My Hero’s Journey: How I Won 2 Gold Medals at my First National Powerlifting Championship

This Saturday I attempted my first powerlifting competition – the Slovenian National IPF Powerlifting Championships.

I walked away from the competition with two gold medals in the Open 93kg category – in Bench Press, and Overall Powerlifting (Squat, Bench Press, Deadlift).

This was one of the most amazing, stressful, and emotional days for me (yes, all at once), which is why I decided to write up this post about it where I’ll take you through my journey of becoming a powerlifting champion.

I won’t bore you with all the details about the training and nutrition for my competition – I’ll rather focus on my mental preparation and the game day performance, so you can see what goes through the mind of a professional athlete.

So even if you’re not into powerlifting, this post will show you a whole new side of me that you might not have known about, and give you ideas on how you can perform better in high-pressure situations that you face in your work, personal life or business.

Let’s dive in!

The REAL reason why I became a national powerlifting champion

In sports, we often think that the most talented (or even hardest working) people win. I don’t think that’s 100% the case.

I’m definitely not talented as I was never good at sports. When I started training I could barely bench press 40kg. I don’t think I trained or ate harder or smarter to win my competition.

In fact, while preparing for the nationals I probably made every mistake in the book I could’ve possibly made:

• I picked a world record powerlifter from the US to write my workout plan, not knowing he would put minimal effort into my workout plan and slow down my progress for months.
• After that I wrote my own workouts for a few months and often randomly changed them, further sabotaging my own progress.
• I gained 15kg of weight in spring (mostly fat) due to my binge eating habits that I had to get rid of during the summer to fit back into my weight class, which wasn’t smart or fun.

I also faced various obstacles in the months coming up to the competition:

• I injured my knee 4 weeks before the competition, which lost me more than a week of hard workouts.
• I traveled to Chicago for the Forefront Conference just 3 weeks before the competition, because of which I missed a few workouts and wasn’t in my best form.
• I caught a pretty bad cold 4 days before the competition which didn’t go away until after the competition, destroyed my sleep patterns and drained my energy.

Almost everything that could have gone wrong before the competition went wrong. But I did have one key advantage over my competitors:

My mental training.

I’m fortunate enough to be coached and mentored by Allon Khakshouri, a former manager of Novak Djokovic and two other #1 tennis players.

With Allon’s help, I’ve been preparing for the competition for months in advance. I’ve gone through the competition day hundreds of times in my mind. I visualized my lifts. I prepared a match day routine. I even approached my training days in the same way I would approach the game day.

By the time I came to the competition, I knew how to put myself into the zone, calm myself down and trigger myself to perform at my best.

I know that other competitors might have trainer harder than me for the competition, but I don’t think anyone spent nearly as much time preparing themselves mentally as I did. One of the most important things is to get rid of distractions such as long hair and beard. They do look good, but I could not afford even a slight diversion at that point. Check out the various safety razors available on the Instash website and choose the right razor for you.

I did 3 things on a regular basis in my preparation:

#1 – I visualized the competition in my mind hundreds of times

You might have heard the story about Michael Phelps, the 18-time Olympic Gold Medal winner and his visualizations:

“For months before a race Michael gets into a relaxed state. He mentally rehearses for two hours a day in the pool. He sees himself winning. He smells the air, tastes the water, hears the sounds, sees the clock.”

“Phelps take visualization one step further. He sees himself from the outside, as a spectator in the stands. He sees himself overcoming obstacles, too. For example, what would he do if he fell further behind in a race than he intended? Phelps practices all potential scenarios.”

I knew that if visualizations worked for Michael Phelps, they would work for me too.

So every day, after I woke up I went through my morning routine which included visualizing myself winning my competition.

I relaxed myself, and envisioned myself performing the competition lifts. I tried to feel how hard the weights were and how I pushed through them. I tried to hear the supporters screaming at me. I envisioned winning the competition, high-fiving my trainers and hugging my girlfriend, my family and my friends. I tried to feel the joy I would feel as I won and the pride and joy that my family and friends would feel for me.

