How Do You Overcome Obstacles And Stress ?
This story is not about my last personal performance.
It’s all about YOUR next performance.
How will you overcome obstacles and stress during your next event ?
I will take my own real-life example to illustrate my point here:
Exactly two weeks ago, I took part in the first round of the UCI World Cup Trials in Salzburg, Austria. Only the best athletes of the sport took part in this event.
Despite the fact that I now spend the vast majority of my time coaching other athletes, I still enjoy competing and training at the highest level I possibly can.
Now, I call these big events my “Lab”.
Why ?
Because that’s where I test my coaching methods. I test my mental training on myself first, to provide the best for you later. And this, during the hardest events in the world.
Because that’s real life stuff.
No theory here. Only proven methods.
A lifelong process of experience.
Back to my story:
I encountered so many complications during that World Cup, that’s not even funny:
- At the beginning of the competition, we had a big storm with so much rain that it was creating streams around the competition area and making every obstacle very dangerous.
- I had a massive crash that should have brought me down. It didn’t. I suffered (A LOT!) in total silence. Zero noise. Zero anger. Just like nothing happened to me. Look at the video here (please don’t laugh):
- I completely broke one of my pedals during the event and fell hard on the ground. People got scared for me (and they were right). I didn’t even care.
- I spent the week-end sleeping in a car, with pouring rain over my head. Needless to say, I got very little sleep. It didn’t affect me at all.
Looking back at it, the conditions were terrible. But once you realize that these kind of obstacles are here to make you grow, you completely change your approach towards your sport.
Because something happen to you, doesn’t mean you have to be affected by it.
The same happens with stress.
Because the environment is stressful, doesn’t mean you have to be stressed out:
This World Cup was extremely tight in terms of results. One mistake, and you were out…
What did the others athletes do ?
They stressed out ! They were all literally freaking out all along.
They weren’t able to control themselves.
Me ?
I was relaxed, joking around.
Result ?
The highly-stressed athletes ended up making mistakes and I didn’t.
During that competition and despite these complications playing against me, I did perform in the top-25 in the World Ranking. Nearly all the athletes ahead were professionals.
Not bad for a guy like me who now just train a little on evenings..
How did I do all that ?
I train my mind every day.
Whereas most athletes realize how important the mental side of sports is, most of them just “think” of training it (you know, maybe one day..).
Nobody ACTUALLY does it on a regular basis.
Doing so, they shoot themselves in the foot.
As an athlete, this gives me a huge advantage over my competitors.
As a coach, this makes me want to cry.
And you, how do you handle obstacles and stress ?
How do you train your mind to face big challenges ?
