Tait has a great saying that goes “anything in life worth doing is gonna take a little skin off”. In order to improve, we must go through some pain (no pain, no gain, as it were). Sometimes that pain or discomfort is physical, sometimes it’s not. Walking into an mma or CrossFit gym for the first time is a very uncomfortable thing to do (if it wasn’t for you, consider me impressed because I was nervous as all hell the first time I walked into Undisputed and I didn’t even have any intention to workout or train at the time!). And why wouldn’t it be? It’s a place where people go to throw around heavy weights and learn how to fight people. (Fight people!) Clearly this is not a place filled with friendly people. But you walk in anyway, despite that discomfort, because you need to get in shape or because you want to learn a martial art for self defense and  watched Eddie Bravo beat Royler Gracie on youtube and decided that you want to learn jiu jitsu. So you try a class and find out that, hey, these people are actually really cool and nice and not anything that you had pictured. Awesome!

You sign up and start coming to class regularly.

Damn, this s**t is hard! You never knew it was going to be this physically demanding. You make it through the first couple rounds of rolling at the end of class alright but by the third, you are running out of breath and your muscles are getting increasingly tired (ALL of em. Even ones you didn’t know you had.). By the time the fourth comes around, you can barely move. But you push through because you know that the more time you spend rolling, the quicker you’re going to improve. And then there’s a fifth. Wait, what? A fifth? But the rounds are 5 minutes long and there’s only 4 minutes left of class! Ok, you can barely move but you still push through that last round. Then class ends and it’s time to line up. It’s all you can do to pick yourself up off the mat; you have never felt this kind of muscular and respiratory fatigue before. But you’ve also got a huge smile on your face as you go through and hug each one of your teammates and coaches. Interesting.

You’re a few months into training. You’re totally addicted at this point; you look at the clock at work all day, waiting to get off so you can go roll. You’ve also noticed a dramatic change in your everyday life, outside the gym. Normally, you dread the 10 flights of stairs you have to walk up every day at work that take away your breath and give you armpit stains (first thing in the morning? That’s not cool.) but recently, you’ve been jogging up those steps without so much as breathing hard. Your friend called and asked for your help moving all of his furniture to his new house. Again. (This particular friend moves a lot.) Ugh, this is always a huge annoyance; you spend your whole weekend in pain, moving heavy stuff around. But this time, you do it in the half the time and all his furniture feels way lighter. Wow, that actually wasn’t too bad.

You find out that in a month, there’s going to be a tournament. Eeee, you don’t know about that. I mean, it’s one thing to train and roll with your friends in the gym; you know everybody there and know that if you mess up or don’t know how to do something, they’re going to help you. You’re comfortable there. But a tournament? In front of hundreds of people? For points and medals and things actually on the line? Against people you’ve never met before? What if you lose? In front of all those people. That would be embarrassing. That would be a hell of an uncomfortable moment. But you sign up anyway because your teammates and coaches encourage you to and promise that it’s fun and the experience will make you better. Ok, you want to get better but you’re not entirely sure they’re not lying to you about the “fun” part. Unless their idea of fun is loads of anxiety.

You train extra hard, lose the 6 pounds to make it into the lighter weight class and before you know it, it’s competition day. As soon as you walk into the competition area, you heart rate jumps to that of a humming bird. After hanging out for a while, you hear your division called over the loud speaker. You’re quite confident that your heart is going to explode at any moment. You follow your division to your respective mats. You’re up. You walk on the mats and look around to see all the people in the stands and around the sides watching you. Oh god, this is really happening, isn’t it? The ref has you shake hands with your opponent. All of a sudden, your heart rate calms. You don’t see anyone but your opponent or hear anyone but your coach. All the spectators don’t even exist right now. You remember all the techniques you’ve drilled over the past several months. You know what to do. You finish your opponent with a rear naked choke. You stand as the ref raises your hand and declares you the winner. The spectators are back now. You look around and see everyone cheering for you. You did it. Your heart rate jumps back up but not from anxiety this time. No, now it’s from the adrenaline rush. Holy s**t, this feels good. You end up taking home a 4th place medal. Not bad considering you were certain you weren’t going to win even one match. And your teammates were right; this WAS fun.

The following Monday at work, you can’t wait to describe the entire experience (in detail) to everyone who will listen. On Tuesday, you have to stand up and give a presentation in front of all of your bosses and colleagues. Normally, this would make you a nervous wreck but not today; today you just think, “If I can fight (and beat) other guys in front of big crowds, how hard is it going to be to talk in front of my peers? Psh, I got this.” And with that, you nail your presentation, show your bosses a side of you they’ve never seen before (the confident side), and get the giant raise you’ve been waiting for. Which then leads to a nicer car, which then leads to a super model girlfriend, and so on and so forth.

Moral of the story? We can never hope to improve without putting ourselves in uncomfortable situations. It’s how we get stronger; in every facet of life. I can’t ever get physically stronger without putting more weight on the bar. I can’t ever get confident without putting myself in situations that require confidence. I can’t ever hope to have a healthy relationship with somebody without occasionally having a really uncomfortable talk about some s**t with that person. If I want to play it safe and stay inside my comfort zone, that’s cool; nothing bad might ever happen to me in there. But I have to know that I will never reach greatness in there.

Nobody has ever won a race by turning on the cruise control.

Nate Harris