If There’s A Will

I remember when I was a kid - 11 or 12 maybe - my Grandma Nancy took us kids to see Rocky IV at the old Village Cinema Theatre. In this installment, Ivan Drago kills Apollo Creed during an exhibition match, after which Rocky avenges his death by flying to Russia to train for a fight with Drago on Christmas Day.

There’s a striking difference in the way the two men train with most of Drago’s scenes taking place in high-tech, modern gyms and in labs where he receives regular doses of steroids. Meanwhile, Rocky is in a remote cabin chucking rocks into a wheelbarrow, carrying logs on his shoulder through waist-deep snow, and pulling Paulie around on a sled that he’s strapped to as if he were a mule.

It’s such a good movie, and I remember my cousins and I standing to cheer in the final scene as if we were at an actual boxing match!

The next day, I decided I was going to train like Rocky, and I build a fairly elaborate “gym” in my backyard, mimicking his setup. I had it all - the wheelbarrow, rocks, and a big log.

Actually, it was probably more of a medium-sized stick, come to think of it, but you get the point. I moved some rocks around, hoisted the stick on my shoulder a few times, and then got ready for the main event: an all-out battle with the punching bag I’d made.

After filling a heavy-duty garbage bag with some mason’s sand, I'd hoisted it onto a tree branch and tied it off. I approached the bag, eyeballing it menacingly just the way Rocky had looked at Drago while shaking out my shoulders and trying to flex my chest. Having never been in a fight, I didn’t really know what I was doing, so I just reared back and swung as hard as I could.

If by chance, you’ve often wondered if a bag full of masonry sand is nearly as hard as a concrete wall, I’ll save you the trouble of researching the topic and tell you that it is. The pain was blinding, I felt like I’d punched the side of our house, and for all that bag moved when I hit it, I may as well have.

My dreams of becoming a prizefighter died that afternoon, right there in the backyard of my childhood home.

I hadn't thought about that day in a long time, not since I was a kid, but I remembered it yesterday afternoon when I was reading through the posts in my GRIT group. Yesterday was the first day of the May session and we’ve got more new folks this month. The new guys always surprise me with their determination and ingenuity when it comes to equipment.

We’ve got people using book bags full of rocks instead of commercial sandbags.

Milk jugs instead of kettlebells.

Tree branches and deck ledges rather than pull-up bars.

And, while nobody has done the day’s work in a remote cabin in Russia yet, people have done them in airports, shopping malls, hospitals, and waiting rooms.

It’s incredible to watch and a great reminder that between the will and the way, it's the will that matters most.

Often, we put too much focus on the way and get so bogged down in details that we can’t even get started. And, just as often, this is nothing more than a distraction from admitting to ourselves that we don’t want the new job, the improved marriage, or the sizable savings account as bad as we say we want it.

It's not that the details don’t matter; they do.

Just not as much as the will.

Develop the will first because when you have it in the form of a real, honest-to-God, burning desire to achieve, you will always find a way.