FILL YOUR LIFE WITH THANKFULNESS!
I was recently reading in Men's Health magazine about how a life of gratitude towards friends, family, spouse, children will alleviate stress and allow for freedom in many areas such as sleep, daily body renewal, muscular ailments, sickness, and more. Here is the diagram they used to show the percentage of people who are regularly thankful toward different people in their lives:
I encourage you to be part of these percentages! (Except the column "Your Wife" since it refers to the percentage of people that say their partner is not appreciative) Being thankful will affect your training and your recovery throughout the season.
SCHEDULE YOUR TIME!
Some of you are coached, some are self coached, some are beginning the goal setting process. Wherever you are in your journey toward achieving your training goals, scheduling out your time each day, week, month will put your mind at ease and provide structure to your goal. This can be as simple as setting the days and amount of time you would like to exercise. It can be as precise as blocking out the exact time of your workouts each day. Prepare well beforehand so you don't have to think about it later! A friend once explained to me about the battle in our minds between the emotionally driven side and the logical side.
The example was of a person who is planning out his next day's activities. That evening before he is fully aware and thinking logically on how to wisely use his time. He makes a plan for when he wakes up until the next evening and it all sounds great. But when he wakes up the next morning everything changes. His emotional side now desires to stay in bed which begins to hinder the wonderful plans he made the previous night. His emotional side has beat out the sure fire logic of the plan he made!
I know this story does not apply to everyone but how many times do we allow the emotion of the moment to overcome what we know is good and right? How many times do you talk yourself into a workout only to get to that deciding moment and flake out? Or be completed excited about going home to eat an avocado salad only to give in to that favorite fast food restaurant on the way? Make a schedule, set up barriers to free yourself from the emotionally driven decision and execute.
(For the example above, he suggested setting your coffee maker the night before to begin making coffee at a certain time so you have no choice but to get out of bed, sneaky!)
COMPLETE EACH ROUTINE!
This last tip is minor but effective in creating good habits mentally in exercise. FINISH EACH WORKOUT in the time you set or time you were given. If the run is 30 minutes, go the entire 30 minutes. Never get into a habit of stopping even 1 second short as this will flow over into the overall effectiveness of your routines.
For those competing in races this year, this becomes important those last few miles of the race where you begin to question why you did this to yourself or if you are able to finish. If you have pushed through before then you know you can succeed again!
In everything you do work at with all of your heart, not for others as this can lead to boasting and a prideful heart.
These are 3 simple yet effective tools for mental preparedness in whatever you desire to accomplish. Do great this year!
