When we meet with a prospective member, one of the first questions we ask is: “where would you like to be in six months?”  The idea is to get the athlete thinking, in relatively concrete terms, about where a new exercise program and community might take her.

We routinely hear answers like ‘more energy at the end of the day,’ ‘feeling much stronger,’ ‘twenty pounds lighter,’ these sorts of things.  Our job in that first conversation is to help the athlete see, very clearly, what is possible and what he’s already doing right in service of his goals.  We build on success.

This is a standard paradigm–results-oriented training.  And when it works, it works awfully well.  Folks see the light at the end of the first tunnel, and then the next.  The picture of who you might become can be an incredibly powerful motivator.

But there’s a deeper level available.  It is to fall in love with the process.  At Woodshed, we believe in the maintenance of standards and rituals: we squat on Mondays, we keep records of the gym’s best lifts and times, and we encourage athletes to become custodians of their own journeys.  This is intentional because we believe in the joy of intentional process.

Put another way, what if the first question was “What do I love to do?”  What are the things that don’t just feel like tools but also like ends in themselves?  I run because I love the way it makes me feel AND because I know that when I run, I’ll be able to run a little bit longer the next time.  Or I deadlift because it makes my back feel stronger AND because I know I want to deadlift more.

Or…I come to class 2-3 times a week because it sets me up for a great month AND it gets me into a routine that eventually enables 3-4 times a week.

It’s not intuitive, not at first, but process-oriented training and thinking has been a godsend for many of our athletes, particularly when life’s various slings and arrows push results a little further down the road than we’d like.  If this makes sense or piques your interest, we’d love to hear from you!  Click here to start the conversation by booking a free No Sweat Intro with us, and let’s see if we can fall in love with the process together.