MENTAL TRAINING: GETTING PAST "THE WALL"

BY NICOLE MILLER, PhD

The WALL. The formidable, imposing, seemingly impenetrable WALL. You’ve hit it before. You fear it now. You know it’s coming. But what can you do? Realize this: your mind will give up long before your body; however, once your mind goes, your body quickly follows. Your body knows only two things: injury and what your mind tells it to do. When you start thinking, “I’m tired”, “this hurts”, etc., your body responds by creating those sensations. Most of the time, if you can keep your mind going in a positive direction, your body will continue to achieve your goal. Triathletes have used many techniques to overcome hitting the wall, one of the most popular being self-talk. As soon as you say to yourself, “I want to quit”, your body responds by quitting. So, what would happen if you said, “I can keep going”, or “this is what I’ve been training for”. Keeping your mind moving forward will keep your body moving forward. A popular thought on attention is that we can only pay attention to one stimulus at a given moment. Therefore, if you are thinking about moving forward, you are not thinking about wanting to stop. It takes a conscious effort to stay on top of your mind, but if you truly want to have control over your performance, and either avoid or break through that wall, you must first control your brain. So, take a lesson from Dory on Finding Nemo, and tell yourself to, “just keep swimming”.

Want to learn more from Nicole? She can be reached at (801)712-7956; nicole@headstrongconsulting.com; or www.headstrongconsulting.com.