Train for a Life You’re Excited to Live
How to build strength, endurance, and freedom beyond the finish line
There’s a moment that sneaks up on a lot of athletes—whether they’re weekend warriors or high performers.
It’s the realization that training, which was supposed to make life bigger and richer, has started to make life smaller.
You skip adventures because they don’t fit the plan. You dread workouts you once loved. You measure success only by finish lines and numbers. And somewhere along the way, you lose track of why you started in the first place.
I’ve felt that disconnect myself.
At times, training stopped feeling like a way to live more fully—and started feeling like a set of obligations to survive. I hit milestones that looked impressive on the outside but left me feeling boxed in, not expanded.
Real training—the kind that builds a life you actually want to live—doesn’t just chase outcomes. It builds strength, energy, and freedom across every part of your life.
It’s not about doing more. It’s about building better. For today, and for the long haul.
"Strength doesn’t come from what you can do. It comes from overcoming the things you once thought you couldn’t." — Rikki Rogers
The Real Purpose of Training
The best training isn’t about looking good on paper. It’s about building a life you’re actually excited to live.
Training is supposed to expand your world—not shrink it. It’s supposed to give you more energy, not drain it. It’s supposed to make adventures possible, not trap you inside a rigid calendar.
But that’s easy to lose sight of. Especially when you’re chasing a race, a milestone, or a number. Especially when you’re surrounded by hustle culture—mileage totals, PRs, highlight reels—and start thinking that’s the standard to beat.
It’s easy to let training turn into something transactional. Another metric to chase. Another checkbox to validate your worth. But training was never meant to be another box you check to feel worthy.
The real win isn’t just crossing a finish line. It’s being strong enough, confident enough, and free enough to say yes to the moments that matter—on your terms. Hiking a new trail just because you feel like it. Chasing your kids around without thinking about your knees. Signing up for an adventure without wondering if you're “fit enough” to enjoy it.
That’s what real training is for. To build you up for a bigger, fuller life—not to box you into a race calendar.
When Training Starts Working Against You
Training is supposed to support your life—not compete with it. But when your goals get too narrow, or your training becomes too rigid, it’s easy for it to start pulling you away from the very life you’re trying to live.
You start skipping experiences, dreading workouts, ignoring your body—because the schedule says so. You start measuring your worth by splits, miles, and metrics—and when you fall short, it feels personal.
It doesn’t just weigh you down physically. It eats at you mentally. You start resenting the very thing you built to make yourself stronger. The joy fades into pressure. Empowerment turns into obligation.
That’s when training stops building freedom—and starts building chains.
I’ve been there. I’ve built training programs that looked incredible on paper—but made my real life smaller, not bigger.
The stress wasn’t just physical—it bled into everything. My relationships. My energy. My ability to stay present. Training became another obligation to survive, not something that fueled me. Even the wins started to feel hollow, like I was chasing validation more than growth.
You’re not supposed to resent the life you’re building. You’re not supposed to lose yourself in the pursuit of getting better.
Training isn’t supposed to punish you. It’s supposed to set you free.
Building a Life-First Training Plan
When you zoom out, training isn't just about what you do—it's about what it creates space for. The goal isn’t just to get stronger, faster, or leaner. The goal is to build a body and mind that let you live more fully.
A life-first training plan starts there.
Training should orbit your life—not the other way around.
That means designing a plan that fits your season—not fighting it. Honoring your real energy, real demands, real priorities—not the fantasy version of your schedule that sounds good on paper.
It means training for how you want to feel, not just what you want to achieve. Strong enough to say yes to spontaneous adventures. Grounded enough to carry stress when life throws curveballs. Energized enough to pour into the people and passions that make life bigger—not just your race calendar.
If you want your training to fuel your life—not fight it—start here:
Design for your season. Match your plan to your real life right now, not an idealized version of it.
Prioritize how you want to feel. Strength, freedom, and resilience matter more than numbers on a page.
Simplify to amplify. Keep it simple enough that you can actually live it—not just survive it.
It doesn’t mean training less seriously. It means training more purposefully. It means being willing to adapt, to flex, to keep your long-term capacity higher—even if it means your short-term numbers are a little lower.
Because real strength isn’t measured by your best workout. It’s measured by your ability to keep showing up, to stay connected to your own life, and to keep building a body and mind you actually want to live inside.
Train to live bigger. Not smaller.
Training is supposed to add to your life—not steal from it.
It’s supposed to make you stronger, not just in miles or minutes, but in the moments that matter. When training supports your life, it becomes something you get to do—not something you have to survive.
So if your workouts have started to feel heavy, if the joy has started to slip—pause and ask yourself: Is this building the life I want to live, or just checking another box?
You don’t have to earn your place by grinding yourself down. You already have the right to live a life that feels bold, capable, and free.
Train for that.
What’s one small shift you could make this week to train for a life you're excited to live—not just a result to chase?
Start there. Then keep going.