What You Practice In The Gym, You Practice Everywhere.
Laura Dionisio joined me for an episode of Muscle Moments. Our conversation was electric, I didn’t expect us to laugh as hard as we did; and most importantly, what she shared has stuck with me as an example of what Muscle Moments is all about: strength as a life strategy.
Listen to the conversation here.
Here’s what happened:
When Laura caught herself backing down from a weight she knew she could lift, something clicked.
She was standing at the leg press machine, mid-warmup. Her notes from the week before said: 45-pound plates. But her brain was elsewhere; on a business framework she was terrified to launch. So her brain did what scared nervous systems do: it talked her down. 10 pound plates, maybe 35s, anything but the 45s.
She stopped at this realization and asked herself the following question: If fear can cross over from business into the gym, doesn’t that mean confidence can cross over the other way?
She chose self-trust and followed her notes from the week before, and loaded the 45s anyway. Fear be damned. She did her set and hours later, on a call she talked about that same scary business project without a shred of fear.
“That’s when I realized compartmentalized confidence isn’t a thing,” she told me.
She’s right. Your nervous system doesn’t have separate channels for “gym fear” and “life fear.” If you train one, you train the other.
The Evidence Lives in Your Body
Laura started where a lot of women do: thinking strength was about looking a certain way.
Then she got her first pull-up.
It wasn’t the pull-up itself. It was what being able to do the pull-up proved to her: I can do something I didn’t think I could do. I’m stronger than I thought.
When that happens, you start to collect facts and for Laura, she could now point to her body as proof.
This is self-efficacy in action. Psychologist Albert Bandura defined self-efficacy theory as the term for “I actually believe I can do hard things.”
Self-efficacy doesn’t come from affirmations or vision boards. It comes from doing something you thought you couldn’t, and then, in this case having the evidence sitting right there in your body that you can.
Every time you build muscle, you’re writing a story into your nervous system: I said I could do this. I did it. The evidence is here.
That evidence follows you through life. Into the boardroom, the pitch meeting, the moment where fear tries to convince you you’re smaller than you actually are.
This is why I say: Trade Skinny for Strong. Not because muscle looks a certain way. Because muscle is proof. It’s confidence you can point to.
The Ritual
Laura is a competitive Olympic weightlifter. Before every meet, she does the same thing: finds a quiet space, puts a four-minute timer on, and breathes.
This doesn’t make the nerves go away, it give her the opportunity to sit with them without pressure.
And it expands her nervous system’s capacity to hold more than just fear. “I feel the nerves. And I’m still here. And I’m still capable,” is the mindset she works with.
This skill transfers: Notice the fear, name it, do the thing anyway.
The same thing she did with her leg press, different environment.
It’s a trained response. Your nervous system doesn’t know where this ritual is taking place; a competition or a business meeting. It just knows you’ve practiced it before, and it knows that you are settling it down to step into your confidence.
Expansion of Self-Expression
At 26, Laura did a boudoir shoot. She posed with a tire in a gym, refusing to be anything but fierce. No softness. All strength.
For her fortieth birthday, she did another one. This time, looking at the photos, she saw the same fierceness, and a softness she’d never let herself have. “I’ve expanded my capacity to allow softness,” she proclaimed with pride.
That’s what happens when you train your nervous system properly. You get more capable of holding what you think was, and what you think is. The layers of being human.
You can be fierce and soft. Confident and still learning. Strong and able to rest.
The Science Is Simple
Your nervous system learns through repetition. When you approach a weight you’re uncertain about and do it anyway, you’re building neural pathways. Those pathways don’t have a “gym only” sign on them. It’s applicable to literally any part of your life!
When you do this, you are teaching your brain to recognize fear without being controlled by it. Helping you form a meaningful response to how you act when confronted with uncertainty.
It transfers because fear is fear.
Your nervous system doesn’t know the difference between the fear of a heavy lift and the fear of putting new work into the world. It just knows: Have I done hard things before? Yes, yes I have. So it knows you can do this hard thing, too.
When you find your brain asking “can you do this?”. No matter what it is, when you know what you can do in the gym, you can answer confidently with a big, Fuck Yes.
Put it into practice.
Find something that scares you physically. Since we’re here at Muscle Moments, I’d like to encourage you to pick up a heavier weight that you’re used to. Or, give a new movement or a longer distance a try. Pick something at the edge of your capacity. Don’t be reckless, be genuinely curious if it’s something you are capable of.
Then show up and do it. Repeatedly.
Let your nervous system practice the skill of approaching something uncertain and proving to itself that it’s capable.
This is the work. Not complicated. Just consistent.
Every time you do it, you’re writing evidence into your body. And that evidence travels everywhere with you, as confidence.
Over time, you will see that what you are learning through each challenge is your ability to trust yourself first, and do whatever it is that scares you, anyway.
Build proof of your capacity. Let your nervous system learn what you’re really capable of.
Then watch what changes.
Strength is a life strategy.
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