CrossFit Athletic Group

On August 18, 2023, Lily Cavataio cleaned her room. Without being asked. And it was not just the standard stuff-your-underpants-in-the-shirt-drawer cleaning, but a thorough cleanse worthy of any Mrs. Burton green smoothie diet; in the span of 3 hours, Lily picked off all the crusted potato chips stuck to the carpet, threw away the piles and piles of love letters from desperate boys, hung up her One Direction poster, filled her pet hamster named Larry's water bowl up for the first time in 3 months, organized all of her Barbie dolls by favorite to least favorite, and scrubbed the walls with a soap and rag.

For whatever reason, she told me this was the highlight of her day (though, I maaaaayyyy have misremembered some of the details about said cleaning). But more surprising than that was the follow-up question:

Chris: "Do you clean your room like that when your parents ask you?"

Lily: "No, when they ask I either don't clean it or I just throw stuff wherever."

Chris: "So why did you clean it so well this time."

Lily: "Because I wanted to."

"No dad, those are MY Barbies!"

Now it is your turn to participate in this story: dig through your brains (should only take about 3 seconds for Aaron) to find an example of when you were Lily. When did you do something just because someone wanted you to do it. What was your effort like? Of what kind of quality did you do that thing?

Now, think of something you did because you wanted to do it.`Notice the difference in the finished product, and how much worse it would have been if you did it under different curcumstances. Lily's started with a thought: I would feel better if my room wasn't a mess. Then came the desire: I want to clean my room. Then came the 3 hours of action.

Dr. Romanov of the Pose Method for running cites old philosphers all the time, and they all point to a universal order of operations for movement:

Thoughts ----> Desires -----> Actions

For so long, my coaching focus had been on the actions; get your attendance up, compete in this shooting drill, stay in Pose, lose the FAPs, eat a balanced meal, keep your shins vertical. For some that works and for others it didn't. My gut feeling says that for the ones that didn't, I was basically asking them to clean their room, and they did the bare minimum to get me to direct my attention to someone else for the workout or practice. But since around Christmas time, I've been trying to direct my coaching away from actions and be more sensitive towards desires. Lily's story is a great reminder that I don't want Lily, and the rest of the Monkeys, to come to the gym more, I want to help them want to come to the gym more.