Mindset Matters

“Baseball is 90% mental, the other half is physical,” Yogi Berra.

I’ve never run in the summer. Let me clarify that; I’ve never trained for a marathon in the summer. Also, over the last few months, I now realize that I’ve never actually appropriately trained for a marathon.

Now it wasn’t because I didn’t want to, but rather because I didn’t have a coach and I didn’t know what I was doing. I found my training schedule in books about running or Runner’s World magazine.

I ran my first marathon when I was 17, and at the time the furthest I had ever run was 18 miles (once) in preparation for it. I didn’t have a time goal just the goal of finishing. I was in great shape at the time as I ran on the cross country team and then played basketball for 3-4 hours every day after school.

Even though my furthest run had been only 18 miles, I had no doubt I would finish the marathon. My mind was full of confidence that I would finish the race and that the only thing that could stop me would be an injury.

It was because I was determined, and my mindset was in the right place that I was able to complete my first marathon.

When I was growing up, I was always one of the slowest runners. I remember playing baseball in seventh grade, and our coach decided to time us running to first base. I was humiliated because I was dead last. Next, he decided to time us all the way to second base. Although I didn’t win, I was able to beat out one kid, and for me, that was a glimmer of hope. The next year I finished first in our PE class and beat out a kid that was much faster than me in shorter distances, but I didn’t understand this whole endurance thing, but I liked it.

I didn’t know anything about fast-twitch and slow-twitch muscle fibers at the time, but looking back I was blessed with a whole lot of the slow ones and not too many of the fast ones. While I was frustrated at the time I learned to appreciate that my gift was not as a sprinter, but in longer runs where I could continue and push through outlasting many of my competitors.

Romans 5:3-4 Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope.

One of the hardest parts of running for me is the mental part. So much of running is psychological. If I am dreading a run, then chances are I am going to have a bad one. If I am looking forward to a race then most of the time it is a good one. Much like being stuck in quicksand, things can unravel in a hurry if you don’t stay positive.

One of my fears is to have to run without music. A few days ago I started a run and turned my headphones on, but nothing happened. They hadn’t charged even though I plugged them in the night before. We started a 6-mile run, and although it is not one of our longer runs, that long a run at 5 AM would not have been a fun one. However, to prevent this from happening I always carry a second pair of headphones with me.

Turned out to be a great run. My legs were light, and I felt great. However, if I hadn’t prepared, then it very likely would have taken an opposite turn, and it could have quickly turned into one of my worse runs. That is why I believe so much of running is mental.

Not everything can be prevented (like cramps, injuries, weather, etc.) but the more you can plan around these possibilities the better the chances are you can stay positive and have a good run.

Also, deciding to look at things from a different perspective can help you stay positive. A few weeks ago my coach asked me if I was going to run a race on the 4th of July. I was undecided on the run specifically because it looked like it was going to rain. When I told her why I was considering not running, she said that the year before it was so hot that if it rained it would be a huge blessing, not a negative like I had trained myself to think. I thought about it from her perspective and decided to run the race and did pretty well. You can read about that here, but if I weren’t open to considering thinking about things from a different perspective, then I would not have run the race.

Business is similar to running in that it to also depends so much on your mindset. If you believe that a potential client will say no, then they likely will and if you think that they will say yes then they probably will. So many times, I’ve experienced a salesperson's pitch and thought I wasn’t even thinking about buying one of these, but how could I not now.

Other times, I’ve received such a terrible pitch that there was no way I was going to purchase what they were selling even if I truly needed it.

It is often a self-confidence or lack of it, sometimes clothed in humor or nervousness that either make or break the sale. Practice what you’ll say to a co-worker or accountability partner to build your confidence, and you could go home a winner. Practice on your potential clients on your appointments, and you’ll likely leave a loser.

#mindset #goals #run #running #americasgaolcoach #coaching #marathon #paradigm #perspective