Let me tell you about a Facebook message I got a few days ago. The guy who sent it to me had recently competed in his first Olympic weightlifting meet, and had a pretty rough performance. He told me the biggest problem he struggled with throughout the competition was his nerves and adrenaline. He wasn’t able to control his anxiety and he freaked out, causing a lot of missed lifts.
 
But the interesting part of the message was when this guy told me a little about his personal background. He’s a military guy, part of a Special Forces unit, and he’s a combat veteran with plenty of real-life battle experience. In his own words, the weightlifting meet was more stressful than some of the gun fights he’s been in.
 
Pretty heavy stuff, folks. This guy has been in situations where enemy soldiers were literally trying to kill him, and he said an Olympic lifting competition was mentally tougher than those times. And he’s not the first combat veteran I’ve heard that from.
 
Now don’t get carried away and think I’m going to write an article about how weightlifting is tougher than war and battle. I’m not saying that. I’ve competed in a ton of meets and I know how challenging they are, but I’ve never been in military combat, so I’m certainly not going to make any stupid statements that would diminish or minimize the deadly fights our armed forces have to go through.
 
Basically, I’m telling you about that Facebook message to introduce the real topic of this article. This guy was asking me for input about how to improve his mental toughness and meet performance. In other words, he wants to become a better competitor.
 
We’re all trying to become something, aren’t we? I’m not just talking about the basic stuff when I say that. Things like technique, strength development, speed, etc…we’re all trying to gain those. But when I talk about “becoming” something, I’m going a little deeper than just the nuts and bolts of improving your weightlifting ability.
 
Am I talking about becoming a different kind of person? Yeah, I guess I am talking about that, in a lot of ways. I’ve written in the past about how weightlifting changes your personality and your mental perspective on…well, basically everything. Most of you have first-hand experience with this, because you’ve seen it in your own lives.
 
However, I also think there are times when people get started in this sport because they want to change themselves into something better than what they’ve been in the past. I don’t know if we’re talking about weightlifting like it’s a drug rehab program or Alcoholics Anonymous, although I know it’s very possible that it can serve that kind of function with some people.
 
Listen, I want to explore this area a little bit. Many of us believe we’re constantly evolving in our lives, going through different stages and experiences that often steer us in changing directions and lead us to whatever destination we’re ultimately going to land at. In many cases, that destination winds up being quite a bit different from where we originally intended to be when we were getting the whole thing started.
 
How does weightlifting factor into this process? If you’re a coach or athlete, why should you be interested in the subject of how our sport causes you to become something new? I’ve got answers to those questions, so keep reading.
 
A Real World Example…
 
Let me tell you a little story that basically nails this whole topic right in the bullseye. Back in the 90s, I was running a weightlifting program at a high school. It had developed into something pretty solid and successful, with lots of young new lifters joining the team and getting involved in Olympic lifting. Some of them had qualified for national competition (and done quite well). You get the idea. It was a fun program that was doing great things for a lot of kids and also helping build the sport.
 
After a few years, a kid came to me and asked if he could join the program. Now, I have to tell you about the back story with this kid. I knew who he was, and not for the right reasons. He was a bit of a troublemaker on campus. He was a skater, with all the usual trimmings that go along with that. Spiky hair, baggy pants, earrings, chains, spiked leather belts and wristbands, etc. I also knew about some of the little stunts this kid had pulled at school. He hadn’t been expelled or arrested or anything like that, but he had definitely broken plenty of rules and gotten in plenty of trouble. To make a long story short, he wasn’t the kind of kid I wanted in my program.
 
And despite that, he wanted to start lifting for me. He had the guts to walk in the big scary weight room and ask the big scary coach for a spot on the team. That caught my attention. He also came in with a totally respectful attitude, no stupid punk behavior or mannerisms, etc. It looked like he was openly trying to make me think he wasn’t what I thought he was. He knew what I thought of him, and he gave off a lot of signals that he wanted to prove me wrong.
 
I decided to give him a shot, but let me tell you how I did it. Obviously this was years ago and I don’t remember the conversation word-for-word, but I’m pretty sure I can nail this almost exactly because I’ve given this same speech more than once over the years. I said: “Listen, I’m gonna give you a chance. I’ll let you join the program, and I’ll coach you. But I need you to understand…this is a one-shot thing. If you screw up once, I’ll kick your ass out of here. You’ve got a bad track record, and I’m not going to let somebody join this gym and cause trouble. If you do the right thing and follow the rules, I’ll work with you. If you give me any problems, you’re gone. One chance is all you get. Make sure you’re okay with that before you decide to try this. ”
 
Harsh words, I know. But that’s what I thought the kid needed. He needed somebody to make the rules very clear, he needed boundaries, and he needed a chance. So I gave him all those things.
 
How did it go? Fortunately, this is a great story. He went on to be one of the best lifters in my program. He qualified for both Junior Nationals and the American Open when he was still in high school, and competed well in both of them, coming very close to qualifying for the Junior National Squad. He became a state champion. He also got his grades up, went to college, started dressing like a jock instead of a juvenile delinquent, and basically turned into one of the athletes I’m most proud of when I look back on my coaching career up to this point.
 
