I was standing in the middle of the living room, surrounded by mountains of clothing, kayaking gear, food bags, blankets and assorted miscellany that was yet to be packaged into boxes and bags and then two small cars, looking around wildly for something goggle-shaped belonging to my husband. To no avail.

“No fucking clue,” I mumbled to myself. “How the hell am I supposed to find one pair of goggles in all this shit? Damn. I need coffee.”

I wandered to the kitchen, poured a cup of coffee and then, by instinct, quietly stepped out onto the back deck. And breathed. The sun was gently warming the day; I watched the oil patterns on the surface of my drink dance in the light and felt my blood pressure drop. Bees were humming in the flowers of July and there was a softness to the air that foretold heat and humidity, but that was also the portent of a vacation ahead.

After several moments of grace, I walked back into the house.

The goggles were on the top of the pile at which I had been directly staring moments before.

How could a thing so plainly visible be so hard to see? I grabbed the elusive eyewear and popped it into the swimming gear bag and the rest of the packing proceeded as smoothly as such things ever do.

By the time we reached the island we were all ready to switch gears and fall into “Island time”. For those who don’t go on these sorts of vacations, “Island Time” means getting up when you’re rested, eating when you’re hungry, paddling when the winds drop, lighting the wood stove and baking when it’s cold or you want cookies, going to bed when you’re tired, having a bonfire if you feel the need for flames, reading when your brain craves a journey, creating or making things when your hands twitch, and puttering away at projects around the property as the spirit moves you and the weather allows. It’s a reset button for the soul and a chance to stop looking at the piles of clutter than life can sometimes create and to breathe deeply enough to see things more clearly.

Heading into this vacation I knew two things very clearly.

1. I knew that I loved lifting and that it had become a permanent part of me. It is my second marriage and a best friend through thick and thin. It’s not something I do, it’s a part of who I am and I love that part very much. Even when it’s being an asshole.
2. I wasn’t sure where I was going in terms of working with a coach or what the next big goals really were and the more I thought about it the less I had answers and the fewer answers I came up with the more I worried about it.

Instinctively I knew that this combination meant I needed a break from trying to figure that out. I needed to step back from the mental intensity of it taking primacy in life, both in order to be in a position to make good decisions about what would come next and also to be hungry for whatever that was. I needed to metaphorically walk onto the back deck so I could come back inside and find the goggles, and then with my sight clear, find my path again.

I still needed for lifting to be there, but not to be at the forefront of my life for a few weeks and to just relax and not constantly look at it analytically. Just to go through the motions of that part of my day and enjoy the grace that a familiar habit brings. To let that part of my life blur and go out of focus a little and to put energy into other parts. Like a koan, that is used to arrive at greater enlightenment, focusing on other things would allow the lifting component to gel.

I also needed to prove to myself that I could trust my own judgement about what I needed. And that I could trust in the strength of what I had built. What that judgement said I needed this August was to take my foot of the powerlifting gas. To lift only when it was what I really wanted to do and even then, to stop before I was tired and before it stopped feeling fun. I somehow felt very deep down that this would make me stronger, even if it appeared to be a contradictory approach. I also had a sense that years of lifting wouldn’t vanish in three short weeks. And that stepping away would ultimately make me want to come back more and to become more than before.

It felt like the right choice, just kind of scary because it involved *not* pushing harder or working at something.

“He could not remember, ever before, choosing not to act.” – Harry Potter “The Deathly Hallows”

It’s a weird sensation, deliberately shutting down something that usually you promote and do at full speed. People kept asking me the usual questions, “when’s your next meet? have you made a short list of coaches? what are you doing in September? have you sent out emails to potential coaches? are you even training at all?” And I said “I’m leaving that until the end of August.” This downtime just felt right for me, even if it flew in the face of my usual inclination to actively tackle a problem.

And August went magnificently. Whereas last summer I wrote about training consistently throughout my vacation and how much I enjoyed that, this summer I took a different tack and didn’t train so much. What we need at different points in our athletic careers changes. It has to. We are growing as lifters and humans and as we grow, we require different tools to move us from one point in our journey to the next. This summer I needed something different than last summer. Next summer will undoubtedly be yet another adventure.

