Who Do You Want to Be?

I was in Leederville this morning for a football meeting last Saturday. We kicked off at 9am on a Saturday and, being Halloween, there were already a few people wandering around in costumes. Some of them looked like they'd been celebrating for quite a while. Others looked like they were just getting started!

It got me thinking about Halloween and the whole idea of dressing up. For one day of the year, we get to become somebody else. We can be superheroes, movie stars, monsters, whatever we want. Put on the right clothes, add a bit of makeup, maybe a mask, and suddenly we're transformed.

Of course, when the party is over, the costume comes off and we're back to being exactly the same person we were yesterday.

And that's what got me thinking about training.

Because when you really train — and I mean TRAIN, not just turn up occasionally and go through the motions — something quite different happens. You don't just change how you look. You start changing who you are.

You learn what it's like to do hard things. You learn that being uncomfortable isn't necessarily a reason to stop. You learn that you're capable of more than you thought, and that the limits you've placed on yourself aren't always where you imagined they were.

And you learn all of this through experience. Not because somebody told you that you were strong or capable or resilient, but because you've actually done the work.

There's a massive difference between being told you can do something and knowing you can do it because you've done it before.

I think this is one of the most underestimated benefits of training. We spend so much time talking about weight loss, muscle gain, cardiovascular fitness and all the other physical outcomes that we sometimes overlook the changes happening underneath.

The person who couldn't run for five minutes and now runs for thirty. The person who was terrified of walking into a gym and now confidently tackles whatever session is written on the board. The person who once avoided anything physically challenging and now actively looks for the next challenge.

Sure, their bodies might have changed. But something much more important has happened.

Their understanding of what they're capable of has changed.

And that doesn't stay in the gym.

When you've spent months or years learning to tackle difficult things, to work through setbacks, to keep showing up and to gradually improve, you start approaching other challenges differently too.

You become more willing to have a go. More comfortable with the possibility of failure. More confident that even if something is difficult today, it might not be quite so difficult tomorrow.

That's a pretty significant transformation.

And here's the thing. If we could achieve all of that by putting on a costume, taking a magic pill or finding some clever shortcut, I don't think it would mean anywhere near as much.

Because the effort isn't just the price we pay for the transformation.

The effort IS the transformation.

Every difficult session, every small improvement, every time you turn up when you'd rather stay home, you're building something that can't simply be handed to you.

And while it's great to look in the mirror and be happy with what you see, I reckon it's even better to look at yourself and be genuinely proud of what you've become capable of doing.

So enjoy Halloween. Dress up. Become somebody completely different for a few hours. Have a laugh.

But when the costume comes off, remember that there's another kind of transformation available to all of us.

It takes a bit longer. It's considerably harder. And there's no magic involved.

But unlike a costume, you get to keep it.

Helping People Feel Amazing.

Round 1 Fitness