There will be many days that you will be tired from life. The stress from your job, bills, deadlines, and coworkers may build up. Big workouts, two-a-days, miles of running, and heavy olympic lifts all cause physical stress. Sometimes all you want to do is sleep and be lazy. Your mind is telling you to relax, that you deserve it, and that you need a break. Should you? What do you do?

In order to make the right call, you have to be aware of your mind. You have negative and positive thoughts all day long. You must pay attention to the thoughts as they pass and make a split, pragmatic decision. The thoughts can be negative or positive, based on how you apply them. If they bring you closer to your goal, then they are positive; if they take you away, then they are negative. Ask yourself again if you need that rest day or that cheat meal. Sometimes a thought will masquerade behind the good idea of self love and healing. Workouts, at the core, are a sign of self love- they keep us healthy, confident, and mentally alert. The negative thoughts, however, look for ways to sabotage our health, confidence, and mental strength. Justifying junk food, adding another rest day, or skipping that second session of rowing intervals are all negative thoughts that show us lack of love.

If we have this mental talk in our heads, how do we find the energy and fortitude to do what we want? Which thoughts do we listen to? In a video surrounding the CrossFit Games, Mat Fraser and Jason Khalipa showed us a solution: create another voice. In their case, they were using Rich Froning and asking, “What is he doing?” or “What decision would he make?” This outside voice is our tactic. Create in your head not an external person, but a vision of YOU making all the tough calls. Mentally create your own superhero that eats exactly the way you should, trains no matter what, sleeps 8 hours a night, and pays attention to how their body feels. Your superhero has a straight bar path on olympic lifts, loves the hook grip, and always shows up for track work, even in the rain. They stick around to help out the other athletes, cheer on the last member despite being out of breathe, and put away the weights of others. They divide up their meals in tupperware, spend Sunday meal prepping, always take their meals with them, and drinks at least a gallon of water a day. They stay positive, see abundance in all things, are humble, honest with their time/reps in the WOD, and treat others how they want to be treated regardless of how tired or stressful their day has been. This superhero always makes the tough call. This superhero can be YOU. Ask yourself what they would do, and then do it.

It is easy for us to be soft on ourselves, but would our superhero version take it easy? No. We always expect so much of others, but then we give ourselves allowances. Create in your head a new version of you and hold yourself up to YOUR standard. Soon, you will be that person.