Picking a gym name is hard. It seems so simple yet it means so much. It sets the foundation of who you are as a business, as a gym, and as a community. When we first opened our doors in 2016, we didn’t start with CrossFit OYL, we used the name CrossFit Eta. Eta is a Greek letter typically used in heat & thermodynamics to signify efficiency. But people kept calling it E-T-A, or eat-a, or eh-ta. It’s pronounced ay-ta, just like the Greek letter Beta or Theta! The explanation took too long and wasn’t fully understood by most, the pronunciation was always off, and people just didn’t understand the culture.
Because that wasn’t our culture.
We weren’t a community of “efficient” fitness-ers. While it matters when working out, that’s not what we hung our hat on. We talked about prioritizing long term health and fitness and our physically capabilities, not how efficiently we lifted weights or did calisthenics or ran! So Eta just didn’t fit. It wasn’t us and it didn’t make sense to our current customers, and it certainly wasn’t going to make sense to anyone searching “gym near me” as a potential customer.
Changing Our Name to CrossFit OYL
So in the summer of 2020 amidst a lot of other change in the world, we took the opportunity to rebrand and rename ourselves. We changed our colors from maroon (very elite, mature, sophisticated) to orange (which promotes action). And we changed our name to CrossFit OYL.
OYL stands for Own Your Life. It really is that simple. There’s no fancy explanation, or special pronunciation, or hidden meaning only a few can guess. (Ok, one time someone called it CrossFit OLY thinking “Oly” was short for “Olympic weightlifting,” but trust me, way less confusion than Eta!) We are here, and we exist as a gym, in order to help you take Ownership of Your Life. If you’ve got the gist of it now, you can stop reading, but if you want to hear what the name CrossFit OYL means to us, then keep on!
What does it means to OWN your life?
One of the most influential books I’ve ever read is Essentialism by Greg McKeown. It’s actually THE most influential book on my life personally and easily in the top 3 that’s affected our gym business. In the opening chapter, McKeown introduces the reader to the “invincible power of choice”. We ultimately have the power to choose. We may feel like society makes us choose, or our parents, our kids, or our boss, but we have the power to choose to do what they say or what schedule they demand (or to not!). Obviously some of these might come with consequences, but no one forces you to go to work everyday to a job you don’t like. Choose a different job. Or choose to move to a different climate if you hate the cold. Or choose to eat healthy, not just gobble up whatever food your employer just catered.
In the gym, this is a big deal. You have the power to choose whether or not you drive to the gym. Are you going to let work or a “lack of willpower” get in the way, or will you choose to go work out. We have the power to choose to eat meat & vegetables rather than ramen & sugar cookies. We can even choose to not drink alcohol. No one is strapping your body down and pouring the drink down your throat against your will. You are the one choosing to order another drink or to drink at all in the first place, not your friends or family. That’s how we think at CrossFit OYL.
Taking Ownership
Once you realize you have the power to choose, the next step is taking ownership. Not only do you have the ability to choose, but you can go on the offense and take ownership. You OWN your life. This is powerful. This isn’t just choosing broccoli versus dessert anymore. We start small by choosing these “little” decisions like one more show on Netflix versus going to bed, but they snowball into a greater effect that you are now in control of your life.
You aren’t controlled by society or your boss like a puppet. You’re no one’s puppet! Cut off those strings and choose who you want to be. Take ultimate ownership of the life you want to life and realize that you, and only you, have that power. We will no longer sit back and give that power to someone else.
This is the change we want to show people in the gym. Yes, it starts with working out a couple days per week which we hope influences other change in you like eating habits or sleep. But if you do this whole gym thing for a whole year, you’ll look back and realize you put yourself in the captain’s chair. You put yourself in charge of your health. You took ownership. It starts small with little wins, but before you realize it, you are back in control.
You are now the owner, not the employee, of your life.
You can Own YOUR Life!
This might seem pretty obvious, but it’s worth repeating. You get to take ownership of YOUR life. Just in the same way that you are not subject to what others impose on you, we also don’t want to impose on others. We need to stay internally focused on ourselves, not others. By narrowing our focus to just us, we save previous effort and energy from worrying about others. The we can repurpose that energy into further developing ourselves.
One of my favorite quotes is by Napoleon Hill in his book Think and Grow Rich.
“You are the master of your destiny. You can influence, direct and control your own environment. You can make your life what you want it to be.”
Take ownership. YOU can do that, and you can do that for YOUR life!
This is bigger than broccoli, this is your LIFE!
Finally, it’s your life we are talking about here. This isn’t just about knowing when to stop scrolling on your phone, this is your existence.
How do you want to be remembered? When you get to your deathbed, will you look back on your life and remember all the times that you said “yes” to your boss instead of your son’s baseball game? Or all the times you gave into peer pressure for “just one more drink” when you didn’t want to or it didn’t line up with your goals?
I refuse to be remembered as a pushover, or a yes man. I will be someone who took ownership of my life. Forever and ever, I will grab my life by the horns, and I will control it. And I will control the whole thing. Not just when it was convenient or easy, but when it was hard. When it was awkward or challenging to set boundaries with family or life-long friends, I will be the person who did the right thing and the person who took charge of my life.
So how do you want to be remembered? Are you a cog in the system, just a minion or a puppet in this grand thing we call life?
Or are you the master of your destiny, the captain of your soul, the owner of your life?
It’s time to step up and take ownership of your life! That’s what we do at CrossFit OYL. We help you work out consistency so you can get fit and live a happy life. We may start with fitness, but we build upon that into ultimate ownership. It’s time to take ownership and live the life that you want to live.
CrossFit OYL in Haslet, TX
And hey, if you’re ever in the area, stop by and see us. If you need a place to start your fitness journey, then we are here to help! Drop us a comment below and we will reach out to you in 7 minutes or less!