And by that same token, I started to open my mind to what I needed to get from where I stood in the summer of 2018 to where I wanted to go over the next couple of years. What had gotten me from 2013 to winter of 2018 worked rather splendidly in many ways. The step from winter to summer was also what I needed at that time. But the next step? I had to let myself see what had been in front of me for some time; the next step was a different part of the journey and I was going to need to learn and do different and very challenging things along that route to become a different version of me.

It worked. For two weeks I pushed down any feelings of guilt and told myself that doing nothing WAS doing something. It was resting for the next big push. And at the end of those two weeks I had gained both clarity of purpose and a hunger to resume the journey and to push my boundaries in new ways.

One morning I woke up and it was just time.

I could feel the calmness and decisiveness of that moment as I walked downstairs to a rich summer’s morning, took my coffee out on the front deck of the cabin, and watched the oil patterns swirl on the surface once again while the dawn light traced the treetops across the harbour. This time the patterns in my coffee seemed to take on coherent shapes and shimmered with a beauty that said I was able to see clearly again. I knew what came next and precisely what I needed. I got out my phone and in the warmth of the light of a new day, quietly, contentedly, and with a deep sense of being on the right path, sent the messages needed to move forward and approach the bar with a real sense of purpose once again.

“Child,’ said the Lion, ‘I am telling you your story, not hers.

No one is told any story but their own.”

― C.S. Lewis, The Horse and His Boy.

What I write about in this blog is my story, and I am careful (insofar as it is possible to be so when lives touch, overlap, and influence each other) not to write much about the lives, thoughts and stories of other people because I don’t own them and I don’t live them; they aren’t mine and I won’t attempt to expropriate them or make sense of them because that’s someone else’s job.

I spent a good deal of time thinking about that idea in recent months. All we see is through our own lenses and our truths are valid for us, but don’t necessarily reflect the realities of others; two people can experience the same event utterly differently. In conjunction with this, I have also been thinking about the “why” of this blog the other day and whether it serves a purpose to anyone but myself. My private journal entries continue and are written solely for me, but who are these blog posts for really? What purposes do they serve and does anyone benefit from my sharing of them?

I’m not so experienced as a lifter, coach, or even human as to have authoritative answers to things. The longer I walk this planet, the more I think I have possible angles rather than answers, that life is far more multifaceted than we want it to be sometimes, and it’s more that some things work for a person and some just don’t; there are continuous experiments and explorations some of which pan out as hoped and others of which yield unexpected results either positive or negative that suggest even more avenues of exploration.

So maybe that’s the answer there….

These are glimpses of problems, solutions and ideas I’ve found along my road and maybe some of them apply to people other than myself. And if a person can learn what to try (or not to try, through watching me stumble around and fall on my keister) through reading of my experiences, then perhaps that’s reason enough to put them out there

It’s a simple statement and not utterly profound, but until you’ve been surrounded by them and stood at the foot of even small ones, it doesn’t entirely hit home. They’re huge. So big, in fact, that you can’t see the whole thing when you’re up close. Daunting. And also somehow alive, but also completely impervious to your opinion. Mountains don’t care about anything other than being mountains. They exude confidence and stand, imperfect and unique with heads that peak above the clouds. The world rolls on around them and they stand stolidly. I’ve just spent some time hiking in them, walking between them, staring up at them and standing beside them and I feel like there’s a metaphor there that I’m trying to grasp and apply but it’s just past my fingertips.

I initially intended this post to be about lifting at worlds and then realized that it wasn’t going to be, really. There’s not much to say there other than that the meet unfolded and I can probably learn something from nearly everything that happened, both good and bad. Which is really all you can ask for out of any meet.

