There is no reason you need to read this, but there is a reason for me writing it. Yesterday, in a post on Instagram, I claimed that “training fundamentally changed who I am.” I said this because it has, but how do I know this? How exactly has training changed me so fundamentally? And what exactly do I mean by fundamentally? Until I answer these questions thoroughly, the statement “training fundamentally changed who I am” is so vague that it might as well be meaningless. So, I’m writing this post to give substance and clarity to a statement that, at first reading, may seem trifling but is in fact quite significant—at least to me.
Some of you may not know how or why I started training, so let me start there. It was a decision I made on a whim because I had reached a point where I could no longer stand to be weak; it was too frustrating, too embarrassing, and too long a problem. There wasn’t much thought behind the decision other than I knew I needed to change, so I asked a trainer if he’d train me and I began training the next week. I had no idea what to expect from training, and I certainly had no idea it would become so important to me, but I did have a goal: to get stronger.
At first, I trained once a week with the trainer, but it became clear that I’d need to train more frequently if I was going to see real change. I started small but added volume as I saw improvements. As time went on, intensity and duration were added to volume, and by then, training sort of took on its own momentum. I had become stronger, but to see even more results—better results—I would have to continue to train consistently and thoughtfully. In other words, training became a self-fulfilling project: in order to improve, I had to continue to train, but not only would I have to keep training, I would have to train harder and with more intent.
Maybe it was because my original goal was so vague (“to get stronger”), eliminating the possibility of arriving at a destination, but at no point since starting did I want to stop training. I just wanted to keep going. I was getting stronger, training was becoming more dynamic as my abilities increased, and I was learning an incredible amount of information. It was as if I had caught training fever, and the more I trained the more I wanted to train. I spent more time training and continued to add focus to what I was doing as time went on. It was all leading up to a decision that would become a defining moment in my training journey.
The moment I decided to follow a training program when on my own was the moment my training and character changed profoundly. It was then when I became committed to training five days a week, when I started to devote more of my income to training, and when I started to really push myself during sessions on my own. In all honesty, I can’t explain why I became so committed to the training process at this stage, but a possible explanation is that this is when I realized I had the potential and drive to improve in unimaginable ways if and only if I built up the discipline and a will to persevere. This is, of course, something I had been unable to do for my entire adult life, so finally having the means to build these qualities up as well as the right motivation in the form of training meant my increased commitment to training was both natural and necessary.
In other words, training is the reason I had to learn discipline and perseverance. I had to develop those qualities if I planned on showing up every training day. I had to develop those qualities if I planned on working harder every day in every workout. I had to develop those qualities if I planned on improving in meaningful ways over the long run. Discipline and perseverance, two qualities I had previously not known, were the keys to me becoming the best athlete I could become, and in building them up for training, they became part of my overall character. But these qualities are not learned once and for all; they must be constantly improved. You have to train discipline and perseverance just as you would train anything else in the gym/box/garage, because training never gets easier and the obstacles to success never disappear.
Training, then, has changed me so fundamentally because it taught me discipline and perseverance and provides the means for me to develop and improve those qualities every day. This is a fundamental change because, until training, I had lived life without those qualities—qualities that are integral to a successful and meaningful life. So, one way to think of it is that training made me an adult. Its impact on my life is far from over, though. In addition to continuously building discipline and the ability to persist into my character, it teaches and motivates me in more ways than I’m probably aware of. It gives me direction, passion, knowledge, and new goals. I’m constantly working to be better, and as a result, I’ve become a better person. Only time will tell what I can achieve, but whatever it is, know that in the final analysis, it was training that got me there.
Fragments of History 