Struggles

This sport is a constant struggle. Mostly mentally. It is a struggle to trust yourself and trust your training and have enough faith to let yourself actually acheive what you are capable of. I am realizing more and more how much the sport is mental and NOT physical. There are so many athletes out there that train just as hard, recover just as well, maintain nutrition and weight, but something separates out that select few. Mental toughness.

I am trying to figure out how you train mental toughness. How do you stop believing something that you have accepted for so long as simply the truth? "I can't climb." Well, what if I can? What if I've just been telling myself I cant and this entire time it has just been a cop out when things get too hard? And how do I break out of that belief?

In my psych classes we learned about the law of the self fulfilling prophecy. I have a belief and I unconsciously manipulate my behavior in a manor that actually causes that belief to prove itself. "I can't climb." So I avoid training in the hills and getting discouraged. I "can't" hold on to group rides as they go over climbs so I simply let go and attribute my getting "dropped" to the belief that "I cant climb." Thus, I have proved my belief that I can't climb instead of realizing that I dropped myself. The challenge is to somehow get that belief out of my mind, to simply forget, wipe the slate clean as if I had no previous beliefs or experience with climbing. Will pure rote memorization of the phrase "I can climb" help to change this?

I think what I am realizing is it requires much more deliberate concentration on the new belief. "I CAN climb." Not simply saying it. Feeling it. Picturing it. There have been a few races where I surprised myself. Berkeley Road Race. McEwen 4 times with a 13% grade each lap and I made the break-away for 5th?! WHAT?! I think the truth is, I CAN climb. I simply keep falling into this negative self-fulfilling prophecy cycle and forget that I CONTROL the outcome. My beliefs CONTROL my actions.

It's something that is easily said, but the trick is to put it into action. I resolve to be more proactive with my mental thoughts and condition myself for positivity.

I CAN CLIMB.