I’m on a plane heading home and things are still whirling around in my head and most of them aren’t actually to do with the competition itself. That was one day and brought an awful lot of new experiences and lessons that seem pretty important. I’m just not sure what to do with them all yet. This competition was actually less important than all the stuff surrounding it. After I finished lifting I sat in the warmup room and cried in relief and exhaustion; there was a wave of emotions that I cannot quite identify even now that simply needed to come out. I was so damned glad it was over that the results didn’t even hit me at all until much later. And maybe they haven’t really even yet because I don’t feel particularly bothered by them. All I know is that I am more happy about it being over than I am upset about not having the greatest of days on the platform, which maybe tells me a lot. I had planned to go hiking because I knew that what I desperately needed was to complete this training cycle and competition and then to switch gears rapidly to something completely not powerlifting. To something that lets me recharge and see things rationally and be some version of the old Vicky and to feel solid again.

This has been a spring of loss and learning new things to replace losses and being excited about the new while grieving the best parts of the old and sometimes doing both simultaneously. I haven’t posted much about it all because much is quite personal. But this past six months has been ragged and challenging and exhausting. I’ve been working down into a new weight class and struggling with believing that was possible and questioning if it was even advisable and true to who I am as a person and athlete. I’ve been working with a new coach. Following a completely different style of training that has forced me to learn to look for progress in different ways. Training with some new people (as well as some old). Training an awful lot by myself and as a consequence, learning to be strong in new ways. Sometimes not being able to be strong and then having to rebuild mentally and devise workarounds to get through things that feel like brick walls and my head slamming against them. I’ve been trying on a new way of thinking about work and life and family. All of this has required that I work very hard to construct a new way of seeing myself and wondering if I was actually losing important parts of myself in the process. I’ve had to learn to modify and prioritize my own expectations of myself as well as to carefully set aside those of others. I’m on a road with no map and tripping over my own feet a lot. I lost a friend whom I valued immensely in many ways and also a set of signposts for navigating training and progress. I’m honestly no longer sure where I’m going most of the time except I have this plan with goals that I wrote over a year ago and I’m using it as a kind of a vague destination. I’m just not sure of my navigation skills some days….. I’m on a detour that doesn’t look much like the road I just left and makes me question the ultimate goals pretty often.

I have been spending so much time outside of my comfort zone that I no longer know where the edges of that lie; they have expanded beyond recognition. You get used to being scared and out of your depth, and after a point it doesn’t feel like anything because being out of your depth is now within your depth. After a point you feel like you have simply gotten so used to not knowing that it’s not until something draws to a conclusion or close where you realize precisely how stressful and exhausting that not knowing has been. When you sit and cry in the warmup room not because you are disappointed that you placed second, but because you managed to place second despite things all going haywire in your life and finally it is blessedly over and you now have a choice about what comes next. And at a later point, some days after, you realize you are hiking alone through mountains and following a lot of very fresh bear tracks and you’re not at all scared or lonely. Just once again very aware of the importance of the decisions before you and curious as to how you’re going to find the energy to implement them without any help. And that this feeling is “normal” makes you understand how very often you have stared fear and loneliness in the face in some ways for so very long.

But mountains were maybe the right choice for this past week. Something so very large and solid has a grounding effect. Exquisite beauty and solitude have ways of making you understand the power and joy of all that learning to stand alone. When you’re walking with your life on your back and map in hand, you can see choices stretching before you without the voices of other folks intruding to help guide decisions. Reducing life to simply putting one foot in front of the other and dealing with what is directly surrounding you eliminates mental clutter and lets the batteries recharge. It is important to me that I am able to do things other than powerlift and that my body be capable of remarkable things in different ways. That part is something I want to explore more and this week was a small start.

And I don’t know what comes next.

Or how I’m going to find ways to layer the old parts with the new and what parts will pull me with the greatest force. I am so very tired and the things in front of me seem so very formidable. Sometimes mountains and dreams are so large that you cannot see the summit when you’re standing right in front of them. Stepping back sometimes is the only way to see the whole thing, but even then you have to once again move closer and risk losing that large, expansive perspective. You need it to be firmly in your mind’s eye before you step forward again.