I went through the whole competition in my head, over and over again. I focused on making my visualizations as intense as possible and really activating all of my senses – what I heard, how I felt, what I saw, and what I smelled.

Allon told me that the longer and the more intense visualizations, the better. I tried to get at least one 5-10 minute visualization in every morning, and then when I went to the spa on a weekly basis I would spend as much as 60-90 minutes visualizing the whole competition in my head – from arriving to the venue to warm ups, competing and celebrating.

By the time I got to the competition, I felt like I’ve already competed hundreds of times in my head – which is likely why I was able to perform as well as I did in it.

#2 – I learned how to “get in the zone” for important lifts

I once had dinner with Todd Herman (he’s an online entrepreneur and also the psychology coach for Real Madrid, a famous football team), and he told me that the best sportsmen “aren’t really themselves” on the pitches. They have these alternate personalities that they tap into that allow them to perform at their best.

I talked to Allon about this and he said this was called a “pre-match routine” that helps you get into the peak performance state during important matches. I did my research to find out as much as I could about this phenomenon and found a few ways in which world-class weight lifters have applied this to their own competitions.

The idea that resonated with me the most was visualizing the FEELING you get when you complete a successful lift and trying to bring back that feeling during an important competition. I combined this with listening to some of my favorite music to develop my own “pre-lift routine” that I would use to get in the zone before each of my lifts.

To develop the routine, I tested it out during my regular training sessions. As I did that, the results really blew me away. I noticed that when I wasn’t using my routine and I just messed around on my phone before I lift I was much more prone to make a mistake than if I put my headphones on, listened to music and visualized the lift in my mind. I could literally notice the difference between one lift and another within the same practice session.

Creating this pre-lift routine helped me get back into the zone during my competition, even when things weren’t necessarily going my way (more on that shortly).

#3 – I learned how to dig deep and perform at my best when it mattered most

In the upcoming weeks before the competition I tried to read as many books as possible about sports performance in order to make sure I was doing everything I could to perform at my best.

The one book that really stood out to me was Bounce: The Talent Myth by Matthew Syed. In the book, the author writes about “the curse of choking”, which happens when extremely skilled sportsmen seemingly forget how to use their skills in big matches and crash and burn.

This happens when individuals try to explicitly monitor skills that would be better executed automatically (this is why professional golfers often miss super short putts that they would make 100/100 times in training).

I knew that I might get nervous during my competition and to avoid choking, I began learning the technique that’s called “doublethink”, which helps you avoid the choking phenomenon.

Doublethink is a technique where you relieve yourself of the pressure by telling yourself that the career-defining moment doesn’t really matter. In my world, that meant saying to myself “it’s just bench press”.

I practiced putting myself in a pressure-free state during my training sessions whenever I lifted really heavy weights, in order to prepare myself for a similar high pressure situation at the competition.

I believe that these three techniques gave me an unfair advantage over my competition, even though I was competing in powerlifting for the first time.

The Game Day: The biggest rollercoaster of my life

Since I was still fighting a cold on the day of the competition, I didn’t get as much sleep as I would have wanted to. I woke up around 23 times during the night and got about 6 hours of sleep at most. At 8am I was laying in bed with my eyes wide open, just waiting for the time to pass (my turn to compete was at 4pm).

Eventually I got bored of doing nothing and woke myself up. Since my weight was well below my required weigh in weight I decided to make myself a warm breakfast that was similar to my last night’s dinner – grits with sugar. Within a few minutes of eating my breakfast I realized that eating sugary grits first thing in the morning was a big mistake.

All of a sudden I felt sick in my stomach and wanted to puke, and all I could really do was lay back in my bed and try not to die for half an hour. I knew that my body needed the food and that after puking I wouldn’t have an appetite, so I just laid there and waited for the sickness to pass. I also knew that the sickness could just be psychological, which was yet another reason to fight through it rather than give into it.

