Congratulate yourself

It is great to have big goals and to push yourself hard to reach them but it is important not to dwell on your shortcomings. As an athlete it pays to develop a selective memory. Learn from your mistakes, but remember the good stuff. It is easy to leave the pool frustrated that you didn’t make your split times, without any nod of appreciation to the fact that you got in a solid 4000 m of swimming.  Instead of thinking, “that run sucked” or “man, I was a hurtin’ unit on that ride” think about what you did to overcome the pain and pat yourself on the back for making in thru even though you could barely turn the peddles over at the end. Of course, you want to figure out why things go wrong – did you pace yourself poorly, starting out way too hard? Did you forget to hydrate or fuel properly? Bad sleep last night?  Target what you need to improve, plan to do things better next time and get on with it.  Worrying about what-ifs and repeatedly berating yourself over a sub-par performance just adds stress and negativity won’t help you in the long run.