Triathlon lesson of life. Part 2 – Six tips to become the champion of your life
In last week’s blog, Triathlon Lesson of Life. Part 1: A play by play, I took your through the heart and mind of a triathlete during a race. This week, let’s look at helpful tips inspired from the world of triathlon, which can be applied by anyone looking to improve their life. Theses tips are super useful even for those who are not athletes (yet …?). They are as helpful in life as they are in sport.
Sport caries many overlapping lessons useful for succeeding in life.
As you might have guessed, I was describing an experience of one of my triathlon races. There are remarkable (and surprising) similarities to being a champion in triathlon and in life. The good news is, that you don’t need to be a triathlete to benefit from them. Here a quick run down of key life lessons to be a champion on and off the race course:
- At the start, always get clear on what you want to achieve,
- And why it is important to you to do this.
- Become aware of your strengths and start to leverage them.
- Identify your weaknesses, so you can compensate for them.
- Create a plan to guide you to your goal.
- Manage self-doubt through positive self-talk.
- Offset your natural preference to stay within your comfort zone. No growth happens there.
- Hone your inner dialogue to keep yourself motivated through set-backs (such as injuries, weaknesses or outside variables beyond your control).
- Know when to fight through obstacles,
- And when to accept them. In this case, revamp your approach to accommodate them – without giving up all together.
- Stick to what you want to do until you achieve your goal. Believe in yourself.
- Celebrate when you reach it. Don’t even think about what you might do next, until you celebrated what you achieved.
- Set new goals if you want to take it to the next level. If you don’t, that’s okay too.
And now, the top 4 triathlon inspired tips for your best life!
Tip #1: Gain Discipline over your actions and thoughts
Just as in the example of the race from last week’s blog, this means steering your actions with intentional self-talk. Thus, gaining discipline over your thoughts. The truth is, living your best life takes concentrated effort. This does not just pertain to working harder at a task at hand, but also your effort in steering your self-talk. Unfortunately, we never learn how to do this in school. Why is it important to learn this? Your inner talk steers your emotions. Your emotions control your thoughts. Your thoughts determine your actions. Your actions determine your results. And all of these, make up your life. What is the main message? Get your inner self-talk aligned and the results will follow.
Action: Get back to basics, and learn how to control your self-talk. The easiest way to do that is to join my Self Coach Approach Mastermind when it next launches. Check out he details HERE to learn more. It is also where you can put yourself on the waitlist to save your obligation free spot. I’ll be able to notify you when the program starts, at which point you can decide whether you wish to commit to it.
Tip #2: Plan ahead to get ahead
Living your best life rarely happens by accident. You don’t want to have any regrets when you look back at your life at any point of your journey. To think you did not go for something you could have done but did not commit to because you were afraid to fail. A good place to start is get clear on your life purpose statement first. Click this link to download your free workbook. It is an easy step-by-step guide which shows you exactly how to do it.
Action: Go ahead and do this first. It takes less than an hour when you follow the steps I outlined in the freebie workbook.
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Next action: Once you know your life purpose, draft a plan of the steps you need to make it happen. Think of it as a “general outline”. You can fill in the more specific goals and sub goals down the road. By the way, it’s not about following this plan point by point. It’s okay to stray from any plan, so don’t let your fear of “not being able to follow through” keep you from making one. Rest assured, you can revise it as you learn and grow and potentially change your mind. “Then why have plan”, you ask? A plan gives your actions a sense of direction and helps you stay focused on what really matters to you. It prevents you from getting distracted by white elephants. Or your inner gremlin’s efforts to keep you from trying new things.
Tip #3: Work hard, but also take recovery breaks
Triathletes use a method called periodization to balance their workouts over the week, the month and even the year. Without going into too much detail, essentially it means they divide a span of time into periods where they push themselves (either increasing the intensity or the duration of their efforts), balanced by periods of active rest or complete rest. Weekly, this means balancing intense workout days, with less intense ones and having a rest day. Monthly, they plan one intense week, with two moderate ones and one that is relatively easy. For the year, a triathlete first picks one or more key races. Then builds up the level of intensity gradually leading up to the races. Just before, triathletes scale back and tapper down to very little exertion, so that they are not worn out. They then tackle the race full on and scale back afterwards, to recover completely.
Action: Looking at the triathlete example (weekly, monthly and/or yearly), how could you incorporate periodization practices into your life to help you be your best?
Tip #4: Enjoy the moment without holding on to the outcome
If you train or live your life with the sole purpose of winning, you will deprive yourself of the joy of the moment in the journey. That is time you will never make back. It’s not about the win. In races, only one person is officially the winner, the rest of the great athletes are not losers. The most successful athletes and life-hackers chose to concentrate on something they did better than they previously did. They may think about what they need to adjust (in their life or workouts), to close the gap between what they did and what they want to do. And sometimes, just as in life and in sports, winning may simply be showing up. In fact, that is the only way to start anything. Show up. Bring your whole self and show up.
Action: Where do you need to show up more in your life?
Tip #5: Acknowledge your successes
Refrain from moving on to the next goal, until you have thoroughly celebrated and acknowledged who you had to be as a person to achieve what you did. Many people, who deeply yearned to achieve a goal, ironically just move onto the next thing once they reached it. Without really honouring their efforts and taking in what it took to get there. And how amazing that really is! Perhaps, in part, because there is always more to do. So they feel celebrating the “steps on the way” is premature. Research has shown that the opposite is true. Acknowledging yourself and pausing to celebrate, serves as instant jet fuel to get you through the next time you feel stuck. And combat the inner gremlin as well.
Action: Think of the last milestone you reached which you are proud of. Now commit to a way you will celebrate that success – either privately or with others – before the week is out.
I strongly encourage you to go through each of the tips and apply the action items as suggested. If you’d like some help with the accountability of your action items, please contact me by CLICKING HERE. I’d love to help you.
Namaste,
Simone
Simone Alberts is a success coach, psychologist, mom to a 5 year old and founder of The Self Coach Approach. She empowers freedom seekers to know exactly how to coach themselves so they can create the life they really want – and not settle for the default version).
Simone is available for a select group of one-on-one coaching clients. Besides personal coaching, she teaches people how to coach themselves, either one-on-one or within a Mastermind group. Which method would work best for you? Check out the options on my website by CLICKING HERE.
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