When I look back at this kid’s journey, it’s extremely clear that he wanted to become something different in his life. He could have just kept rolling around on his skateboard and causing trouble, but he didn’t. He spotted a new world where he thought he could go somewhere, accomplish something, whatever. He asked for a chance to join that world, and he was given one shot at it. The results he produced, along with the changes that happened in his life, proved something to us…this kid was ready to change himself.
 
Okay, me too…
 
Our lives change over time, and most of you already know this because you’re older and you’ve seen it happen. I don’t think many people are exactly the same at 35 as they were at 19. Maybe these changes are big, and maybe they’re small. Maybe we make them happen through our own efforts, or maybe they’re caused by circumstances that we don’t have any more control over than a feather has when it gets blown through the wind.
 
The kid I told you about…he controlled his changes. I controlled mine too. I can positively tell you the whole reason I started lifting weights when I was a teenager was because I was a fat kid who got picked on and beat up a lot, and I wanted to make my body big and strong enough to stop people from pushing me around. Years of taking abuse and getting ridiculed were tearing me down, and lifting weights seemed like a good way to change it. If I worked hard enough to turn myself into a muscle guy, nobody would disrespect me anymore. So I started working out, I was pretty strong, some guys told me about weightlifting meets, I started competing, some coaches noticed me, and the rest is history. It all started from a desire to become something. How about it? Can any of you relate?
 
Let me ask you a few questions, and let’s try to find some answers. First of all, how different are you right now compared to what you used to be years ago? I have a feeling some of these answers are going to be significant, and some might be minor. Hey, we all know there are people whose personalities basically get fully formed when they’re young, with almost no major changes. It’s rare, but it happens. For many of us, however, the whole road we’re traveling is different from where we started in our younger years.
 
Second, are there any changes you can see on the road ahead? Ooohhh, this one might be scary. Think about it…what if you’re 40 years old right now with a nice stable life you’ve worked for years to build, and there’s some kind of possibility hanging out there that you might be in a completely different spot in the future?
 
Third, where does weightlifting fit in with all of this? I don’t want this article to get too far away from lifting, so let’s make sure we keep it locked into something that applies to your life as an athlete or coach. Actually, let’s transition into some final thoughts as we delve into that last question….
 
Getting closer, and moving away…
 
What if you have to move away from your weightlifting career, or possibly relegate it to a smaller role in your life? There are all kinds of reasons why this might have to happen. Injuries might force you into this position. You might have a professional change that makes training almost impossible. Or you might have some big family developments that require you to spend less time in the gym.
 
Or…maybe things are going in the opposite direction. Maybe your life is changing because you’re going deeper into the sport. Maybe you’re thinking about making weightlifting your business? Starting a gym, becoming a full-time coach, etc. You’re going to shift it up a notch from a fun hobby to your source of income.
 
I suppose a pretty important question at this point is, “Are you feeling good about these changes, or do they bring a lot of uncertainty in your life? ”Some people have a difficult time feeling good about their lives if they’re not intensely engaged in a competitive sport, so the idea of doing what we first suggested…moving weightlifting into a smaller role in your life…might be stressful. It might actually make you wonder if you’ll still be a happy person without it. And the idea of making weightlifting your business and using it to pay your bills? Listen, there’s no way you can make that move without stress. Everything gets scary when your house payment depends on it.
 
However, I think we need to move towards finishing this with the idea that you’re going to have to pick a direction at some point, and you need to make up your mind ahead of time if you’re comfortable with the changes it could possibly bring into your life. If you know you’re going to become something different, and you know weightlifting is connected to it, it’s very important to make sure you feel solid with the possibility of how you could wind up. There are a thousand different combinations of how this could actually transpire in your life.
 
Listen, this article isn’t about programming, technique, or injury management. We all know those things are crucial to read about when you’re in weightlifting, and there’s no shortage of articles about them. I’ve written about all of those topics extensively, and I’ll continue to hit them more in the future. But people have told me quite a few times over the years that they enjoy my articles because I write about weightlifting and life, instead of just weightlifting. I know many of you are adults. When you’re an adult, you have to think about your life, and that means the whole big picture. It’s more stressful this way, because there are several considerations you have to juggle and you’ve often got other people’s happiness connected to your decisions.
 
Whether you like it or not, you’re probably going to continue becoming something in your future years. Unless you’re one of those people who stays exactly the same from early adulthood until death, you’ll likely have a few more changes on your road to the rocking chair. It’s impossible to plan all of these. We all know that. However, I think it’s important to anticipate as many of them as possible, because we want to be ready for anything. And since you’re serious enough about weightlifting to be reading this magazine, I know the barbell will be a factor in the equation.
 
Marcel Proust once wrote about the house he lived in as a kid, how it had been demolished in his adult years after he grew up and moved out. He wrote, “It was long ago demolished. And in myself too, many things have perished which, I imagined, would last forever, and new structures have arisen, giving birth to new sorrows and new joys. ” Just like his old home, certain things in his life got torn down and erased as he grew up, and then new things replaced them. I think that’s how it works for all of us, and it’s certainly something that can happen when you fall in love with Olympic weightlifting. Some parts of your life will end, and new ones will begin.