Now that the time pressure of imminent competition has been removed I have a sense that I can let things fall more into place and figure out if I’m staring up at the wrong peak, if I’m more or less still on the right track, or if I’m still climbing the same mountain with a different route.

But the thing I realized this week about mountains and dreams is that they are also very patient and that I can have faith in their endurance; once you are rested they have a funny way of still being there if they were solid to begin with.

Mountains know secrets we need to learn. That it might take time, it might be hard, but if you just hold on long enough, you will find the strength to rise up.
(Tyler Knott)

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Vicky’s Note: A while back I asked John to write something about living with a powerlifter. I’m not sure quite what I expected, really. I know *I* find me hard to live with when training is particularly brutal so I was curious/a little afraid as to what he would say from his angle. I also know that without him, his support, perspective, sense of humour, unswerving belief in my strength and value, I would have a much harder time crawling back into the gym some days. So maybe what he has written here isn’t just about powerlifting. Maybe it’s about marriage and why ours works; it is held together by two people who each value what the other holds dear, even if they don’t always quite understand the whys.

My name is John, and I am a powerlifter’s spouse.  This entry is all about what it means to be a non-powerlifter to a powerlifting spouse, partner, significant other, or what have you.

I’ve watched Vicky’s career in lifting from its very inception, when her coach at the time suggested that she might like it.  From her very first meet in 2014, it was clear that this was something to which she was extremely well-suited, both mentally and physically.  She has more than her fair share of Stick-to-it-tiveness, and she was always naturally strong.

Over the past four years, she’s had a modicum of success in this sport.  Provincial Champion, three-time National Champion, and World Champion.  She holds more provincial and national records than I can conveniently count.  I’ve seen her stand on the top of an international podium, Maple Leaf wrapped around her shoulders, while our national anthem played in her honour.

I’ve also watched her earn a place of respect in the powerlifting community.  These are a dedicated bunch of men and women, who take note, not only of the numbers you put up on the platform, but also of your presence at every local meet, working behind the scenes and on the platform so that each lifter has every opportunity to have their best day.  Spotting.  Loading.  Commentating.  Running weigh-ins and equipment checks.  Refereeing.  There’s a host of volunteers who are essential to every meet, from the smallest to the largest, and Vicky’s done them all.  Most recently, she earned her certification as a National Referee, and serves on the Boards of the NLPA and helps out with the CPU.

This is what you see on the outside.  On the inside, there is work, sacrifice, exhaustion, frustration, blood, sweat, and tears.  Other lifters know about the work in the gym, the training.  Other volunteers know about the effort it takes to put off a successful meet.  Those who serve in the governing bodies of the sport know about the endless meetings and the countless hours spent in administration.  For every moment that goes spectacularly right, there are hours of grinding work, and not a few days of frustration of the beating-one’s head-off-the-wall variety.

Powerlifting spouses see all that, and sometimes, it can be hard to watch.  I’ve rejoiced in Vicky’s glory, and I’ve held her many many times when she comes home crying, feeling broken, and crumbling.  So here are my thoughts, in no particular order, on how best to support your lifting partner, gleaned from four years of watching my wife pick things up and put them down again.

