Run these nine tactics through your mentally shrinking ray gun machine to turn self-perpetuating issues of great concern into nothing more than small things not worth the sweat:
- Chorus of bending over to let things invade you. Withdrawal. Regroup. Increase. Move on. Never give up.
- Recognize that frustrations are the negative side of your more positive passions. Anything in between is not much.
- Acknowledge familiarity with major disappointments and remember what you did before to get out of them.
- Refocus on your desired big win. Recognize that there are intermediate milestones, mostly small things, that you need to accomplish before the grand prize is possible.
- Stick to behaviors that align with your guiding principles—little things that come naturally to you. Thinking outside social norms to gain an advantage creates anxieties. Big Stuff: If something feels wrong, it probably is.
- Reconnect with your training and race plans to perform with purpose.
- Commit yourself with a new zeal to overcome great setbacks.
- Start moving forward while leaving disappointments behind.
- Acknowledge that it’s acceptable to sweat for big races. Smile. Advance on your journey to success.
“The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” FDR in his first inaugural address.
A friend convinced me to go big and long in triathoning. At my first Ironman triathlon in Provo, Utah, I took out two sets of white labels with words in black ink to guide us through the race. On each but one label there was a single word: “Eat”, “Drink”, “Breathe”, “Relax”, “Laugh”, and the other label referred to our goal for race day.
We stuck the labels on each of the aero bars on our bike to serve as reminders for tomorrow’s race. Single words were tactics to follow to get great results. Our motivational goal was for everyone to qualify for Kona. I expected the race to be the most challenging sporting event of my life.
I didn’t sleep well the night before the race. Lying in bed thinking about tomorrow’s race with the main show in my imagination being me with a steady swim, an efficient bike, followed by a fast run to finish and earn Ironman status. But during commercial breaks I experienced atychiphobia, more commonly known as fear of failure.
Many athletes never think that something bad will happen to them in a race. Bad things will only happen to others. Sometimes we tend to think that we are indestructible. For other athletes, they imagine and experience some competition phobias. They are not things that will kill or maim us, but they will definitely prevent us from a well-earned performance that we trained hard, smart and diligently for in a race. Some people become so obsessed with possible bad outcomes that they don’t accept the positives of being career-ready. They visualize catastrophes instead of successes. They go to extreme lengths to think of disastrous outcomes, to the point of exaggerating the worst potential outcomes in terms of all-or-nothing results rather than satisfying achievements.
These negative thoughts include getting flat tires and not being able to fix them quickly, getting hit by others and taking us out of the race, or other equipment failures such as broken chains, bent derailleurs, or a cut pedal. In Provo, my biggest fear was not being able to finish an Ironman distance triathlon, as my natural comfort zone was an 800-meter race in a track meet.
Digressing a bit, as a freshman in college, I gave a speech on phobias using Lucy from the Peanuts comic strip as inspiration. Here’s what you might want to know: Fear of Water, Aquaphobia, Bicycles, Cyclophobia, Running There is no word for “fear of running,” however, potamophobia is the fear of running water. There are no words for the fear of competition, but there are many symptoms:
- inability to sleep
- stomach breads
- overactive intestines
- nauseating
- trembling / trembling
- sweat excessively
- dizziness
- hyperventilation
- dry mouth
- freezing
- lose control over emotions
- affraid to die
- anxiety attacks
- incoherence when speaking
- incoherence in thought
He did not suffer from fear of sleeping (somniphobia) or fear of not sleeping. No, she suffered from (and this is just a bit of an understatement) anxiety, self-inflation, and over-inflation.
At 4:30 am I thought: “I choose to be a competitor instead of a spectator today. I am committed to this race. The day is to compete, all day. This is what I will do today.” Much better to be in the race rather than reading the results at home 625 miles away.
I boarded a bus at the Brigham Young University campus at 5 am for the ride to the race start and T1 transition area at Utah Lake. On the bus I was wondering if at the end of the day I would come back as an Ironman. With companions here and here in fear, my stomach was churning. Although this was not a war, I did my own battle and recounted how soldiers must feel before going into battle: the uncertainty of achieving the goal of the day, the uncertainty of returning intact or maimed, or even alive. To cope, I recalled a passage from Tom Wolfe’s The Right Stuff where he wrote about the original Mercury astronaut, Gus Grissom, when he was flying combat missions in North Korea. When stationed in South Korea, the pilots who had not been shot by the North Koreans had to stand on the bus between the barracks and their fighter jets. Gus made sure to earn the right to sit on the bus for the next trip. The “main thing was not to be left behind.”
I chose to earn the right to be called Ironman by focusing on being a competitor rather than a spectator. While I didn’t have to be on my feet, I didn’t want to fall behind the peer group I chose to belong to while waiting for a bona fide grade. The run turned out to be a small thing compared to the combat.
Write a list of everything that caused you concern in the last 12 months. Write next to each one how much worry time you spent on each event. Now, with the luxury of seeing how the events turned out, classify each as either a small stuff item or a big stuff item. Your pile of small things will be much bigger than your pile of big things. Learn to categorize before future events. Be predisposed to lean over for a small rating and think big for success.
When did you experience your “ah ha” moment of knowing the difference between the little things and the big things? What did you change to focus on the big things and not worry about the little things?