Sometimes, we get to the gym, hyped as always, ready to lift/workout, only to find that we can’t lift as much weight as usual, or have much less intensity than we ought to. I have witnessed people (including myself) become depressed, disappointed or frustrated after such an occurrence. Getting all exited to lift the weight, break that PR, only to find out your warm up sets feel heavier than your working sets usually do. This, my friends, is a golden opportunity in disguise.

How can we know we are something, if we have never been the opposite? In the absence of what we are not, is what we are. When you are weak, you are given the chance to be strong. One can not be strong without having been weak, as there is nothing to compare “strong” too. This is simply relativity, the way our physical world functions. I can not be one thing without comparing it to being its opposite. There’s no getting around it, this is what creates our world. I will never be old, if I have never been young first. You can not say 300lbs is your best, if you’ve never had something worse to compare it to.

Now, when you get into that state of disappointment and frustration, you have the opportunity to experience the exact opposite, success and joy. Simply change your sate of being to reflect this. Acknowledge the situation for what it is, acknowledge how you feel. Now change how you feel, realizing that you can now achieve something great, because you have just experienced something lame. Changing how you feel will thus provide you the strength and determination to power through this seemingly impossible plateau, and lead to you feeling exactly opposite to how you felt before! You might even break a PR! I have seen this happen, and it is miraculous, yet so simple. This barrier is not a physical barrier, but rather a mental block. Simply change your perspective to that of the Truth (seeing the situation for what it is) and use it to your advantage. Create something great out of something not so great. Use one opposite to create the other. You created this state of being for yourself, so now create the opposite!