THE WORK IS NEVER FINISHED, EVEN AS A COACH

I have spent most of my life being really good under pressure, as long as I was the one in control. Growing up as an athlete, I could work hard and lock in better than anyone I know.

But put me somewhere unfamiliar, where I don't know the rules and I'm effectively a beginner (welcome Muay Thai to my life), and a completely different version of me shows up. One that would rather not start than risk not being good at it yet, especially publicly.

You're probably thinking, Caity, no one cares, we do weightlifting. But I promise there is some wisdom for you in this story.

As you all know, at MWBC we coach athletes out of this pattern every week on the gym floor. Last weekend I was reminded I haven't fully finished doing it myself.

My Muay Thai coach had been asking me to do an interclub sparring day for months. I kept saying no, and I had a good story ready every time he asked. I told myself I was too competitive for it, that I'd take it too far and make it too serious when it was meant to be fun, and that I just didn't have the capacity for that right now with everything else going on in my life.

Every part of that story was believable, and all of it was true. But most of it was also a way of avoiding something hard that I didn't feel ready for. Being seen as a beginner. Showing up in an environment where I'm not in control.

If you train at MWBC, you'll recognise this in yourself, or maybe in your training partners. It's the athlete who says they're not competing this cycle because work is busy, when work has been busy for three cycles running with no slowdown in sight. It's the lifter who keeps pushing back their first comp because they want to be more consistent first, and consistency never quite arrives because they keep moving the goal posts.

Competitiveness, busyness, wanting to be ready, these are all real things. They are also some of the most convenient excuses a driven person can use to stay comfortable.

The pattern underneath mine was perfectionism. The kind that doesn't look like perfectionism, because it dresses itself up as self-awareness. I know myself well enough to know this isn't the right time. Except the right time never actually arrives, because the discomfort that's stopping you is always there, and there is always a reason to wait it out a little longer.

I train between 6 and 8 hours a week in Muay Thai. I have a coach. I drill technique consistently. Training feels comfortable. I understand the environment, and it doesn't test my capacity the way actually facing someone in the ring does. If I kept avoiding the sparring day, I was putting in all that effort and never finding out if I was actually progressing.

This is the exact thing I watch happen on the platform at MWBC. Athletes who train hard, week after week, and then find a reason to not commit to the lift, sit out the comp, or talk themselves out of the PB attempt they've been training the whole cycle toward. That is not falling in love with the process. That is using the process to avoid the moment it was supposed to prepare you for, and then wondering why training doesn't feel as satisfying as it should.

What I was really doing was making the sparring day mean something it didn't need to mean. Whether I was capable. Whether I was good enough. Whether I could perform outside the one environment where I already know I'm competent.

When you attach that much weight to an outcome, you can't be present. You can't actually learn anything from the experience. You definitely can't enjoy it. Six to eight hours a week is a real investment. Putting in those hours and then refusing to find out what they've built you toward is one of the more expensive things a driven person can do to themselves without realising it.

So I went. It was uncomfortable, and it was also genuinely fun. I learned things about how I move, how I respond under pressure, how much I actually enjoy this sport when I stop making it a referendum on my worth. I got punched in the face a few times, and I punched her in the face a heap. Sorry, lol.

The confidence I came away with had nothing to do with how I performed relative to anyone else in that room. It came from choosing to be in it fully, present, uncomfortable, and open to whatever the day was going to give me.

That is the version of the process I keep asking you to trust when you step on the platform, walk into a comp, or try a weight you haven't done before. Train hard. Then let the moment you trained for actually be a moment, not a test you've already decided you'll fail.

It's way more fun that way too.

—MWBC Coaching Team