The Benefit of Engaging with Challenges

Lately, I’ve been loving my at-home workouts. I’m still not comfortable going to the gym to workout, but I’ve found a lot of resources to challenge my body and along the way, I’ve challenged my mindset. I read somewhere that the secret to success is in a disciplined mindset. I’ve been leaning into this idea, specifically when it comes to my workouts. 

At one point, I realized that I had been cheating my workouts by tapping out before it was time. I wasn’t doing this because my body was incapable of completing the exercise, but because my mind quit prematurely. My mind was trying to get to the resting point before my body had the chance to fight through the confrontation of the workout.

I know I’m not the only one who does this, but why? We engage in the workout because of the hard work, the challenge, the confrontation of the workout. That’s why we show up in the first place. So why do we allow our mind to give in before we get what we came for?

I generally think the answer is fear of failure and pain avoidance, but that isn’t the point of this post. 

I couldn’t help but connect this mindset trap I was experiencing in my workouts to what I was experiencing on the way to reach my goals. As soon as things start to get challenging, I tend to back down or try something different. I avoid the discomfort that comes from not knowing everything about the goal that I am working to achieve. It’s highly likely that the growth will come as a result of engaging with whatever challenge I am facing at the time. Not only will I experience personal growth, but I’ll get closer to whatever goal I have set out to achieve.

So after making this correlation, I decided to commit to not cheating my workouts. I took a 6-week program on the Nike Training Club App and there was only one workout that I failed to leave everything on my mat - pretty good success rate if you ask me. 

Guess what happened? Those workouts set the tone in every other area of my life. I stopped cutting corners in my business, my relationships, and my faith. I was intentional about engaging with challenges and I grew so much. I’m not mad about the physical changes I saw either.

The bottom line? The blessing is always in the hard work. The challenge is where we get better. What area of your life are you avoiding challenges? How can you be more intentional to engage with the challenge?