After about an hour of helplessly laying in bed I finally started feeling better, so I put on some music, got dressed and slowly made it to the competition venue. I spent the next few hours watching some of my lifting friends compete and cheering for them, and anxiously waiting for my turn.

At 2pm it was time for me to weigh in, and the scale showed 90.3kg, which was 2.7kg below my required weight. That was good news in terms of making weight, but it was also bad news because I lost more weight than I wanted to, and I knew I had to eat and drink more to get my body ready for the heavy lifting.

For the next hour I sipped gatorades and ate peanut butter & jelly sandwiches and tried to find the sweet spot between “I’m so hungry” and “I’m so full I feel sick”. Combined with the game day anxiety, this hour wasn’t the most fun.

At 3pm I changed into my competition suit and started the general warm up. Now things were getting serious. The warm up was long and easy, and I found some time to listen to the music to just try and relax in-between. At 3.30pm my friends and family arrived so I quickly said hi to them before starting the warm up for the first lift – the squat.

Primoz vs. Squat: Let the games begin!

The game plan for the competition was simple. I knew I likely had an advantage over my competitors in my first two lifts (squat and bench press), and I knew that I was behind my competition on the last lift (deadlift). This meant I had to build as big of a lead as possible on the first two lifts and then just keep it until the end.

Apart from the knee issues that I hoped were now gone, my squats have been going really well during the last few weeks of training sessions. I hit a 210kg squat in training 10 days before the competition, which was more than I thought my competition was capable of.

The warm ups for the squats felt great and moved quickly, and I was confident that I would smoke my attempts, hit a new personal record and build a safe lead. I did get a bit nervous before my opening lift as it was my first lift of the competition, so I focused on staying as calm as possible and just making sure I got the lift in. I’ve also completed the weight (192.5kg) tens of times before the competition so I knew I could easily lift it.

I got on the stage and took my first attempt at 192.5kg:

I absolutely smoked it.

As soon as I made the first lift I felt like a huge rock fell off my shoulders. My first ever competition lift was a success. Because the weight moved insanely fast I was confident in smoking my second attempt at 205kg as well.

I spent the next 10 minutes waiting, listening to music and talking to my girlfriend. I felt confident that I’ll keep building my lead with my next attempt, so I didn’t overthink it. I just waited and was ready to lift again.

This is my second attempt at 205kg:

As you can see, this attempt was A LOT harder than the first one. In hindsight, I know why – I didn’t really go through my pre-lift routine as rigorously I should have, and I messed up the technique (I didn’t push my hips and elbows forward like I should have). Still, because the strength was there I made the lift.

Because the second attempt didn’t move as quickly as I wanted it to, we decided to not try and set a new record on the third attempt, and rather just go for a 210kg squat which I had completed in training 10 days before the competition.

At this point, I wasn’t in a great mental state. I was thinking about why my second squat all of a suddenly felt so heavy and what I messed up. I also noticed that one of my competitors also successfully lifted 205kg which meant that I wasn’t building the lead I thought I was building.

As I waited for my last squat attempt I talked to my trainers about what to do better on the last attempt, listened to the music to get my mind off of things and got hyped up for the last attempt.

This is my last attempt at 210kg:

As you can see, I got stuck halfway through the attempt and didn’t manage to grind it out. This was my first ever failed attempt at the competition.

I then had the time to look at the scoreboard and saw that all but one of my competitors had made their last squat attempts (including the guy that had the same second attempt as me).

This meant that the standings after the first lift were as follows:

1st place: 212.5kg
2nd place (me): 205kg
3rd place: 202.5kg
4th place: 200kg
5th place: 195kg

This wasn’t great news, as my plan of building a lead was starting to fall apart. Instead of coming out of the squats first I was in second place, trailing by 7.5kg and with only a few kg lead in front of my other competitors.

