How Twitter Made My Day

I woke up this morning on the “right” side of the bed, both literally and figuratively. I wouldn’t say this was unusual as my wife and I sleep on the same side of the bed each night and each morning we wake up to a message on our mirror which reads, “Today is a great day!” By having both of those things in place, I can almost guarantee that each morning I wake up, it will be on the right side of the bed.

After the morning routine for my usual Thursday of seeing my wife and daughter off for the day, I took care of my pups, took care of myself and headed out the door for my commute to the gym, then work. On my way in, I finished another audio book while crawling through traffic. The traffic was heavier than normal due to the rain but I was perfectly fine with it as I set my expectations for the drive ahead of time. I arrived to the gym on time, scampered inside while trying to dodge the rain drops and proceeded to the locker room where I changed my clothes in preparation for my lifting session.

As I reached the gym floor and found my way to a lifting platform through the sea of folks who were starting their day off right, I plopped down in a spot where I would remain for the next 90 minutes. I began my working my strapping up my shoes, tightening my wrist wraps, taping my thumbs and loosening up. I grabbed one of our new Eleiko barbells and greatness ensued. I was lifting well. I felt great. Obviously at warm-up weights that is to be expected but today was slightly different. I was in the zone. My mind was free and clear and the weights felt, well, weightless. And then the unthinkable happened. I hit a mental road block. I say, “the unthinkable” as today was smooth sailing up to this point. No issues at all. If anything negative came to mind, I countered with a positive comback. It was great! So what the hell happened?

The easy answer is I became distracted. I let my mind wonder from the task on hand and my future goals and walked backwards a few steps and focused on the past. I subsequently missed lifts that are normally easy. I can deal with missed lifts when it’s a technical issue, that happens. That gives me the chance to step back and work on my technique to move forward but when I miss because of a mental block, well that’s just unacceptable. Feeling defeated, I ripped off my wrist wraps, tossed them on my gym bag, sat down on a window ledge and hung my head. I was frustrated! I wanted to quit for the day. I wanted to pack up my stuff and go to work.

At that point I had two options, leave and move on with my day or stay and push through. Both have their ups and both have their downs. Leaving would remove me from the situation and allow me to get on with my next task for the day, work. Which, despite many people’s view on their job, is something I look forward to. Choosing this option would also teach me that when things get tough I can simply quit or move on and avoid the situation rather than figuring my way through it. The second option, to stay, presented the possibility of furthering my frustration and being a waste of time. Sure I would have been lifting but most likely with poor technique and training in bad habits. It would’t have been enjoyable but it would have taught me that quitting was not acceptable and I need to stick it out when things get tough. So what did I do?

Knowing my options and their consequences I knew I had to stay but I also knew I needed to change my mindset to make it worth my time. In need for this, I reached out to social media and found a friend. This is a kid I have worked with to help grow and he has taught me as much about life as I have taught him about wrestling. He is a great kid who loves to work hard and loves to joke around. It was nothing more than a simple Tweet that started it all. We went back and forth several times ribbing each other. He made me laugh and that’s exactly what I needed. For whatever reason, I got down on myself. I let negativity creep into my head and build a home for 3o minutes or so. However, all it took to get me back on track was some positive interaction with someone who I admire for his hard work and can look to for a good laugh. He helped me put things into perspective and helped me move past myself. He changed my day!