Not every training day is going to be good. In fact, most days are going to be bad. This is especially true for those just starting in the sport of fitness and are in the learning period.
In the future, you will have some great training days and you will hit PRs, but you have to be patient. This is not something easily done for Americans. As a result of our lifestyle and culture, we expect instant results and instant gratification. Consumerism, along with the industries prior marketing strategies, has put this expectation on us that if Susie Q went to the Games in a year then I can too. WELL, you aren't Susie Q. You are you, and your journey is going to look completely different than hers. The Games might not even be your goal. Have you really thought about
where you want your journey to end? While she posts all her good shit on IG, she has bad days as well that she likely doesn’t post. She has learned to let them roll off her shoulders and this is why she is at the top. Yes, negative emotions fly high with bad training days, but we have to come to terms with the fact that it is part of the process and it is okay to have these days. Understand that you need to develop the mentality of, “I’m going to walk this off and come back better for it tomorrow and crush this shit.”
The next lesson you should learn is to shake the bad off QUICKLY, and NEVER forget the good (unless you are motivated by negatives, e.g. missing the team, falling just short, getting beat out, etc.). It's more important to be motivated by your belief in yourself and remember all the good you have done. Sometimes this means fluffing the ego a little bit to think you are the greatest and create a burning desire to get better than yesterday. THAT will have longer lasting effects than fighting for survival, or expecting the impossible from yourself day in and day out. You can only fight for so long before you realize that your life isn’t that bad, or you run out of steam, or realize that perhaps you aren’t going to reach the expectations you have set for yourself. There is likely a happy medium between all of this, but in a training day, there isn't. If you have a bad snatch day, get it out of your head by the time you start the next portion of your training session. Just because you have a bad snatch day doesn't mean you are going to have a bad squat, deadlift, or conditioning day. Only you can choose to have a bad one by carrying over your snatch into the remaining portions of your workouts. Just as you clear your head from life when you walk into the gym, every time you start your next portion of your training session,
you clear your head of your previous part of the session; or, if it was good, ride that momentum into the rest of your session.
Hard work does not always equate to getting better. Reality has a nice way of kicking our expectations in the dick. It’s important to learn to adjust our expectations to what reality is throwing at us and learn how to see something for what it truly is. So while expectations may be high on any given day, the reality is that some days you just won’t have it. This will require you to make an adjustment on the fly about what you expect to get out of this training day. Rarely should you have a static anything in life and this includes expectation. Dynamic and adaptable like water, you should be able to adjust them on the fly!
The final lesson is that you are going to be better than you are now, but if you rush this process, your journey will be short, and you won’t reach your full potential. Understanding and developing the physical abilities to be good at the sport is only the first step: the first step of an infinite number of steps to come. Your journey is going to be LONG AS FUCK, and if you start out with all the energy in the world to get better, two years from now you are going to be left wondering why you don't feel like going into the gym and where the fun in this sport went. It is okay to demand more of yourself and never be satisfied. These are GREAT qualities. But, if you want to be great at this sport, you also need to accept that some days you just have to take what the body and mind is giving you and be okay with it. It doesn't have to be go-go-go all the time.
You have a lot of potential to be better than you are. However, to get to your potential, you need to work just as much on your mental game as you do your physical game. The old adage that it is 10% physical and 90% mental rings true. The mind is just as much a muscle as the hamstring is. It can be trained, it can grow and expand, it can stagnate, or it can atrophy. CONSTANTLY push your mental capacity to new limits! Some of these limits might even mean slowing down; some of these limits might mean re-wiring thought processes; some of these limits might mean learn how to better control your emotions; some of these limits might be to understand how to push through pain better. Everyone is different and we have to work to identify your limits. But right now, your limits start with slowing down and learning how to not carry things over in your sessions.