Lifting More Than Weights: Patience, Perspective, and Progress
Some days, I just don’t feel like it.
It happens 2–3 times a month. I’m in the clinic, patients are complaining—about pain, their lives, the weather. And as a PT, I can’t walk away. I can’t tell them to stop.
Most days, I let it roll off.
But some days? My brain flips to default: short on patience, quick to react. Every complaint feels heavier. And I’m thinking: “Lady, if you complain about that shoulder one more time, I swear I’m gonna lose my freaking mind.”
Not proud of it. But it’s real.
Then, something hits me. A reminder that flips the switch:
👉 People are carrying so much more than I can see.
Stories That Changed My Perspective
This week alone, I’ve worked with:
A woman who lost her son at 30 and now cares for a husband with late-stage Alzheimer’s.
A man who buried his only child when he was 25
A woman raising her grandson 10 hours a day after her entire work crew quit.
A woman hit by a car in violent road rage — three separate times.
Another who can barely afford food, let alone the land fee for her trailer.
These aren’t stories from the past year. They all came out this week.
It makes you wonder: How many people at the gym, at work, or even in your own circle are carrying invisible weight like this?
And that awareness isn’t just nice to think about — it’s a skill that helps you:
A better training partner
A more consistent athlete
A stronger human overall
Here’s how to turn that perspective into three practical habits — and why it’s a core part of real fitness.
1. Shift the Focus Off Yourself
One of my favorite talks is David Foster Wallace’s This is Water.
His point was simple: the people we pass every day — the ones who seem rude, distracted, or cold — might be carrying something we can’t imagine.
The driver who cut you off might be racing to see a dying parent.
The cashier who didn’t smile could be running on two hours of sleep.
The patient who scowls may be drowning in grief.
Our brains default to making everything about us. But most of the time, it’s not personal — it’s just people doing their best under circumstances we don’t see.
It actually reminded me of something Tim Ferriss shared in his 5-Bullet Friday newsletter last week — Hanlon’s Razor: “Never attribute to malice what can be explained by misunderstanding or mistake.”
In other words, most of the time, people aren’t out to get you. They’re just dealing with their own stuff.
Practice Patience with Others
That shift — choosing to see differently — can change everything.
Once you realize most people are lifting invisible weight, it’s easier to stop reacting and start responding. We all want the benefit of the doubt. Let’s give it to others first.
2. Extend Patience Outward
Once you recognize that most people are carrying invisible weight, the challenge is how you respond.
It’s easy to snap back, assume the worst, or match someone’s bad energy. But extending patience means giving people the grace you’d want if the roles were reversed.
You can’t control people’s behavior — especially the rage-inducing kind — but you can control your response.
In practice, it might look like:
Listening instead of interrupting.
Staying calm with someone who’s stressed or short-tempered.
Offering encouragement when effort is there, even if execution isn’t.
Patience in these moments builds trust, steadies relationships, and creates the kind of environment where people feel safe enough to keep showing up — in training, at work, and in life.
3. Extend Patience Inward
Here’s the part we skip way too often: if others carry hidden weight, so do you.
The problem? Most of us give more grace to strangers than we give to ourselves. We push through stress, ignore warning signs, and expect peak performance from a body and mind running on fumes.
It doesn’t work.
In training, patience with yourself means:
Accepting that progress isn’t linear.
Letting a “70% day” still count as a win.
Remembering that long-term consistency beats short-term perfection.
Burnout comes from demanding you lift everything — in life and in the gym — without rest or compassion.
Why This Is Health and Fitness
At first glance, patience and perspective might seem far removed from lifting weights or tracking protein. But here’s the reality: they’re at the core of lasting fitness.
The way you think shapes the way you train, eat, recover, and live.
If your mind is stuck in survival mode — judging yourself, judging others, carrying stress and resentment — progress will feel like an uphill battle. Not just in the gym, but everywhere.
Real fitness isn’t only about pushing harder. It’s about building a stronger, more resilient version of you from the inside out. That means:
Awareness to stop taking every setback or interaction personally.
Patience to keep showing up when progress feels slow.
Self-compassion to give yourself the same grace you’d give a struggling friend.
When you train these mental skills alongside your physical ones, everything gets easier. The hard stuff stops feeling like a fight.
Workouts, nutrition, consistency — they all start to flow, because you’re not working against yourself anymore.
Best,
John
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