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The moment you believe the monster is dead, you’re defenseless

I recently spoke with a client who has been making incredible progress. They’ve been hitting their goals, finding their cadences, and seeing the results of the labor. During our conversation, they commented on the new person they had become. They felt as though they had finally figured it out. 

The last thing I wanted to do was get in the way of their pride. They worked hard for the results, and they deserved to feel the success, and gosh, was it a moment of pure joy. However, I had to give them one piece of advice that applies to anyone on a path of transformation: Stay humble.

“the cure”

In our Crossfit world, we hear the word “cure” constantly. It’s all about “curing obesity” and “curing chronic disease”. 

The word cure means to eliminate the cause of a problem, with the expectation that it will not return. It’s a bit of a sterile concept. It’s the language of someone looking at a problem from the outside, assuming that once the symptoms are gone, the person is fixed. But when you claim to cure something, you’re implying it’s gone forever. You’re promising a false reality. Every CrossFitter knows the feeling of that very last rep when your lungs are burning, and you just want it to be over. The word “cure” promises that the sense of relief is permanent.

In a way, I think it robs people of their agency. It turns them into passive recipients of a treatment instead of active masters of their own evolution. I’ll explain more in a bit.

The point is, this is not how human transformation works. Obesity and the behaviors that drive it are not an external infection; they are deeply embedded internal systems.

mistaking stability for victory

It’s easy to feel like a completely new person when the conditions are perfect. Your sleep is dialed in, nutrition is on point, routines are clicking, and your support system is on board. When operating at that high level, it’s easy to mistake stability for a permanent cure. You convince yourself that you’re no longer the person who struggled.

But….. that’s a dangerous illusion because this journey lasts forever.

The real test of your progress is not how well you do when everything is going well. The actual test is how you handle the inevitable crisis. The question is not whether you have “cured” the problem, but whether you have acknowledged the tender spots in your own wire. This is why “people who have it figured out” backslide. It’s not a lack of will; it’s a failure to account for high-voltage environments.

the tender spot in the wire

Think of your history and your struggles as a break in an electrical wire that has been patched. Under normal voltage, the patch works perfectly. But when life gets hard, or the environment changes, and the voltage spikes, that patch is the first place that’s going to smoke. Acknowledging that you have a tender spot isn’t negative thinking. It’s risk management.

If you become overconfident because you believe you are “cured,” you stop guarding that perimeter. You stop doing the small, boring things that created your success. You assume the monster is dead, so you leave the door unlocked. The very moment you think you are above the struggle is the moment you become most vulnerable to it.

This isn’t meant to take anything away from your miles. It’s a reminder that you will be a student for the rest of your life. There are deep, complex reasons why someone reaches 300, 400, or 500 pounds. Those reasons are often survival mechanisms.

guarding the perimeter

The idea of being “cured” is actually a limitation. It suggests there is nothing left to learn, which sets you up for catastrophic shame the moment you hit a snag. When you believe the monster is dead, you are defenseless when it attacks.

But when you accept that you are a lifelong student of your own behavior, the game changes. A bad week isn’t a failure of the “cure”; it’s just a difficult lesson in a long-term curriculum. 

a deeper dive

Ask a person who has been sober for twenty years if they’re “cured.” If they’re honest, they will tell you “No.” They’re well-managed; recovering, but never cured.

In alcoholism, the brain has been “rewired.” The neural pathways associated with the addiction are like deep grooves in a record. You can stop playing the song, but the grooves never go away. The cure suggests that if you stop drinking, the grooves disappear. The reality is that the grooves are permanent. The moment a “cured” alcoholic has one drink, the needle could drop right back into that old, deep groove. The sober person knows those grooves are there. They don’t pretend they aren’t. They spend every day consciously choosing to keep the needle off the record. That is mastery, not a cure.

In the 12-step world, they use the phrase “Daily Reprieve.” It means you are granted one more day of sobriety based on your spiritual and mental maintenance. “Reprieve” is a stewardship model. You have to earn it every single day.

My hope for every person is to be a steward of their new lives, not “owners” who think the job is done. It will never be done.

stay a student

Being a student means you never stop watching the wire. You respect the fact that the person you used to be is still there, living in the architecture of your mind. That person isn’t an enemy; they are a source of data. They tell you exactly where the voltage is too high and where you’re still vulnerable.

Stay humble. The goal isn’t to reach a day when you don’t have to try anymore. The goal is to become so skilled, so observant, and so disciplined that no matter how high the voltage spikes, you know exactly how to manage the current. That might be a lifelong class. Humility is the understanding that the classroom is 24/7. You are simply becoming a master of the material.

A goal for 2026: always stay a student, always stay humble.