I’m always amused by students who rejoice at managing a pass in their exams. They celebrate as though they’ve won the lottery. What ever happened to shooting high? I read a report which told the story of a bunch of teenagers who were asked what they wanted most. The answer they gave was to be famous. Not famous for doing something particularly well, just famous.
Lots of us limit our outcomes by shooting too low. Is it because we’re not game to aim high, in case we fail? If we did choose excellence, instead of just a pass, how would we go about achieving it?
The first step is to value ourselves enough to feel worthy of achieving excellence. To start that process we have to become good at accepting compliments and recording little wins. Lots of little wins will build confidence. An increase in confidence will allow bigger dreams, higher goals.
Once the higher goals are chosen an attitude of seeking excellence in everything we do must be adopted. Success always comes back to the little things being done very well.
These basic principles can easily be adapted to our sport. Start by keeping a diary and recording “what went right” in every workout. Record time trial and race results. Next step is to have clear achievable goals set for the next month or over the next three months. These short term goals are more important than the long term three year or five year plan, because it’s the little wins along the way which provide the fuel to keep going.
Paying attention to the small things which many overlook will pay off in the long run. The greatest gains in our sport often don’t come from training. They can come from body maintenance. Stretching, strengthening and resting. Regularly taking a simple
One Response
Stay in touch with the conversation, subscribe to the RSS feed for comments on this post.
Hi Alan
I’m going for excellence for sure! But what is ‘excellence’ for me may be a borderline ‘pass’ or even a ‘fail’ for someone else. I’ll be doing my first ironman in about 7 weeks (in Taupo, NZ) and I’m going to classify a sub 15:00 as ‘my excellence’ and a finish within the official 17:00 cutoff as my ‘pass.’ I’ll be super happy no matter what my finish time is… so long as I finish and give it my best. You get out of something what you put into it.
I’ve started keeping a diary of what went right in each of my training sessions, recording the data from my HR monitor and emailing it to my coach to let him know how I’m travelling. I’m recording what I eat and occassionally inputting it into calorieking to see if I’m eating enough cals for the training volume I’m doing and getting enough macronutrients. I keep a sleep diary too – of when I go to sleep and when I wake (I’m ‘failing’ in this area as I barely get 5 hrs a night. I’m too excited about IM NZ to sleep at night – that’s my grand theory anyway!).
I also couldn’t see why my fellow course mates at uni were so happy with a ‘pass’ for an assignment or exam when they could be putting in so much more time and effort and getting high credits or distinctions. Clearly, they don’t care. The attitude isn’t there.
Love your work, Alan. I particuarly struggle with my confidence and believing I am worthy of excellence doesn’t come natural to me. I like what you said about celebrating the small achievements. For me, that could simply be completing my training session each day exactly as per my training program as well as eating well, and stretching properly after my session.