My goal as a teenager escaping the inner city was to become the best raft 
guide and kayaker possible. That goal became a vehicle for international travel, world-class adventure, and extreme athletic pursuit. Without question that goal took me far, but had I made it specific and measurable back in the 70’s when I was 15, it would have taken me even farther.
The Gorge Games are widely known as the Olympics of adventure sport. At the start of the extreme kayaking race in 2001 I lined up at the top of a course filled with waterfalls and pushy rapids. Next to me were accomplished paddlers, most of them half my age. Before the gun went off I told myself I would pull in right behind Brooke, and follow her to the finish. That is exactly what happened, and in the process I beat 10 women, most of them half my age. A good accomplishment you might say, but what if I had told myself before the race that I was going to beat everyone, Brooke included? Did I sell myself short by settling for 2nd?
We need specific and measurable goals, and we also need not sell ourselves short in striving to be the best. So what does this mean in CrossFit? Are you 
here to get strong, to learn the pull-up, to gain confidence, to find yourself as an athlete, to discover what your limits are and how to blow them out of the water? Maybe it’s to deadlift twice your bodyweight. We don’t know unless you tell us.
Goals are powerful motivating tools when we declare them to our friends, family, community. There is power in making public your intention. Just so you know this is for real, I’ll go first: My goal is to have consistent double-unders by Christmas. Now, I don’t like working on them, and they piss me off cuz I used to be able to do them, and somehow I can’t anymore. It might be cuz I stopped practicing them. I’ve declared it, and you as a community can hold me to it.
We will post a board that allows you to publicly state your goals. Be courageous, and let the world know what you have in mind. Go big, and don’t settle for less.
-Beth Rypins
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