At 24, Elisabeth Akinwale had defined ideas about what it would take to achieve happiness in her career. The answer was grad school.

At the time, she was a group fitness instructor—a job she thought wasn’t “intellectual enough” to be valuable.

But there was a problem. Once she graduated, she found herself working nine-hour days.

“I felt like I followed ‘the rules’ and I was just incredibly unhappy with the outcome,” adds Akinwale, now 34.

Today, she’s “cycling back” to what she originally wanted to do. She’s now a full-time athlete who finished seventh at last year’s CrossFit Games.

The mother of a 6-year-old boy spends a lot of time doing physical training as well as reading.

“I just want to be able to maximize my mental strength for the purpose of competing better but also just for the enjoyment of it,” Akinwale explains. “I mean, that’s the whole point is wanting to enjoy it and wanting to see how far I can go.”

Video by Mike Koslap.