NAMED WOD. Any time we have named workouts on the programming schedule I get all excited. I feel antsy with anticipation because I can't WAIT to see how people have improved. There are nights when Bill and I will sit at the dinner table discussing who we think will go RX the next day and what their times might be. Named workouts are LEGIT. They are designed to test you in every way.

ALARM. When I woke up that morning it was a little like Christmas morning. The named WOD was "Helen" and boy is she a doozey. I raced off to the gym to see what the day might hold for our CrossForters. There was a buzz of excitement as people got their kettlebells lined up and their spot on the pull-up bar claimed. Once Bill called 3, 2, 1 GO it was a flurry of movement!

CONGRATS. After the workout was over I went to congratulate someone who had gone RX for the very first time on this WOD. "Hey, nice job going RX'd for the first time!" and I reached down for a fist bump. She replied with tears in her eyes "Nah, that was shitty. I didn't hit my goal time".

STOP. Wait....WHAT?! I watched her fight tooth and nail to finish a tough named WOD rx'd for the first time. 63 perfect kettlebell swings, 36 unassisted pull-ups, and 1200 meters of running without stopping. I could feel nothing but joy watching how far this lovely woman had come in just over a year. Overweight and sad no more, this woman was conquering some of the toughest workouts known to man.

So why wasn't she happy?

YOU. It's because she doesn't know how to be nice to herself. We all spend so much time beating ourselves up that it's easy to forget that you need to be kind to yourself. "Treat others the way you want to be treated" is what our Mothers always told us growing up. But where are the rules about how to treat yourself?

THE RULE. Going forward, make this the rule about being good to yourself:

You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you struggled. Life, gym, family....it makes no difference. Struggling makes you who you are. Accept no one's definition of your life. Define yourself. Love yourself.  Accept yourself. Forgive yourself. Be good to yourself. Without you, the rest of us are without a source of many wonderful things.