Its race day, but are you prepared?
“The biggest obstacle to our own success is very often our self”
It’s easy, isn’t it? You train, you put in the miles and you fine tune according to the race that you have entered…Ready to go!
Race day arrives and your body is prepared…Reflecting on the adage “10% ability and 90% attitude” suggests that there might be one big area overlooked.
While natural ability and a thorough training schedule is clearly a prerequisite, the difference between great and good…good and average is down to you in a far bigger way than you might have previously imagined.
Any training programme undertaken is to prepare your body for the rigors and demands that a race will entail. Your training conditions your body so that come race day it is prepared for the speed of a 5K or the stamina required by a marathon.
You may have packed your bag the night before and picked your favourite vest and shorts to wear…Picked your lucky socks, perhaps some gels and a change of clothes…Nothing left to chance, or is there?
While we will always prepare our bodies, we far too often overlook how we prepare our minds (the 90%)…And as a consequence we waste the opportunities to be our very best. We have conditioned our bodies, our hearts and lungs, but have failed to condition our thinking. Conditioning draws on previous experiences hence the need to modify our training for specific races.
It is our mental conditioning that drives our beliefs (about any situation) which in turn create our attitude to situations that we face. Our attitude determines how we feel, our emotions …And it is from here that we generate behaviours and performance….Performance on race day!
So we need to start with our conditioning…How we think about ourselves. Our minds are fed from our sub conscious which purely retains all manner of previous experiences…But the key is that it does not differentiate between fact and fiction, only experiences. So when we allow ourselves to be effected by a negative chain of events, the sub conscious will retain without question for the next time a similar situation occurs…A bad race or a poor training performance.
Fact or fiction, the subconscious does not differentiate…But we can change the way we think!
We can condition our thinking. The more we stop listening to negative stimuli but replace with positive words and thinking, the more our conditioning will adapt and change for the better. Start by thinking about the many positive results you have had …A great performance, a personal best, the feelings that you enjoyed as a result!
Use strong and expressive words and repeat them to yourself as you reflect on the performance. By doing so, you are leaving these thoughts in your sub conscious for the next time you need to draw upon them come race day.
Its 90% attitude and there are ways to train the mind…Time you started!
Some points to ponder:
- Where do you currently see yourself in the 90:10 scale…Attitude V Aptitude?
- How will you make positive changes to that & what will be the benefits?
- What is your current view of yourself…Do you mentally picture yourself in the right “light and image”? How do you plan to change that?
- When and how are you going to change your internal thinking?
- What will you put in place to create and maintain the new “self- image” of you?
- Remember…”Fail to prepare…Prepare to fail”
We should all aim to be the “Best version” of ourselves that we can be, all of the time.
“Success will be within your reach only when you start reaching out for it.”
Stephen Richards