1. You are a shoulder to lean on, a source of encouragement and support.  But you also owe your lifter the duty of honesty.  If a hard cycle of training or diet is truly exerting an ever-increasing downward pressure on your lifter and their family, then it’s up to you to remind them that lifting is only one part of their life – a very important part, one nonetheless, one facet.  Sit down with them.  Tell them this.  Talk.  Communicate.  You do neither yourself nor your lifter any favours by letting your worry turn to frustration and your frustration to resentment against the sport.   Even if it’s not important to you, it’s important to them.  They are important to you, and therefore it is important to you.  Remember too, it takes two people to argue.  You are a voice of reason and you are not out to score points.
2. You also need to realize that you are but one voice in your lifter’s head.  They have a coach, lifter friends, and non-lifter friends, all of whom will have their opinions, and to whom your lifter will listen to greater or lesser degrees.  You are an important voice, it is true, but don’t have the arrogance to presume that your lifter will listen to you to the exclusion of anyone else.  You are not a lifter; you can’t know what it is like to be inside the head of one.
3. Another really important thing to do is to take the time to learn about lifting.  It’s important to your partner, and they will want to talk about it.  If you learn about it, they will talk to you about it.  When the time comes for REALLY IMPORTANT conversations, they are more likely to listen to you, because you have taken the trouble to become knowledgable about this journey that they are on.  It’s harder for them to say, “you don’t understand” when you can discuss the finer point of locking out a deadlift, or why you should twist the legs of your singlet forward for the squat (it’s so the refs can see your hips break parallel, and so make depth).  (That’s a freebie.   Go find out the rest yourself.)
4. This is also important for social gatherings.  Powerlifters like to get together.  They like to talk about lifting.  If you go with your partner to some of these gatherings (and you should), or if you host them (and you should), then you will be able to at least follow the conversation, and occasionally ask an insightful question, or contribute a material point.  This will impress other lifters, who will appreciate the interest you show in the sport.  Just don’t try to be a know-it-all, or assert opinions that you really have no business presenting. They’ll know you’re faking, and will laugh you out of the room.
5. Do not be afraid to compare lifting with whatever sport or physical activity you are involved in.  Just be polite about it.  It’s a lot of fun being the only runner/triathlete/endurance guy in a room full of lifters.  They will say things like “You run how far?” And “Cardio is hardio” (this is a powerlifting joke.) Then you can say, “well, I can’t lift ‘x’ amount of weight, so there ya go.”  Hey presto, mutual respect and admiration.   If you’re not involved in a sport or physical activity, go find one. Walking around the block counts. Just get moving.  It’s good for you.
6. Encourage your lifter to have a life outside the gym.  This one requires the same subtle touch that communicating concern does.  Don’t say “just blow off training today; it’s only one day”.  That won’t work.  What will work is “you lift better when you are more relaxed.  You are more relaxed when you (go for a hike)(play board games with your family)(host your in-laws for dinner)[just kidding](build model airplanes)(have sex).  Why don’t you take your next rest day and do that?”
7. Lifters who are trying to cut weight are strange beasties.  Some of them “watch their macros”.  I’ve never seen one, and believe me, I’ve looked.  Nary a macro scurrying around our house that I can find.  Others count their calories, or weigh their food before they eat it.  All of them record all this stuff in great detail, and they can talk for HOURS about it.  If your partner is like this, don’t eat burgers and fries in front of them when they’re eating steamed chicken breasts and broccoli for the fourth day in a row. (What is it with the steamed chicken breasts stereotype, anyway?) Best thing to do is to take a minute to look at your own diet.  Could you eat a little better yourself?  Probably.  Making better food choices yourself can go a long way to helping your partner meet their own goals.
8. One of the weird side effects though, of people who are trying to cut weight, while still training like a demon, is that they can get a little moody.  When your lifter has reduced their intake and is training hard, it can have a profound effect on their emotional state – little things can more easily upset them – and their workouts will often feel harder than they would be otherwise.  If your lifter experiences the same thing, the absolute worst thing to do is to tell them to “get over it.” The preferred course is pats on the back, hot baths, and making sure they’ve had enough to eat.  Remind them to be gentle with themselves, and that whatever SOUL-DESTROYING MONSTER is riding them at the moment, it likely owes its existence to a rumbly tummy.  Putting them to bed early is also a good idea.
9. Go to their meets.  Sit in the audience, or if you can wangle it and they want it, be backstage.  Yell and scream when they lift, like you’re a teenager at an Elvis/Beatles/Stones/Van Halen/Nirvana/Nickelback/Ed Shirran concert.  Celebrate their successes with the same enthusiasm that you would want them to celebrate yours.  Learn to read them after they miss a lift, have a crappy meet, or even bomb out.  Find out the best way that you can support them when everything is turning to shit around them.  Everyone’s different, and you know your partner better than anyone, so figure out what they need from you and supply it.  It might be hugs.  It might be space.  It might be wine.  It’s often wine.
10. Be steadfast in your public support of your partner.  Other people may criticize.  “Why does she do that anyway?” DO NOT AGREE WITH THESE PEOPLE.  Outwardly, you are unwavering in your defence of your lifter.  If you have concerns about their health, etc., as above, keep them between you.  They are no one’s business but yours and your lifter’s.
11. Become an ambassador of the sport.  Since you’ve learned so much about it, when people ask, you will be able to tell them what it is, how it works, and most importantly, the level of detail to give – just shy of the eyes-glazing-over point. They are more likely to ask you than the lifter sometimes because you bridge the gap between those who lift and those who don’t.

