Don’t Let the Weakness In You Affect the Greatness In You
Written by Invictus Member Kim Belton
I feel like something finally clicked for me. It’s my confidence. I think I’m confident, I feel like I’m confident. But I’m not. I’ve seen it in everything from my work to my school and it is blatantly slapping me in the face in the gym.
Confidence is never something I had a problem with – I was in the Marines for eight years. Confidence was never an issue; my cockiness was. Even while I was married I remember my ex-husband would always tell me that I need to take it down a notch. But I always felt that since the Marines was a male-dominant organization that in order to be seen as equal as the men, I had to be better than them. Not only just better, but I can’t fail, ever. So I was better than most and I made sure to never fail at any cost. C’mon, Nobody would tell a man to take it down a notch so why should I?
Then I found CrossFit in 2011, and I like to think that CrossFit humbled me perfectly. I would spend hours in the gym on Saturday mornings trying to perfect my lifts and got used to falling on my butt a couple of times. I would fail and it made me more determined to keep trying and to fix my flaws. Even when I got my first muscle-up, I remember it was a Friday night in the gym and I looked at my coach and said “I’m not going home until I get a muscle up tonight.” He replied “Lucky for you because I have a six-pack in the fridge.”
I got my first muscle up that night. I filmed every single attempt because I WAS going to do it.
But then I went through a divorce in 2014. I’m not too sure how much you know of this (because it certainly something I’ve tried to grow and move on from). But it was a devastating divorce and in the beginning I had no idea how to even begin to put the pieces of my life back together. But with the girls (4pm Sorority Crew) that are like family to me now, my family back in North Carolina and CrossFit – I’ve stayed sane and am proud that I made it through. For the most part I think that part of my life is behind me but truth be told, some of the effects of it still remain and that is my confidence.
The point of this is that I am seeing my (biggest) flaw and what needs work. And I just want to thank you for not only your expertise, but the patience you have with me and for seeing the potential in me that I forgot about a long time ago.
Coach Bryce’s Note: This is a wonderful email from Invictus member Kim Belton. As you can see, CrossFit is about so much more than just exercising at high intensity. No one’s life is a smooth sail. We all come across stormy weather, but it is this adversity and struggle, or more specifically our resilience to the challenges that makes us strong. Every adversity, every failure, and every heartache carries with it the seed of an equal or greater benefit.
Kim you inspire me each and every day to have the confidence and the bravery to put myself out there and expose my weaknesses in order to make them strengths. Thank you Kim for being such a great example to me and our community, and showing that it is okay to be vulnerable. Sometimes you have to allow yourself to be weak in order to grow stronger. For those of you out there hiding your weaknesses, always remember this: Strength doesn’t come from what you can do, it comes from overcoming the things you once thought you couldn’t. Oh and Kim also back squatted two-hundred and twenty pounds for twenty unbroken reps…now that takes some guts!
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