As a sweat-resistant person, my “pros” list for CrossFit was pretty short: add muscle, get fit, burn calories.
But my “con list,” well, that was a whole different matter:
- It will hurt
- I’ll look stupid
- I won’t be able to do it
- I never have been coordinated; why should this be any different?
- I’m too fat to do it
- I’ll hurt myself
Summary: Fear of failure.
I didn’t want to commit. I wanted to get a trial version and then decide whether I liked it before committing to it. Problem: Commitment is a prerequisite. With the exception of my marriage and my kids, commitment is an issue for me. I like change. Or at least that’s what I tell myself. A friend once told me I was a magpie; I couldn’t focus on anything because if I saw something new and shiny, I was immediately distracted. Short-term megaprojects I can do, probably because they require intense focus for a short time. It’s the ordinary, repetitive, boring, and/or longterm tasks that give me trouble.
So I didn’t want to make a commitment to CrossFit because I was afraid I’d fail either by my natural deficiencies as an athletic-sort or, more likely, because I’d bail. I didn’t want to do the latter again; I’ve done it too many times in my life. So agreeing to start, and then, masochist that I am, deciding to blog about it, is either incredibly stupid or pretty damn courageous on my part.
So I won’t find out if I’ve been conning myself out of something great for all this time or if my negative assessment is right until quite a bit of time has passed. But I’ve tied my own hands a lot lately for fear of failure.
Time to jump out the door and hope the chute opens.
