You have a goal. You begin by writing down what you think you’ll need to do to accomplish it. You realize that there are things you don’t know and can’t do so your confidence goes down and you become insecure because there are athletes out there it seems who can accomplish anything they put their mind to.
People who succeed approach goals mentally before they act. This mental mapping helps athletes connect the dots making them secure. The good news is psychology says you can learn to be more resilient after bad results, confident facing opposition, focused amidst uncertainty, and deeply secure in your efficacy come race day. I want to share what I’ve learned to be my mental processes from start to finish in hopes you may remain deeply rooted in your efficacy throughout your process of completing a goal.
Visualize the Future
I find it’s easy to be inspired imagining some far-off dream, but that inspiration can quickly fade. Visualizing the future can neurologically rewire the brain as it brings past senses into our mind so in the short term you feel more confident, optimistic, and can jump start your next goal from a creative and confident place.
Look to the Past
Once I’ve decided to act upon that dream goal a technique I find effective at reasserting self-belief is looking at past experiences. In psychology, this is a common effective strategy to reestablish self-efficacy. Overcoming past adversities and accomplishments of smaller or different goals can give you permission to transfer that self-belief to new and bigger goals.
Psychology presents this paradox in looking to the past to fuel future successes. While it’s the future we want to reach for, we can’t get there without first accomplishing the past. The trick to not getting stuck in this paradox is to know that self-efficacy comes from piecing together what it was you learned you’re good at that allowed to succeed in past goals. You can choose how much to learn about yourself from this, but again, psychology shows this is an effective tool to develop self-efficacy and a great place to start when deciding to go after that next goal.
Build Support
Building support can mean several things and be done several ways but the purpose is to demystify the inevitable unknowns you’ll encounter and reestablish confidence and self-efficacy. When my mental game begins to slip these are strategies, tools, and practices I find effective at keeping me moving forward.
- Educate Yourself
Educating yourself means reaching out for information when you don’t have the answer. It will increase your confidence as you become educated which is a fulfilling part of the process. Some great sources I enjoy when becoming more educated are:
- Textbooks and online articles.
- Listening to audiobooks and podcasts.
- Reaching out to someone online I look up to.
- Self-Care
Self-care can be an anxious word in the minds of endurance athletics, after all, we’re supposed to be able to endure, act confident, and always feel strong right? Well, self-care is less about acting how we think we should and more about practicing self-awareness so that we may accept how we feel and move towards taking measures as needed to improve our training and racing. This, in turn, does make us feel enough because you’ll compete at an event knowing you’ve done your best.
Endurance athletes race performance greatly depends on power, speed, and/or strength to weight ratio. Pros and amateurs alike can be led down a path of destructive thinking by a sport that rewards questionable eating habits to reduce body weight. Wanting to perform our best is natural, but when stress inevitably comes into our lives we want instant gratification. This can be in the form of something simple like buying ice cream after a race or training block and what happens is we learn to only get those rewards when we feel we’ve earned/deserve them which can then lead to shame when we don’t feel we deserve them. The key is to accept everyone has impulses and observe our self-talk so we may learn whether we’re strengthening the mental muscles involved in creating a positive or negative feedback loop. Are you observing your self-talk and rewarding yourself with something that’s supportive of your goals? Things like a new jersey or time spent with supportive people, or are you rewarding yourself with ice-cream or a late night out with friends?
Here are some ways to practice self-care and strengthen the positive feedback loop:
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- Meditate
- Journal
- Confide with a close friend, partner, or professional.
- Schedule regular self-check-ins (Eg. Daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly annually)
- Plan for rest throughout the year (Eg. After training blocks, races, traveling, business goals).
- Celebrate and reward your wins. (Eg. new jersey, new shoes, new goggles, time spend with friends and family, a special yet healthy meal, and more)
3. Hire a Professional
Do you want to take your training more seriously? Hiring a professional can be one of the best investments you’ll ever make. Whether it’s a sports coach, nutritionist, or psychologist they’ll be equipped to bridge gaps you may have. Any of these professionals is someone you trust, has relevant experience and knowledge, and will offer their best self in supporting you towards your goal.
Live in the Present
There’s a lesson for you whether you’ve successfully completed your goal or failed. Psychology shows us that humans feel more stable when they have control over their circumstances, but circumstances don’t always equate to desired outcomes. As a result, when we’re faced with the difficulty in accepting we don’t always have control, we try to rationalize why things didn’t go to plan and potentially fall into a spiral of asking ourselves why, getting frustrated when we learn why and living in the past wishing we had acted differently. The key to preventing you from falling into this spiral is observing your behavior when you learn why something didn’t go to plan and stopping before you react negatively. The first question to ask yourself about an undesired outcome is are you reactive or observant? The key to getting out of this spiral is learning what’s acceptable behavior when reviewing results. Are you getting frustrated? How many times did you get frustrated before opting to have acceptance? Our brain has evolved very slowly which plays a large part in why we act instinctively serious towards things that don’t pose a life or death threat such as a race. Know that strong emotions are natural, but not where objective improvement is found.
The advantages of being more resilient, confident, focused, secure, and all the skills and practices that can support those traits, stem from becoming self-aware. Becoming self-aware takes time, patience, forgiveness, and can be facilitated by a trusted outside perspective. If you’ve considered dialing in your training, nutrition, or your mental game to one-up your competition then a professional can help. And by taking steps to improve these areas of yourself you too can become one of those people equipped to accomplish anything you put your minds to.
