Below are 5 tips you will find highly effective at improving your performance if you live them.... not just today, EVERYDAY!
- Understand the power of rest. Sleep provides energy to your body including your brain. Just like recharging the batteries to a cordless drill, the cordless drill can do loads of work however if it is not given time to recharge, it will under-perform. Did you know that a lack of sleep can lead to weight gain? Sleeping helps regulate the hormones ghrelin and leptin. By not regulating these hormones, we feel the need to eat more while awake. If you think about it. Sleeping eight hours a day equates to 1/3 of our lives being asleep. The quality of your sleep will dictate how well you perform the other 2/3rds of your day. Link to more info
- Your mind should never leave the world of process goals. The #1 negatively impacting mindset I see in clients is their focus on outcomes. The belief that you must run X time per leg only leads to an increase in anxiety and could lead to feelings of failure if the time is not achieved. Want to be your best? Focus on proper technique; focus on physical fitness that drives efficiency and proper form. Focus on proper swim technique. Practice does not make perfect, practice makes habit. Make sure your processes are in proper form to ensure you compete at your best through great habits. How you train is exactly how you will perform in a race. Link to more info.
- Be kind to yourself. You should talk to yourself like you would talk to your mother. Be your own inspirational/motivational coach to reach new heights. You truly have everything within you to be great. Life comes with challenges, to be alive means you will have issues. What is important is how quick you bounce back and tell yourself positive thoughts or think about happy moments in your life to change the focus. Positive thoughts present positive results .... you control your thoughts. It’s up to you!
- Recognize the power of belief. Ask Roger Bannister how he became the first person to run a mile under 4 minutes. His response is that he didn’t feel there should be an absolute limit on how fast someone could run the mile. It started in his mind, he cleared the way for his body to achieve what no other human could achieve at the time. This is why one critical component to achieving the impossible is that you, with everything you have, believe you can do it! Believing it opens you up to achieving it! Link to more info.
- Develop solid pre-race routines. Its important, especially in a high stress/anxiety environment to have something to rely upon. Roger Bannister even mentioned that it was his routines that helped minimize his race anxiety. Humans are habit-seeking creature. We seek habits out of comfort and control. Include visualization yet many people question the power of visualization. I quickly ask them to think about a nightmare they once had where they woke up sweating, an increased heart rate and a sense of confusion. Visualization is truly powerful and will help propel our performance.