The Conversation You Need To Have With Yourself

Have you ever made a decision in the heat of the moment that you wished afterwards you didn’t?

Maybe you got excited you were in the break and drove it too hard with a better sprinter than you.

Or maybe you were going through a rough patch and sat up early only to learn later that the group you were in all slowed down and blew up?

What I’ve learned is that it doesn’t matter how you feel in the moment, it matters how you feel about the outcome afterwards.

Most people base their game-time decision making on how they feel in the moment. They need to have instant gratification to determine their next effort. Are my legs good...ok I’ll keep going. Are my legs bad...ok somethings wrong with me I’ll stop.

Try and stop the habit of always analyzing how you feel in the moment and then correlating that to how you need to feel to perform. 

Discipline yourself to adjust your focus forward on what is right there in-front of you and react to that.

Why? Because you will always get what you are looking for. You want to go forward, you will. You want to find a reason you won’t succeed, you will find it.

To do this you first need to have a look inward to enhance your self awareness. 

Ask yourself: 

1. Are you focusing on what you have or what’s missing?

2. Do you focus on what you can’t control or what you can control.

3. Do you tend to focus on the past, the present, or the future.

Now that you know your pattern, break it by practicing forward focus. Consciously suffocate the the mid effort self analysis with intense focus on what is in front of you. 

This mental skill is just like your physical training. You need to habitually practice it to truly master it and be able to perform it when you need it the most.

Give this a try and you will not only gain the control to change the outcome of your rides and races, but you will also be empowered to change the outcome of moments in your life.