At this point, I was a bit devastated and annoyed, because I failed a lift that I had successfully completed before, but the strength just wasn’t there. I was afraid that my cold was getting the better of me.

As I ate some more food and waited a few minutes before my warm ups, my sister came backstage and talked to me, which was really nice since my sister and I generally don’t have the best relationship. I could feel that she cared about me, and she tried to make me feel better by telling me that not everything is lost. I told her that I’ll still win my two gold medals.

Then it was start to warming up for bench press, which was my strongest lift and where I really didn’t feel anyone could catch me.

Primoz vs. Bench Press: When sh*t hits the fan

As I started warming up for the bench press, I had just one thing on my mind: I’m going to show my competitors what I’m made of and get my lead back. I was a man on a mission.

The bench press is the lift that I was the most comfortable with and where I felt like I could easily beat my competitors by 10-15kg and take the lead. I had some issues with the technique in the few weeks before the competition, but I felt like I was still so far ahead that it wouldn’t matter.

The warm ups for the bench press went just okay. The weight felt a little bit harder than expected, and I recall really messing up my last warm up, which in hindsights I should have repeated afterwards.

Because I had some of the highest weight attempts in my group, I was among the last lifters to lift, which would mean that I could see them lift before it was my turn. Even better.

The attempts of my competitors flew by, and it was time for my first attempt at 142.5kg, a weight that I have lifted countless times in training with relative ease.

Here’s how my first attempt went:

In other words, not great. I completely messed up the technique and almost failed the lift, but somehow managed to save it.

After the lift I got a bit mad at myself and talked to my trainers about what I did wrong (I didn’t push the bar backwards like I should have). The good news was that I did at least make the lift, so I at least didn’t have to worry about not making the lift at all.

There wasn’t much to do at this point apart from getting ready for the next lift, and making sure I lift it like I know how to lift it. My next attempt would be at 147.5kg, a weight that was 2.5kg below my previous personal record that was heavy but doable for sure.

I focused myself, hyped myself up and went in for the second attempt:

As you can see, my second attempt was… interesting.

I fought the bar for what seemed like an eternity and wouldn’t give up. After 5 seconds or so I lifted my ass off the bench which meant that the lift wouldn’t count even if I got it up, and managed to somehow hit the rack and waste extra energy for re-racking the bar.

Failing the second attempt in this manner was devastating and the low point of my competition.

After failing my last squat attempt and now my second bench attempt, my world was falling apart. I could feel my gold medals slipping out of my hands. I was in a dark mood for a few minutes where I was mad at myself, mad at the cold, mad at the world. I even thought to myself that maybe the cold will beat me after all.

I knew that because I put up such a fight on the second attempt I was tiring myself out, and that the last attempt would be much harder if not impossible to make. I wasn’t sure if I could do it any more.

To make things worse, all of my competitors made their second bench press attempts and were now trailing up to me. One of them lifted 142.5kg to match my first attempt, and two others lifted 137.5kg which was not far behind me.

Luckily my girlfriend came up to me and managed to lift me out of the downward spiral. She hugged me, talked to me, made me laugh and cheered me up. I could see that she was in this together with me and how badly she wanted me to succeed, and that helped me regain my composure.

With a few minutes to spare before my last attempt (I would repeat the same weight at 147.5kg), I did the only smart thing I could do – I sat down, turned on the Radioactive from Imagine Dragons (???) and went through my pre-lift routine to put myself in the zone.

When I opened my eyes I picked up my equipment, got in line for my next lift and finally remembered to use the double think technique. While I was walking up to the bench, I kept repeating to myself over and over again: “It’s just bench press”. This helped me relieve the pressure and get back into my calm zone that I was in in the beginning of the competition.

As I got up to the bench, one of the spotters (the people who make sure that the weight doesn’t kill you) started talking to me. He told me that I was messing up my attempts because I was positioning myself far too much towards the back of the bench, which meant that I would hit the rack if I executed the lift properly.