So there you go.  Eleven points on how to survive and thrive being a non-powerlifter in a world full of people who think that a bar has nothing to do with drinks and wouldn’t think of eating off their plates. (Also point number 12 should be “Don’t take food from their plates.” Or if you do, count your fingers after.)

John Taylor-Hood is a triathlete, runner, hiker, and explorer-type mountain guy whose secret identity is hidden beneath a lawyer costume.

There was a deafening thud as the silence hit the table and John and I scrambled to find the right words for something that is actually extremely important to us both. It wasn’t until today, when I was at a store and John’s cousin asked if Katherine was excited about Christmas that I realized how hard her question had hit me and how worried I was about my response.

When you’re staring at a child who is rapidly becoming an adult before your eyes, trying to convey the importance of both growing up, but also of keeping lifelong that part of you that believes in Christmas and Santa is really tricky. It’s a delicate balance between incredible facts like flying reindeer and belief in Good, which has less to do with fact and more to do with faith and belief in your own power to make it so.

You see, both of us still do actually believe in Santa. Maybe not specifically in a large man in a red suit, but we believe in what he symbolizes and we hold fast to the magic of Christmas, the sparkle of lights, the magic of coming out in the wee hours of the morning and seeing the tree resplendent with ornaments, lights and presents, stockings filled, and the scotch gone and only crumbs left from the cookies. What we believe in is the power of love between people who both understand the need for the other to experience joy and wonder and to be cared for and treasured.

Every year each of us has stockings filled and they appear like magic sometime late on Christmas Eve. Every year there is a real tree, an adventure to get the tree, hot chocolate and cookies after the trip into the woods, the wrestling with the lights. Every year we open boxes of ornaments together and say, “oh do you remember this one on Grandma’s tree?” or “You gave me this one the first year we were together!” or “Oh this is your ornament from when you were a baby…” And we decorate the tree into the night and stare a little amazed at how the bits and baubles gathered over many lifetimes as far back as great-grandparents congregate here in this moment, how the lights catch the colours and memories and transfix them in our minds.

I’m 42 and I believe in Christmas a little more every year because every year I have more Christmases inside me.

But how do you tell a 14 year old that Christmas as children see it is only a faint shadow of the reality? How do you tell her that it’s more than the man in the red suit, that the Christmas spirit that children see is the beginning of the story? That now her part in it has changed and will grow as she does? How do you tell her that your own Christmas grew exponentially when she became a part of it?

Katherine, this is what I know.

Every year that you get older, you will get wiser.

You will get stronger.

You will become more capable.

As you grow, your capacity for joy and love increases if you let it.

You will meet more people and they will touch your life, your heart and your mind and you will touch theirs. Every person with whom you genuinely connect with will increase you.

As you grow you have the chance and choice to use your unique gifts to spread joy and help other people. Sometimes this will be at Christmas, but much of the time it will be small things thought the year. Christmas is a time when this force is focussed and people pay attention to each other; the magic of Christmas is in its ability to focus our hearts on giving and warmth, on lights in the darkness and time spent in good company.

The magic of Santa is really in the choices you make and the way you bring your own amazingness to the world and how other people’s lives are made better by your presence.

I believe in Santa Claus because I believe in the good people close to me, what they bring to my life, and what I give to theirs.

