“I was definitely intimidated before coming to CFH!!!
Like most of the general public, I knew very little about CrossFit (…just late night ESPN reruns of the Games and “CrossFit is dangerous” Google articles, which didn’t help the intimidation factor at all). Not to mention that until six months ago, I was in the worst shape of my life. I signed up for a trial class almost three years to the day that I tore my ACL (basically, I had been completely sedentary and in pain for three years at that point).
Even though everybody at CFH, from the moment I walked in, was super friendly and welcoming, I can’t lie and say that I wasn’t terrified.
During Foundations, there was a ton of information to process and physically, well…everything was super hard/seemingly impossible…After leaving the relative comfort of Foundations, the gap between what I could do and what more experienced people in class could do was intimidating. I felt awkward, slow, and uncoordinated…and I couldn’t run. At all. Everybody seemed to finish Metcons hours before I did.
At some point during the first few weeks in ‘regular’ classes, Coach Becca noticed my frustration when I couldn’t finish yet another workout under the time cap and said to me: “Maria, you are showing up and working. That’s legit.”
That really clicked. I understood that the reason I had been intimidated was because I wasn’t giving myself any credit; I had been measuring my performance relative to that of other people, and kept coming up short. Instead, I should’ve been to comparing myself only to my own previous best effort. Refocusing on what I was accomplishing every single class, instead of what I couldn’t do, made the intimidation fade away.
The only thing that intimidates me now is doing CrossFit math (barbell+plates = Maria asking “how much do I have here?”).
That’s my advice: Commit to show up consistently (gift yourself the hour), focus inward (ignore what you can’t control), challenge yourself to be better that day than you were the day before (make a plan with specific goals), and have fun (celebrate the improvements, talk to people and make new friends)…you will surprise yourself a little each day.
Maria
PS- At the risk of being annoyingly corny I want to say this: CFH is an amazing community and communities are reflections of their leadership. So, for the very simple (I realized the other day that I couldn’t remember the last time my knee hurt) and the very complex (I can’t describe the mental/self-esteem/confidence changes I’ve experienced in the last 6 months)….Thank you CFH. =)”