He told me to instead go further up front and that he’ll hand me the weight. As I positioned myself he urged me to position myself even further towards the front, and I just trusted him and listened. He also told me to just focus on getting the bar backwards on the way up and that I’ll easily make the lift that way. I knew that was good advice because it was the exact advice my trainer gave me in training.

Then, it was time to lift:

During the whole way up, the spotter (the guy in the white with a beard) kept screaming “back! back! back!” (you can see that in the video), and I successfully made the lift and screamed in the end.

I ran towards the backstage to high five my trainers and hug and kiss my girlfriend and celebrated making the lift. It was the first time in the competition that I really felt true joy, and I got really emotional and couldn’t speak for a few seconds.

I was just so happy that I managed to get myself out of the downward spiral, refocus myself and avoid choking. I felt like I had completed something impossible, something that I had never really done in this way in my life – I got back on my feet and crushed it.

In that moment, I really felt like I was the hero of my own story. I was in the same space as a team that is trailing in a basketball game and then makes a huge comeback. I finally showed to myself and everyone else that I had true character.

After a few moments of extreme joy I checked the scoresheet, and a few other things sank in:

• All of my competitors have failed their last lifts, which meant that I was finally making a comeback
• I wasn’t just making a comeback, my successful attempt actually put me in the lead in the overall competition
• I also realized that because I had the highest successful bench press, I also won the bench press gold medal.

I HAD JUST WON MY FIRST GOLD MEDAL.

When that sank in, I ran to my parents and friends and told them the great news. I don’t think they really knew what was going on or understood how the competition worked, but they congratulated me and were clearly super happy for me.

These were the standings after the squat and bench press:

1st place (me): 352.5kg
2nd place: 350kg
3rd place: 342.5kg
4th place: 335kg
5th place: 330kg

After celebrating for a quick minute, it was time to get back to the warm up room to warm up for my last lift – the deadlift.

Primoz vs. Deadlift: Rising up from the ashes

The Deadlift was my nemesis. It was my worst lift compared to my competitors. It wasn’t going well in training as I couldn’t even get near the personal records that I had set months ago. My technique for it was totally wrong. And with my squat and bench press not going the way I wanted them to go, I wasn’t sure how much energy I would have to pull hundreds of kilos from the floor.

I knew that keeping my lead would be tough. The guy in the second place would lift 5kg heavier than me on the first attempt and the guy in the 4th place would lift 25kg heavier than me on the first attempt, which meant that I’d immediately be trailing behind in third place after the first attempt.

But even though the odds were against me, the math wasn’t working for me and I didn’t know how I would win this competition, I knew one thing for sure. I was a man on a mission. My mood during the warm ups was a mix of this:

and this:

I was tearing the weights off the floor like nobody’s business and getting hyped up for every lift that I made. I wanted to make the warm ups feel EASY and then chase that feeling throughout my attempts, just as I knew great weightlifters do.

The warm ups breezed by and the feeling was pretty good. The weight didn’t feel that heavy and my trainers said that I looked confident in moving it around. Soon it was time for my first attempt at 210kg.

Since I was one of the weakest deadlifters that meant that I wouldn’t be lifting towards the end of the group but any more. I would be second in line and all of my competitors could see what I did and adjust their lifts to my results. They had the advantage.

I unfortunately don’t have the video of the first attempt, but it was really just a routine lift. I hyped myself up, chased the feeling from warm ups and the 210kg felt exactly the same as my last 195kg warm up – light.

After the successful first attempt I went back to my routine. Sipping on gatorade, talking to my girlfriend and trainers and then getting into my chair, listening to music and visualizing the feeling and the ease of my next lift.

For the second attempt I chose 225kg, which was 2.5kg more than the 222.5kg I had planned to attempt originally. I knew that if I wanted to win I had to go beyond my limits and lift more than what I thought I was capable of.