When you’re a child you learn about the joy that giving brings from the recipient’s end when Santa comes. This is to prepare you for the greater gift; that as an adult, you’ll learn the joy that your presence in the world can bring to those whom you love and those who need you.

You get to become Santa Claus and what he represents grows because you strengthen him.

It’s real, Katherine. It’s really real.

It’s November 20 and the thing I’m noticing is how short the days are becoming as this year draws to its close. It’s dark so early lately and each day the night gets a little larger. This weekend we dug out Christmas lights and started sprinkling the house with their glow in an effort to bring in the light a little and focus on the brightness and warmth that it brings.

I used to be a “shouldn’t put lights up before December 1st” person, but in the past year or so I’ve changed my mindset on that. I understand that the lights are not for everyone and that many choose to leave them until December 1st or later, but I love the lights. I love our home at Christmas. I love the warmth and joy that we share as a family and that connection makes me stronger. I have learned a few things from lifting and one of them is to look more closely and with greater interest at things that make you happy or stronger because those are the real keys to success and life.

I have also learned, through trial and error, that there is no “should”; there is only what works for you and yours (or me and mine) and what does not. I have also learned over the years that my choices will not necessarily work for anyone else and that’s absolutely okay. More than okay.

“Should” is applying an external standard to a situation. “Should” is a judgement. “Should” is an expectation. “Should” is a demand for one person to do a certain thing, act in a certain way, live in a certain place, have a family arrangement of a specific sort, or, well, anything really.

And when it comes right down to it, “should” is irrelevant.

I think lifting taught me a lot more about this in real depth in the past year. I’ve been watching many of the top lifters in the world and reading about them to understand what makes them tick. Success leaves clues, as my coach reminded me time and again, so I study success, looking for clues and ideas of how to get stronger.

I read about one athlete who trains the big lifts once every eight days, another athlete who rarely goes above 60% intensity in training, other athletes who train three days, four days, five days, or ten times a week. Some people squat daily. Others twice a week. There are some who succeed as vegans, others who live on potatoes and meat, still more who track macros and still others who just eat all sorts of things. Some people do more accessory exercises than main lifts. Others almost never do accessories. Some train in commercial gyms. Others in their basement. The variety is endless.

They all have one fundamental thing in common.

All of the top athletes that truly succeed at their sport, love their lives, and are happy people have made it their mission to discover and do what works for them.

They don’t follow other peoples’ programs. They don’t eat exactly what other people eat. They set up a training situation that they can live with and don’t worry about what the rest of the world thinks.

They learn continuously, by trial and error, what makes them stronger, happier, healthier, and they pursue that relentlessly without being distracted by those running alongside on a parallel but different path.

They look at other athletes and nod in appreciation at the success of that athlete’s path, but they don’t abandon their own.

They test new ideas, notice how things work and when they don’t, but they don’t program hop incessantly.

They confer with experts and share what they think they see with those who have both an external perspective and greater knowledge.

They decide how to balance lifting with the other parts of their lives and they make no apologies about how they do it.

They keep what works and sweep away what doesn’t. And they continue to learn a little at a time and to improve in small and manageable increments so as not to disturb the trajectory on which they have placed themselves.

None of this is easy. It comes over time, through building confidence in your own judgment. It comes from letting yourself make mistakes and being okay with those, but also looking at things that didn’t go as planned, trying to learn how to see the “why” of it, and learning to understand yourself better. It comes with seeing what works brilliantly and doing more of that until you exhaust its possibilities. It comes with accepting change and flowing with it.

It comes of following your own path deliberately and with eyes wide open to the glimmering brightness of opportunities that look like obstacles, possibilities that seem to be failures, and adventures that have no boundaries or end in sight.

I think I’ll put up some more lights tonight…..

