I now own the gym, CrossFit Lincoln. It also took me three years after college to find it as an athlete.
I’d played sports through college — grew up playing in Ohio— and when that ended, so did the structure that came with it. Nobody’s handing you a training plan once you’re not on a team anymore. I tried running. I tried figuring it out on my own. Neither one stuck, and neither one was much fun. Three years went by — not because I was afraid the whole time, but because I genuinely didn’t know what to do next.
I watched a lot of adults around me go through something similar. Sports end, life gets busy, and health quietly slides down the priority list. I didn’t have many examples of people who’d figured out how to stay in shape once that structured, team-driven phase of life was over. So part of me just assumed that was the deal — you grow up, you get busy, you get out of shape. That’s just what happens.
It’s not. But I didn’t know that yet.
The Fear, Specifically
If I’m honest about what was underneath the procrastination, it was this: fear of doing it alone, fear of trying something new, fear I simply wouldn’t like it — and a real fear of judgment. I pictured walking in, not being able to keep up, being last, and feeling inadequate in front of people who clearly knew what they were doing.
Part of that fear came from what I thought CrossFit even was. I’d seen the CrossFit Games on TV — elite athletes doing things that looked genuinely superhuman. That’s a big gap between what gets broadcast on TV and what an actual Tuesday morning class looks like in real life, and I didn’t know that yet.
If any of this sounds familiar, you’re not overthinking it. These are the three fears that keep almost everyone on the fence:
- Fear of judgment — worrying you’ll be the slowest, the weakest, or the one who doesn’t know what they’re doing
- Fear of the unknown — not knowing what a class even looks like, so your imagination fills in the worst version
- Fear of wasted effort — worrying you’ll try, it won’t work, and you’ll be right back where you started
All three are common. None of them mean something is wrong with you. They mean you’re about to do something that actually matters, and your brain is doing what brains do — trying to protect you from a version of the outcome that, most of the time, never happens.
What Got Me In The Door
Not willpower. A friend. I went because someone else was already going, and I hadn’t done much research beforehand — which, looking back, was probably a good thing. If I’d spent weeks reading about workouts and watching videos, I probably would have talked myself out of it.
What surprised me most on day one was how welcoming everyone was. I ended up on a team with a few guys who’d been training for years — noticeably better at push-ups than I was — and not once did they make me feel like I was holding them back. The coach found me a scaled version of the movement. We split the workload as a team. I left with a feeling I wasn’t expecting at all: I belonged there.
That feeling — belonging, on day one, before I’d earned anything — is the part most people don’t expect. It’s also the part that actually changes whether someone comes back for a second class.
What I’d Tell My Past Self
Two things. Slow down — I let a competitive streak push me to skip steps instead of building good form first. That habit cost me more in the long run than it ever earned me. And: I wish I’d known a place like this existed the moment I graduated, instead of spending three years drifting without a plan, unsure of what “staying in shape as an adult” was even supposed to look like.
The Reframe That Actually Works
These days, running the gym, my fear looks different. It’s less about me and more about making sure the next scared person who walks in gets taken care of the way I was. That’s the culture we’ve built here on purpose — not by accident, and not just as a slogan. Every coach, every class, every scaled movement exists because someone, somewhere, is sitting in the parking lot right now trying to talk themselves into coming in.
If you’re on the fence, here’s the question I’d ask you to sit with: what are you more afraid of — walking into a gym for the first time, or not being able to do the things you want to be able to do years from now? Not being able to keep up with your kids. Not having the energy for the life you actually want. Watching your own health quietly slide the way I watched it happen to people around me.
That question is what got me off the fence. It’s simple, but it’s not small. Fear of starting is temporary — it fades within one class, usually within the first ten minutes. The other fear, the one about years from now, doesn’t fade on its own. It just waits.
If you’re ready to sit with that question, I’d like to talk with you. No workout required. No pressure, no commitment — just a real conversation about where you’re starting from, because I started from exactly the same place.
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