If I lifted 225kg and my competitors made their lifts I’d still be in third place, but at least I’d be closing the gap and positioning myself for a third successful lift (which I had no idea how heavy it would have to be at that point).

When it was time to go on stage, I was already going crazy. I was hyped up, my trainers were screaming, my friends were screaming, I was screaming… I was ready to rip that weight off the floor like it’s nothing.

I got on the stage and attempted the 225kg deadlift, which was just 5kg below my personal best:

The lift felt as light and as fast as the last attempt, and after a brief look to see if the lift was valid (it was, since I got 3 white lights) I raised my hand in the air and went back to the backstage.

I quickly analyzed the video of my lift that my girlfriend took, and since it looked easy I decided to choose 235kg as my last attempt, which was 5kg over my personal record. I knew I could lift that.

Over the next few minutes I watched my competitors all successfully make their second attempts, one after the other. I kept an eye on how hard they looked for them and thought about how much more they were capable of lifting.

Now in case you’re not familiar with powerlifting, the last deadlift attempt (also the last lift of the competition) is where many competitions are usually won and lost. Because of that, there’s also a unique rule that lets you change your last deadlift attempt even after you’ve announced, so you can adjust to the strategies of your competitors.

At this point, it’s not just all about strength, it’s also about strategy and maths. Here’s what the standings looked like before the last lift:

1st place: 580kg
2nd place: 580kg
3rd place (me): 577.5kg
4th place: 565kg
5th place: 562.5kg

I already knew I had a medal since the competitors in the 4th and 5th place only increased their last attempts by 5kg, which means that they couldn’t catch me any more. This meant that at this point I had nothing to lose. It was time to go all in.

After my competitors picked their final deadlift attempts I saw that if they made them they’d still be ahead of me by 2.5kg, which meant that I had to raise my attempt – so I raised it to 237.5kg. That was the highest weight I was still kind of confident in pulling, even though I knew it was a stretch. It was 7.5kg over my last personal best.

As I updated my weight one of the competitors updated his by 2.5kg so he could beat me if he had successfully made his attempt. But since his previous attempt looked pretty hard already, I just didn’t think he’d be capable of making a 12.5kg jump on his third attempt. I was fairly confident that if I made my lift I would beat him, but I wasn’t sure about my other competitor who still had some room in the tank.

I didn’t have a ton of time to think about it as I was soon up for my last attempt. I hyped myself up for one last time, heard all of my supporters cheering me on, and screamed loudly as I went up on the stage while ACDC was playing Thunderstruck.

Then I attempted my first ever 237.5kg deadlift:

I gave it every single atom of energy I had left and the bar flew up, not much slower than during my last attempt. I put the bar down, looked at the judges and saw that the lift was good. I raised my hands, made a funny face, screamed and walked towards the backstage where I screamed some more and loudly celebrated by running around and hugging and high fiving my girlfriend and my coaches.

I had just improved my deadlift personal best by 7.5kg with room to spare, while I was sick. I was excited and happy, but also nervous as my competitors still had to attempt their lifts and could beat me with their last attempt.

The first competitor was the one that raised his attempt so he could beat me by a successful attempt. He went on stage, pulled the bar and quickly got it over his knees. My heart dropped into my stomach for a second as the time slowed down… and so did his bar. After putting up a fight he just couldn’t get it to his hips, and he failed his attempt.

When he got off stage I saw he was devastated and I talked to him briefly to try and console him before watching the last attempt.

The last attempt was from the guy who was 15kg behind me before the deadlifts but had a huge deadlift, and based on his last attempt I felt like he was perfectly capable of lifting the 255kg he set for himself to match my weight.

There was only problem – the rules of powerlifting in my federation state that if two lifters lift the same total weight, the lifter with the lower bodyweight wins. I expected him to change his attempt to 2.5kg more, but for whatever reason he didn’t – I think he just wasn’t aware of the rules. This meant that regardless of whether he pulled the lift or not, I knew I had won the second gold medal.