1. When I accept you as a client or athlete, I accept your fight as my own. Your struggles become (in part) my struggles. Your failures and successes sit on my shoulders as well as yours. On good days and on bad, I feel the joys, frustrations, triumphs, and defeats along with you. When you and I decide to work together (and this is a mutual decision), we do so as a team and we share our strengths and tackle your challenges together. They aren’t just mine and they aren’t just yours. I provide the driving lessons, but you steer the car and it’s your foot on the gas. It takes both of us focussing in the same direction for this to work.
2. I try to see the whole of you and get the big picture of your life. I care about your family, career, hopes, and limitations, and all shape how I plan your workouts and what I teach you. If the balance seems off to you, it helps me a lot if you tell me.
3. I am not a drill sergeant. My role is more that of teacher. My job is to teach you things like how to do a Romanian deadlift, but it is also to teach you things that are essential to your success, like perseverance, resilience, working around injury, how to enjoy the feeling of working hard, how to make changes over time that add up to something substantial, and how to incorporate activity and fitness into your life. Teaching the deadlifts is the easy part.
4. There is a time and effort price tag attached to fitness and health. They also come with many rewards. To see the rewards, you have to put in the effort and time. There are no shortcuts for this and no miracle diets/pills/workouts. The “ten minutes a day for ripped abs” promises that you see on the internet which appear to good to be true…. yeah, they are.
5. The best results come from a series of changes in lifestyle that are learned gradually. The people who have the best success are the ones constantly seeking improvement and who persist even through setbacks. You know this. My job is to remind you and help you find ways to keep going.
6. I don’t see you as fat, out of shape, weak or any of the words you sometimes use for yourself. I see a human being who wants to improve or I wouldn’t see you in front of me in the gym at all. You hear me use words like “stronger,” “better form”, “improved nutritional habits” or “changing body shape/leaner” that you think are to reassure you but they are more than that. I am giving you new words to describe yourself. Words that will help you change your reality. You ARE stronger. You will continue to be so. You ARE changing all the time. The reality of your words will shape your future. I know this from experience. What you call yourself, you become.
7. I cannot care more about your success than you do. I can carry you for very short times, like on bad days, or when you need a boost, but the driving force of your health and fitness has to be your own desire to improve. My shoulders are strong but so are yours.
8. If you cancel sessions, I lose income, it is true, but that is actually not the first thing I think about. When you cancel sessions for reasons other than illness or disaster (I.e. family emergencies), my first thought is to worry about how you are doing and if your health is being impacted by choices you are making. I cannot make those choices for you, but part of my job is to teach you how to work through and adapt to injury, exhaustion, and stress. Part of my function is to be a stabilizing influence when careers get demanding and you need a safe place to do something that is for you and you alone. When you cancel, I worry that you are not taking care of yourself. I know that you can’t care for others or live as well if you don’t care for yourself.
9. My life can be coloured by your attitudes and moods. When you come into the gym after a hard day, I pick up on that. When your words are chronically negative, I hear them and have to filter them out so that they don’t stay in my own head. I am also human and I absorb that energy and have to work to dispel it. If I step under the bar to do my own training with those words in my head, the weights are heavier. When you walk into the gym and tell me that you’ve had a rough day, but are willing to work and that your fitness is important, I have a much easier job of helping both of us send that negative energy packing.
10. I do not ask you to work any harder than I work myself. I fight the same battles as you do in many ways. I am a mother and wife, I have a career and a house and a car that is in the shop because it needs the winter tires changed just like you. I also sweat, bleed, fight through injuries, collapse in exhaustion, and cry in frustration when I encounter obstacles. I spend hours and hours each week forcing myself to work harder and get better. I do exercises that I’m not so great at and I work hard at getting better. Wherever I am asking you to go, I have already gone and I know from experience that it’s possible.
11. I am a student and you are my teachers. Every one of you is unique, with unique challenges and gifts and learning how to use and work with those is my classroom. I also learn from other coaches and athletes, but the most important lessons I learn come from the challenges of helping you find success and I really enjoy the creativity of problem solving that goes into that.
12. When you work hard, I often carry that memory into my own training sessions. I use your positivity and success to fuel my own fire. I am immensely grateful for it. More than you can possibly know.
13. I enjoy my job hugely and would not want any other. You are a large part of that and I thank you.

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