You Can Learn from Training

It is amazing the things you can learn by doing something. Most people probably agree that experience is a good teacher and that is one way to learn. From experience, or through participation, you can learn new skills and you can also glean bits of wisdom.

For example, I learned a lot about myself through my training session today. I have often thought and believed that the body will go where the mind takes it. Today, I learned that a person can be led by their body or they can be led by their mind. We choose which one does the leading.

In today's play / training session I set out perform a brutal workout that John Brookfield has been encouraging me to try. Anyone else know John Brookfield? His workouts are utterly miserable! (out of respect for John, i removed the information about this particular workout.)

Anyway, when I started this "play" session, I was ready to tap out inside the first minute. My body was screaming; letting me know that I was participating in madness. My body wanted to quit. My mind was starting to listen to my body. But for some reason, my mind kept saying "do a few more. you can make it a few more" So, I continued. Much to my bodies' displeasure, I performed a few more, then a few more, then a few more. Eventually, and much to my complete surprise, I completed the workout with John's prescribed target. I was completely miserable about one minute into it, but I lasted a whole 16 minutes. John would be proud.

The point is, I learned something today. It is not always the engine that matters, sometimes it is the governor. The body wanted to stop, the mind wanted to go on. I chose to listen to my mind and not my body. It would have been much easier to stop, but that would have bothered me later. My mind was on a mission. Was my performance great? Probably not, but then I don't know. I do know, if I ever set out to do this again, I have already done it once. It will be easier the next time.

I think we sometimes take for granted what we can accomplish. Maybe sometimes we don't accomplish much because we don't believe we can. I know. It is funny the things my training sessions make me think about.

That's all I got!

Have a great week.

Tim