Hey there, Jeron here again. As those of you who train with me may already know, it's been quite the busy couple of weeks.  We've had some new and old faces join us recently, I've been super-focused on streamlining a lot of SBI's functions, and have also been training pretty hard.

In fact, my entire body hurts right now. But I love it.

Here's one reason why:

I'm a fan of filming myself when going for new PR's or when doing heavy sets of the major lifts, because I can always see where my form breaks, where I could've done better, etc. 

 

I noticed something when I was editing the footage, though. I failed 6 times in a row before finally getting it. In fact, when I first got my standard squat to 500lbs, I failed 4 times before getting it.

 

I've failed at almost everything I've accomplished in life, and quite thoroughly at times I might add. I've lost weight and gained it all back. I've landed myself in jail for making dumb decisions. I've hurt loved ones, totaled cars, been in eviction court, been fired from jobs, been irresponsible with money, and forgotten to pick up my socks and put the toilet seat down (sorry babe).

 

I've screwed up a lot stuff!

 

There's something I remembered saying to myself when we were shooting this video, though: "I will not fail at this." There was no way in hell I was going to leave until I accomplished what I set out to do, no matter what it took, how much it hurt, or how many times I had to fail. 

 

My attitude was relentless.

 

I learned something about myself by watching this video. My relentless attitude in the gym carries over into the rest of my life, and was the driving force behind every major thing that I have accomplished in life.

 

Each of my successes has come by being relentless enough to push past whatever obstacles stood in my way, relentless enough to accept failure, and relentless enough to sacrifice whatever was necessary to accomplish my goals. 

 

As strange as it may sound, I believe that I nurture many of these behaviors in the gym.  They gym is my testing ground where I can prove my own character by proving that I am willing to "show up." Not just go through the motions, but push further and prove my own character. Am I willing to go for the extra rep or try the lift a 7th time, or will I give up? It's the same conversation I have with myself when I have to ask whether I'm willing to "show up" with my business, my upcoming marriage to my fiance, Shayna. What am I made of and will I show up?

 

See, when I joke about working out building character I really mean it.

 

So, with all of this going through my head (in about a 5 minute period, mind you), I started to think about all of my clients. Like EVERYONE.  All of the lives that I've gotten to touch over the last couple of years.

 

I noticed a trend. The clients that pushed during their workouts, the ones that always went for the extra rep were the ones that also followed their meal plans and actually accomplished their goals. They were the ones that were excited to show up to their workouts and see what they could accomplish that day that had eluded them before. They were happier, more successful, and they got results.

 

The clients who saw slow results, who complained during workouts, who tried to get away with the least amount of work, and who had excuses for why they couldn't follow their meal plans were the ones did the opposite.

 

I also noticed that out of all the those clients, only 2 had every continued to make progress after stopping their training with me.

 

Pretty sad, I know. 

 

It actually hurt my feelings a little and made me question whether I'm actually helping people with my business. After all, if after all this time, I haven't been able to instill this one basic and monumentally important lesson, then something has to be missing.

 

And that's kind of where this blog post came from. 

 

I don't mean for it to be a rant about discipline, a pat on the back for how awesome I am at working out, or even an attempt to fish for compliments from those of you that I have helped. 

 

I just want to take the opportunity to make you all aware of the idea of being relentless and taking ownership of your life.

 

If you're not happy, change it. If your job sucks, change it. If you aren't happy with you body, change it. No one in this world is responsible for your life but you, and this gives you both a lot of freedom and a lot of responsibility.

 

It means that you have the power to change, and that it's your fault if you don't. Since I care about you all, I hope and pray that you choose change.

 

"Between you and every goal that you wish to achieve, there is a series of obstacles, and the bigger the goal, the bigger the obstacles. Your decision to be, have and do something out of the ordinary entails facing difficulties and challenges that are out of the ordinary as well. Sometimes your greatest asset is simply your ability to stay with it longer than anyone else."

~ Brian Tracy

 

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