN