I spent most of my life operating with a pretty rigid mindset about training and showing up. Early on, I believed that how you felt didn’t matter. If you committed to training, you showed up, period. Your emotions, your physical state, what was happening in your life outside the gym, none of it factored in. You got to the gym and you trained. That was non negotiable.
As I got older, that philosophy started to shift. I noticed that showing up half committed or running on empty didn’t really serve anyone, least of all me. I started thinking if you’re not 100 percent ready to put in the work, then maybe you’re better off staying home and letting yourself recover.
I teach Zumba, and it’s been one of the best decisions I’ve made. You can’t fake Zumba the way you might phone it in at the regular gym. The energy and presence required are real. Over nearly ten years of teaching, I’ve only missed six classes due to illness. That’s roughly once every two years. My track record is something I’m proud of.
But I’ve toggled between those two extremes for a long time. Early in my career, I was all in, every single time. No exceptions. Now I’m trying to find middle ground. Three times a week feels like it should be my baseline given my health, though honestly it’s half of what I used to do. My body has taken its share of wear and tear, and my lifting capacity isn’t what it once was. Still, I show up a few times weekly and get in some decent training sessions.
Recently I made a decision to stay home from Zumba because I wasn’t feeling well. It was a moment where I thought about all the times I’d pushed through sickness for the sake of showing up. I’d sacrificed my body plenty of times before. This time I decided to listen to what I actually needed.
Finding that middle ground is harder than it sounds for me. I tend to operate in absolutes, one extreme or the other. That gray area in the middle where balance lives has always been a struggle. Some days I get it right. Other days I’m still working on it.
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