DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE

I often find myself spinning down a rabbit hole on YouTube. Sometimes it is meaningless junk that just jumps out at me for no particular reason. While at other times, something I watch provides a message that seems to be just what I needed to hear in that moment. Funny how that works.

I was watching commencement speeches (weird, I know) and stumbled across Jim Carrey's speech that I'm sure some of you have seen/heard. I watched the entire 26 minutes of it and found myself devouring the information that he was sharing with the graduating class of 2014. 

This entire trip down the rabbit hole got me thinking....

If I find value from these messages and lessons, surely others will too.

So, below you will find the tail end of Jim Carrey's speech. I realize that y'all probably don't have 26 minutes to *hopefully* receive a meaningful message from a YouTube video, but if you can open up to the idea and watch the last 5 minutes provided below, I think you'll get something valuable from it. At least that is my intention with this post.

And if this one doesn't do it for you, maybe the next one will, as I think this may become a regular thing for Sunday mornings. We'll see.

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STANDARDS - SET, HOLD, RAISE

I'm not going to lie....

I have very high expectations for the men and women in my program. I know that each and every coach here at TCS also expects a lot out of their athletes. We don't make unrealistic requests of you. We ask for just a little bit more than what you think you can muster....just so you can prove yourself wrong (in the best way possible). And in doing so, we expect you hold your standards - whatever your capabilities and fitness level may be. 

Standards are there for a very specific purpose: they indicate when you have developed a certain skill past a previously set standard and now need to raise that standard to a new level.....ultimately leading to mastery of that skill.

Wavering in your determination to maintain what is your standard at the time, means you have decided and allowed yourself to slide. You have given yourself a pass to perform at a lower level than you know your capable of. And that just will not do. Not here.

We ask a lot of you. We get that. But, again, we only ask these things of you so that you can push past limitations and find new standards. Scaling and subbing movements may not be fun, sexy or cool, but it is appropriate at times in order for you to build the capability to reach that next level. You can't get there unless you've met your current standards and are unwavering in your commitment to them.

Standards, holding your standards and raising your standards are all things that are not often seen in this time. Complacency is far more common, unfortunately. Apply this idea of standards consciously, and you will find tremendous value in it......In the gym and out.