You train and train and are fully prepared for your race. When race day comes you find yourself falling apart emotionally. Your psyche is replaying negative thoughts and doubts over and over in your mind. All the work and time and effort that went into training for the big day seems to be lost because you are now an anxious mess. Wouldn’t it be nice to get to race day and feel calm and focused? Wouldn’t you prefer to be able to shift your mindset when the doubts come creeping?
Imagine yourself in a lake with 2500 others anticipating the sound of the cannon and a 2.4 mile swim. 2500 bodies is also the equivalent of 5000 arms and 5000 legs moving en mass. Bang, the cannon fires and you freeze, thankfully you are wearing a wetsuit. You right yourself in the water and take a moment. In that moment you take a breath and you calm yourself down. You have trained for this for several months and are not about to give it all up now. As you gain your composure you look up at the crowd of people lining the lakeshore and you notice a huge banner on the side of a condo with your name on it and the word BELIEVE in giant letters. You take a deep breath and mindfully find your position in the sea of arms and legs. You had gotten over your fear of water to even be in the lake. But how on earth did you overcome this fear to be in the midst of chaos?
Mindfulness, is the tool that taught you to take a moment and get your composure. You noticed your fear and were able to calm yourself enough to proceed. You battled the guy behind you who kept grabbing your ankle with every stroke. You took the breath as you rounded each boey in the bottleneck crowd. The power of mindfulness got you to the start and finish of this swim. You had 2.4 miles under your belt and the next 138.2 miles left of the race seemed like a cakewalk.
If you find yourself struggling with performance anxiety on race day, or if you want to find a new more calm approach to your workouts and jam-packed race schedule give Tracey a call. She can teach you mindfulness tools to bring more ease and joy into your sports activities.