Got faith?

My drive to work has me passing a synagogue. On my way in tonight I noticed quite a few older men walking, dressed in suits wearing their Tzitzit and remembered that they are celebrating Rosh Hashanah. My best friend from high school is Jewish and I spent many Jewish holidays with her. I have always thought that Judaism is a beautiful religion and am amazed at the depth of their faith.

This led me to think about faith and what that means to me. The Merriam-Webster’s dictionary defines faith as:

1. a: allegiance to duty or a person : loyalty

b (1): fidelity to one’s promises (2): sincerity of intentions

2. a (1): belief and trust in and loyalty to God (2): belief in the traditional doctrines of a religion

b (1): firm belief in something for which there is no proof (2): complete trust

3. : something that is believed especially with strong conviction; especially: a system of religious beliefs

I think that most people correlate “faith” with religion but to be truly successful we need to apply faith to more areas of our life. Faith to me is more about believing in something that I cannot see. It’s being willing to put in work believing the results will come.

Faith is: eating a clean diet that contains more fat and calories than a pyramid tells me to eat; going against everything that I’ve been taught about food; believing in the process when the scale goes up but your pants size goes down; being prepared to put on my armor for the onslaught of criticism that I may receive because my belief is different; understanding that to be successful I have to do that which is hard and trust that the process may take longer than a 60 minute TV show.

Faith is: adding more weight to the bar when my coach says, “that looks really easy. I think you can do more” and taking some off when they say “your form is suffering”; listening when they say it’s time to rest after you’ve been to the gym multiple days in a row; putting the ego aside when they say no you can’t kip until you can do it strict; listening and implementing the advice if you ask why you haven’t progressed like you feel you should have. I have to trust what they see because I know they want me to maximize my potential. I am trusting my coaches to lead me in the right direction believing they have my best interest in mind.

Faith isn’t easy but it comes naturally. We inherently want to believe in something. All you have to do is look at a CrossFit Kids class. Those kids are so excited to try and do. If you tell them that they CAN do something they will try and achieve. It’s us adults who screw it up. We tell each other that “It can’t be done” or “no one’s been successful doing it like that” or “that’s too hard”. It is fear of what they can’t see instead of trusting in what they can’t see that keeps people stagnant and unwilling to change.

Don’t be that person. If you believe in your journey then keep stepping out on faith that you will meet your goal. Be prepared for the obstacles because there will be some but if you have faith(trust) in the process you WILL NOT FAIL!

Ciao bella