2016 NPAA Magazine 2016 - Volume 1 | Page 17

Photo Credit: KAI YORK Having a community of like-minded athletes is very helpful. When negative thoughts come up, you can reach out to people who understand what is going on and can talk you off the ledge. Some resources that have active forums which support athletes are: bodybuilding.com, fitocracy.com, and SparkPeople.com. Another thing we advocate in The Athlete Mindset Workbook is finding an Amateur Personal Mentor. Two Blessed Bodies teammates who read the book decided to check in with each other via email weekly, clarifying their goals together and keeping themselves accountable for what they’d given themselves as a task the week before. Having another athlete on speed dial when self-sabotaging thoughts come up can be a very helpful tool. The most important way to combat self-sabotage is to notice when it is happening. Sometimes self-defeating behaviors can seem so normal that they don’t even register as self-harming even though they are. The first step in handling self-sabotage is to notice the emotions you are feeling. If your emotions are anywhere from mildly to strongly negative then there is something worth investigating. Use the resources available to you to identify what is causing negative thoughts, and be ruthless in your commitment to improving your self-talk. At the same time, be gentle with yourself, and recognize that changing longstanding patterns takes time. Give yourself credit for every effort in the right direction. Appreciating your Successes and Getting Back On Track quickly when you go off-plan may be the two most important skills you practice, and they can really take years to hone. Trust the process and keep moving forward. Grab a notebook and a pen and give yourself 30 minutes in a quiet place to answer these questions which are adapted from Chapter 4 in our book. Your honest and thoughtful answers to these can change the course of your training and your life. Please let us know how doing this exercise helps you. The mind can be the most important to muscle to work sometimes. We all deserve to be the best we can be. Physique Athletes live at a higher level of awareness than the ordinary mortal because of the focus required in training and nutrition. Getting your mind right will serve you well. We wish you the best in your journey. ASSESSMENT FOR SELF-IMPROVEMENT 1. What do you most want to improve at this time in your fitness journey? are you doing that you don’t want to do, or 2. What failing to do that you would like to do more often? Specifically, what would you like to do, change, make better or act on more consistently? what situations does a problem or distraction 3. Inusually come up? the problem or less-than-best-performance is 4. When happening, what are you usually focusing on? do you think you COULD be focussed on in 5. What that context? What would be a better or ideal focus for you at that moment? What is the goal that got you interested in doing this work in the first place? Think back to a moment or time when your 6. thoughts, focus or behavior was working against you or not what you wanted it to be. What would you prefer to do in that moment? What is your preferred focus? What is your preferred action? Write some options on how you could have improved your focus, your performance, your actions or inactions. What do you WISH you’d done in that situation? What will you do next time to make sure your focus is working FOR you and not against you? Reprinte