There’s a critical point in every endeavor you take on that determines whether or not you will succeed. A point in which you stop and look at how far you have come and how far you have to go. A point where you face your demons and tell yourself, “I could stop now, I could be done.” It’s not an issue of whether you can succeed or not, but whether your mind is going to let you.
This is your Murph Moment.
Lt. Michael P. Murphy, nicknamed “Murph,” was a Navy SEAL officer and leading officer of Operation Red Wings in Afghanistan in 2005. For anyone who has (or hasn’t) seen the movie "Lone Survivor," Lt. Murphy is the incredibly brave SEAL who knowingly risked his life fighting extreme terrain and enemy forces to give his teammates and brothers a chance at survival. He lost his life and was awarded the Medal of Honor, the highest military decoration.
Along with this medal and a movie honoring his and his men’s bravery, the CrossFit community also honors him with a hero workout called “the Murph.” Hero workouts (also called wods) are intense workouts dedicated to fallen heroes, including military, police and firefighters, that are designed to be done at the highest level of intensity. They are workouts during which you stop thinking about yourself and commit to performing to the highest intensity you can, honoring our fallen heroes.
The Murph, one of CrossFit’s most grueling hero wods consists of a 1-mile run, 100 pull ups, 200 push ups, 300 squats, and a final 1-mile run. If that’s not enough, it’s all done in 20-pound body armor. It’s easier to commit to finishing when doing a hero wod, however, because the point is to take yourself and your suffering out of the equation. You think about the other person, do it in honor of them, of someone who was stronger than you and who suffered more than you. In suffering and finishing, you take on some, maybe a fraction, of their strength.
But then there are the challenges that only involve you, and you are the only one that can keep yourself motivated. Maybe you’re in the middle of a really demanding internship, a huge move to a different city, or you just switched majors. Maybe you just graduated and decided to travel the world on your own. These are all wonderful experiences, but wonderful experiences don’t come without excruciating challenge. When you’re in the middle of this, and you face your Murph Moment, you will have the choice to accept the problems or to work. Accepting the problem is not accepting defeat, it is a lesson in itself -- a lesson that may eat away at you but bring you one step closer to finishing strong the next time.
When you decide, in your Murph Moment, to commit to finishing strong, you have already won. It’s no longer a question if you will succeed, but a decision of how. It’s the time to look forward, not back; don’t second guess yourself. You move on with more force and more confidence in yourself than you knew you had. Remember why you started and why you are taking on your challenge, be proud of yourself, and work hard. Before you know it, you will not have to wonder whether you should stop or carry on. It will no longer be a decision, but an instinct. Lt. Michael Murphy made the decision, in that moment, to save his brothers in arms. While we may not be faced with such a heroic decision, we are still called to act with the same bravery and confidence in our Murph Moments. Now the final question you have to ask yourself: Will you?
