Going after your goals isn't hard. You commit to what you want; you visualize it, then hit the ground and get it done. Then there is my brain, which interferes in that normalcy in ways I never quite expect.

I have all of these goals of what I want to achieve in my mind. I can visualize myself doing these things. I can see what I look like doing these things, what I look like in the clothes I want to wear, and how I believe I will feel when I get further along in the journey than I am now. I can picture myself moving in ways that I haven't moved my entire life in my mind's eye. Sure, I'm in my mid-40s, but I genuinely believe I can do these things.

My mind then wanders, as it wants to do, and begins to break down that confidence. Most likely rooted deep in childhood trauma and abuse, I begin to pick apart every perceived failing that I have. I'm not good enough, or I'll never be fit enough, or my body can never move that way. My mother told me I am one way for almost my entire life, and suddenly, I'm trying to steer another. I can still hear my mother telling me I'm fat, lazy, slow, and unathletic five years after her death. 

I've been having a lot of those moments lately. I feel like I'm succeeding, then I sabotage myself mentally into thinking failure is simply a state of being. Every minor setback becomes a significant source of problems. I sprained my finger last week, so of course, just as everyone told me as a child, my body isn't built for this, and it's time to fail.

On Friday, I began to have a significant breakdown of self-confidence, leading to me telling my coach that I was thinking of taking some time away from training entirely. After all, if I'm just an abject failure, why am I even trying. Lucky for me, I have a fantastic coach who has my back and just asked the right questions:

• Why am I not having more patience?

• Why do I keep beating myself up?

• Is this really what I want?

I asked myself these questions for a bit. I decided I needed more reflection. I turned on some nature sounds, set my studio's lights to the green flicker I have come to love so much, and began meditating on these and other questions. I literally spent 2.5 hours just meditating, the longest I’ve ever just sat thinking in my entire life.

As my mind went through these questions, it wandered all over the place. First, I started thinking about how much fun I had powerlifting. I also thought about how sore and stiff I was all the time doing that.

Now, my mind wandered over to bodybuilding. As someone with severe body dysmorphia from growing up in the 80s era of hypermasculinity as the media standard, this always appealed to me. This desire is doubly true as a gay man who never really fit into the gay culture. 

Gay culture is driven heavily towards ripped bodies, most likely because of the AIDS crisis of the 80s and 90s. Anything that was seen as "unhealthy" by the gay community might indicate someone is HIV positive, which skewed an entire generation of gay men towards body shaming and unhealthy relationships with their looks.

And of course, with bodybuilding you also have the inevitable reality you’ll never really get the body you want unless you become more of a chemistry experiment than a Dow Chemicals plant.

Next, my thinking shifted to the typical "workouts" I did in 2019, doing circuit training at F45. Maybe I shouldn't be concerned about training at my age and focus on doing a few workouts a week and just being generally healthy.

Finally, my mind circled to what I've been doing and where I am today. I thought about what I wanted to do, what I wanted to achieve, and back to those thoughts of moving better than I have before. My mind came into focus on this point. From there, I thought about my self-sabotage. I thought about my mental state, my past, and how much pain had been inflicted upon me by my parents and family telling me that I didn't have worth my entire life. 

It was during this meditative thought that an image flashed in my mind. It was a picture I remembered taking this past summer in the gym. I had just bought a new jump rope after losing mine. I bought a custom one, thinking it would be fun and only cost $10 extra. The engraving would also help differentiate my rope from other ones in the gym. 

Emblazoned on my rope handles are two things:

• Be Untamed

• Do Epic Shit

"Be Untamed" was the mantra I had developed for myself in a course at Camp Nerd Fitness so many years ago. It represented my desire to break free of my past, forge a new path for myself, and make myself into what I truly wanted to be. Between that and my first coach declaring me a Phoenix because, you know, I seem to keep beating death (between depression-induced suicide attempts and being told my body was going to kill me), was how I came up with the name Untamed Phoenix.

The other part I loved about the Be Untamed mantra I came up with was that the initials were "BU." There was just something so cathartic to me about that. Since I have autism, I have spent most of my life masking. The idea of "BU" hit hard to me.

"Do Epic Shit" is pretty obvious, of course... I want to do epic shit because, well, that's pretty cool to do epic shit.

I opened my eyes from my meditation and wrote these two things down. I realized I was straying from my mantra. I realized I needed to embrace my mantra in its most basic form. It was time for me to once again "Be Untamed." It's time to push myself forward physically. To work to break down my mental barriers.

It's time to achieve what I set out to do two years ago.

It's been a rough couple of years. We've all dealt with a global pandemic that has killed millions, lunatic politicians, wildfires pretty much constantly, the death of Betty White, and potentially the start of WWIII. I have to be willing to forgive myself for not being further along than I think I should be while realizing I wouldn't have been where I think I would have been anyways because it all takes time and patience.

So now begins the part where I sort all this stuff out. Now begins the hard work to break down the mental and physical barriers. Refocusing my efforts back to where I started; being mentally, emotionally, and physically fit. I need to realize I can do all these things if I put my mind to them, focus on what I want in life, and push to achieve my goals.

Realizing how my autism drives me mentally, my first goal is to plan. To that end, I'm meeting with my coach this coming week to sit down and go through a plan, write out the goals from end to end, break them into categories, and figure out a short-term and long-term plan to get from here to epic.

It's time to make this happen. It's time to Be Untamed. It's time to Do Epic Shit.

Or... the one I picked up from my coach; LET'S FUCKING GO!