Shift Fire

Over the past couple of days, numerous people have come to me asking about progress. Their questions got me to thinking about progress in the realm of physical training in general and CrossFit specifically. Progress and improvement are tricky animals and cause people to doubt not only themselves, but the CrossFit program as well.

I like to think about improvement as a form of investing. If you look at your investment portfolio on a daily basis, hoping to see drastic improvement, you will be sorely dissapointed. However, as Albert Einstein put it, "The most powerful force in the universe is compound interest." The two inputs to successful investing are consistency and time. Consistency and time. That sounds pretty familiar.

In the CrossFit universe, success is measured by minutes and seconds. But I argue that this is taking a myopic view of success as related to the individual. True success is measured over months and years. The main goal of CrossFit is to consistently improve. That's it. Consistent improvement.

So look at your time at CrossFit as an investment in yourself. If you focus on improving every day, even just a marginal progression, the progress you see will truly be amazing. Just like investing, don't get caught up in the day-to-day tracking of progress. Focus on getting better each and every day and the rewards will be awesome.