He ended up pulling a majestic 255kg deadlift and unfortunately tore his biceps in the process (this is one of the rare injuries that sometimes happens in events like this). It wasn’t fun to see his disappointment when he found out that he “just” got in the second place, but that’s sport. It’s not enough to just be strong, you also need to get the tactics right.

Here were the final results from the competition:

1st place (me): 590kg, lower bodyweight than 2nd place
2nd place: 590kg
3rd place: 580kg
4th place: 570kg
5th place: 567.5kg

Once I was certain that I had indeed won the overall competition, I waited for all of the remaining lifters to finish their lifts, cheered them on as they broke some personal records and then ran to my family and friends to hug them and tell them the news (I don’t think they were aware at that time that I had won yet).

It was definitely an emotional few minutes for me and I might have shed a tear or two. Well, to be completely honest I was emotional for the whole evening and the day after as I was so proud of myself and happy to have achieved something amazing in such a dramatic way and overcome all the obstacles in my way. All the hundreds of hours in the gym were worth it because of that one moment.

The best part of the competition for me was having my family and friends there. I know I haven’t had the best relationship with my family in the past and seeing them all there with me for 4+ hours even though they didn’t really understand how things worked meant a ton to me. Their support and cheering that helped me win my first competition was something that I’ll have with me forever.

To be honest, I don’t think I would have pulled this off had it not been for all the amazing people supporting me. Winning this competition wasn’t a one man thing. I have to thank:

• My girlfriend who was always there for me, both during the training and the competition
• My three coaches that made sure everything went as smoothly as it could have during the training and the competition, and helped me work around my crazy travel schedules
• My family and friends who have supported me at the competition, even though they didn’t really know how it worked (I guess they’ll have to learn over time)
• My mentor Allon who helped me mentally prepare for this competition like a true champion and get through the mental slumps
• All the lifting friends that worked out together with me and helped me get through tough workouts and cheered me up when the things weren’t going the way I wanted them to go
• All of my online business friends, readers, clients, students and mentors who knew I was competing and wished me luck and believed that I can achieve anything I put my mind to

On that stage, I wasn’t lifting by myself or for myself. I lifted with hundreds of people behind my back – and it’s pretty damn hard to not win that way.

So what did I take away from this competition?

I could probably write another whole post about that (and I might in the future), but there’s 3 key lessons from this competition that I’m taking away and applying to my life and business.

• LESSON #1: You really CAN achieve anything you set your mind to. I know that I could go from “never being good at sports” to becoming a national champion in a sport, there’s really nothing that I CAN’T achieve if I put my mind to it and work for it.
• LESSON #2: Mindset is half the battle, hard work is the other. I wouldn’t have won the competition if I didn’t train hard for 10-15 hours in the gym, and I wouldn’t have won it had I not spent hours and hours mentally preparing myself.
• LESSON #3: Find the right people to support you in your crazy goals. When you have people around you who believe that you CAN achieve all the crazy goals you set for yourself, these goals all of a sudden become doable, and can even turn into reality.

I know that I’ll be applying all of these lessons to my business and pursuing bigger and crazier goals there as well. And to make sure I achieve them I’ll continue to build my own circle of kick ass people that will support me in them, and work on my mental toughness to help me show up when it matters most.

What’s my next crazy goal?

Well, at least lifting wise it’s pretty simple. In March there’s another national powerlifting competition just like this one, and my goal is simple – to hit the norm for the European Championships that take place next December.

The norm for that is 657kg so I have plenty of work to do if I want to lift 66kg more in my next competition, just 5 months after this one. But that’s the beauty of it – I love setting crazy goals and making them happen. And I know I’ll have a ton of fun making this one happen too.

What’s one thing that you’ve found interesting or fascinating about my story? What’s something that you took away from it? I’d love to hear from you in the comments below!

-Primoz