We all have the potential inside of us to achieve our goals. When you close your eyes and imagine what you want to looklike, how you want to feel, how you’d like to act or perform, you are capableof making that your reality, but it’s become common practice for most people tohave a list excuses for not getting what they want. Or they buy into the ideathat if they just keep plugging away or simply “try harder” that somehow theirresults will change or improve, but this is a flawed outlook.
I know because I used to be the king ofunderperformance.
I wasn’t happy with the way I looked (I wasskin and bones and had horrible acne), the way I felt (I was constantly tiredand unmotivated), and (apart from a few flashes of performance) I was generallyviewed as an underachiever.
I once took offense when someone said that Ihad lucked into my past results in racing, but I now know it’s because it was afairly accurate statement. I had some raw talent, yes, but no concept of how tomake the best use of it, or how I could improve myself and begin achieving mygoals.
I felt like there was something standing inmy way, holding me back from attaining what I desired and for the majority ofmy career, especially when it came to my physical and mental performance, Ithought there was something wrong with me. I couldn’t exert myself for longerthan an hour and a half without hitting such a wall that it felt like my bodywould literally start eating itself. I went to doctors in search of answers,but blood work never raised any cause for concern (the biggest statistic I receivedwas that my cholesterol was “maybe borderline low”) and the doctors never hadan answer for me.
I did have one doc try to pitch the idea thatI was a “thoroughbred, not a marathoner” and maybe my body type just wasn’tmade for endurance sports. That all sounded great but for the fact that Icouldn’t make it through a couple thirty-minute motos at high intensity withoutbonking.
Moving on.
My next step was to see a sportspsychologist. I’d built such a self-perpetuating cycle of failing to reach mypotential and a psychological fear of not living up to expectations that I, andmany of those around me, thought it might all be mental. After a few months,with little change in my results, I came to the conclusion that the sportspsych was good for some visualization techniques, but no real breakthroughs.
