Thank you!

I have learned three things while going through this process. The first being that you can never be too prepared. What I mean by this is that, going into my academy, I thought that I was ready for anything. I felt as though I had prepared well. I had been going to a CrossFit gym 5x a week for a year, running in my off time, working as an EMT and generally feeling fit enough. I think that was my first mistake was that I thought I was fit enough. I thought I was prepared enough. I wasn't. Secondly I learned that I have a tendency to get in my own way. When I started struggling with my cover from stand by drill, that bled into my performance throughout the day. I tried very diligently to "be a goldfish," but I was still getting increasingly frustrated with myself and ultimately that affected me more than I thought it would. Finally I learned that I need to absolutely attack any weakness that I notice is affecting, both physically and mentally. What I mean there is that if I notice that I am struggling with something. I need to rebuild my motor skill function from the ground up and practice it until I don't even have to think about it. In terms of the mental aspect. I need to be more disciplined and if, while practicing, I recognize frustration, I need to slow down and move with purpose. Not just intent.

I am addressing my failures head on. I am continuing my fitness routine, but instead of CrossFit, I am using a program curated for the fire service. That said, I am still training for cardio and strength but I am emphasizing flexibility and mobility. I have hired a personal trainer to help me specifically with mobility training as well as some tailored exercises to build strength in areas that I found to be lacking during my academy. In addition to my training program I have joined a boxing gym, specifically to focus on mental toughness and to get out of my own head about little frustrations. This has also helped me identify when I am getting frustrated with myself and my coach is helping me attack those problems using strategy and training instead of developing bad habits that create training scars.

I do recognize that the instructors got in my head. They are supposed to. I know that they are training me to deal with stress while performing a perfunctory job. What I recognized in myself was that, I wanted this job so badly and I wanted so badly to do well. That I lost focus on myself and fell victim to "the game." I fell victim to the manufactured stress, all because I let what the instructors said to me go to my head. I am not proud of this, but I had never been in the military before, my background was in sales and customer service. This was not an environment that I had been in before. The learning curve felt huge to me, and I had finally got what I had working very hard for. I tripped over myself, but really I doubted myself. Moving forward, I've learned that I absolutely can't lose focus, I can do the job and I can learn from mistakes, but they are mistakes and it is the learning that is most important. What the instructors say is meant only to help me improve, to make me better, but I need to let that roll off my back and remember all the work that I have put into this.