You Owe It To Yourself

My friend, the one who has such a good mental approach to competition frequently uses phrases such as "you deserve it" or you "owe it to yourself". His view is that provided he finishes an event knowing in his heart that he really did do his best, then all is well and it doesn't matter what the outcome was. This guy was encouraged to perform well in competition from an early age.

Another story that Dr Saul Miller presents in " Sport Psychology For Cyclists" is that of Greg Lemond's comeback race. After his near death experience with a shot gun, Lemond looked gaunt and not like a past Tour De France winner. Miller reasons that despite his physical condition, Lemond made the final selection in the race, because "that's where he thought be belonged, that's who he though he was".

A common thread in sports psychology is positive thinking. Yes it's a glib statement, but there really doesn't seem to be anything complicated about it. You just have to practice and I guess as always that's the difficult thing to do. Conversley negative thoughts can control our performances. A point that has been at the forefront of my mind has been that for every thought there is a reaction, and for every reaction there is a thought. So if I think negatively, then my performance will contain negative elements. 

My point is that, you have to believe in yourself and that for some people, the ability to do this has been instilled in them from an early age. Whilst the way we were brought up has a profound influence on our behaviour today, it is only learnt behaviour. We didn't know how to behave when we were born, thus learnt negative thinking patterns can be replaced by more appropriate ones. That's what Lemond didn't think in terms of words such as unlucky or inferior.

A part of my training regime is to tell myself everyday that I'm confident, that I dare to have a go, I am strong and can complete my training sessions with pace and ability. I want, can and will do well.