“I didn’t trust em at the beginning of the season. I didn’t trust em one bit. And after the Stanford game (in which Connecticut lost), I trusted em even less! [But] each week we just kept growing and growing…They came through in a big way…I’m so proud of these guys right now. I don’t know if I’ve ever been more proud of a group of kids as I am of these kids right now.” Geno Auriemma, Head Coach, Univ. of Connecticut Women’s Basketball team after winning their 10th National Championship.
The number one thing I want to instill in my team is belief of self. You have to believe that you can do this. You have to fight the demons in your own head working hard to sabotage your efforts. “Oh c’mon…a piece of cake here, a glass of wine there, a slice of pizza as a weekend ‘reward’ for being good all week…” All these thoughts and more creep into your head once you reach a certain point in your carb depletion. And rest assured that you HAVE to deplete those carbs to get your ultimate look onstage. The TV commercials are starting to get to you. “Why is it that every single commercial is a food commercial? OMG!! I’m going CRAZY!” Yes, those are real thoughts, feelings, and emotions. Just about all of you (meaning competitors) will experience them WHEN (not IF, because that signifies failure, and failure is not an option) you go deep enough into the diet. But you have to trust yourself. You have to believe that the reward on the other end of being perfect is far greater than the immediate gratification of that glass of wine or slice of cake.
Some competitors can ‘flip the switch’, so to speak. Like Stallone in the arm-wrestling movie, “Over The Top”, when he goes into another zone – another ‘place in my head’ – when he flips his hat around, when the time is come to do something, to change their foods, they simply do. They don’t ‘sweat the small stuff’ as I like to say. Drop the starchy carbs from 250 gms to 200?? Okay. A week later…carbs drop from 200 to 150? Okay. A couple of weeks later…take em down to 100 gms? Okay. That mindset is ‘wired’ correctly for this sport. Dieting down really isn’t a mental challenge. Other individuals though, struggle with their foods. They don’t like the way they feel physically, meaning the loss of energy and sometimes strength. They don’t like being ‘flat’ and not experiencing the pump. They don’t like the physical struggle of just doing each day what needs to be done. They also don’t like the psychological side of dropping carbs. The “OMG, I feel like S**T!” The “I will bite someone’s head off if they LOOK at me wrong…” The “This is SOOO not worth it” mindset. If you have this mindset, it’s time to reset. But the question becomes, HOW?
I wish I had the answer to that question. Unfortunately I don’t. I know what works for me. I know that some people have that ‘it’ factor while others don’t. But even if you don’t have the ‘it’ factor, you can still improve upon what you’re doing. It’s quite simple, really. One, you have to affirm that you can do this. The body follow what the mind ‘tells’ it. There’s an old saying, “Whether you think you can or whether you think you can’t, you’re absolutely correct.” Start saying you can instead of believing you can’t. Two, each morning write down what you have to do that day. Check it off as the day goes on. You don’t go to bed until every competition goal is completed. That’s YOUR accountability to yourself. Over time you should rely on the list less and less. After a while you’re running on automatic. You wake up, know what you have to do, and just do it. Three, and this is a biggie, CHECK IN WITH YOUR COACH WHEN YOU’RE STRUGGLING! His or her job is to draw out of you what you have buried deep within you. But please understand they can’t create magic. You HAVE to want this, and are simply struggling with it. If you don’t want it bad enough, no coach can help you. It’s gotta come from within.
I love when, at the end of a competitive season, I can see growth in my team members. As much as I want to win, and want them to win, sometimes the real victories have nothing to do with THE win, but rather with the internal challenges and struggles. If I can help them improve upon themselves, then we’ve ‘won’. Now let’s see if we can win the show as well. But as always, everything starts with doing each day what needs to be done. Nothing magical here, folks. You wanna look great on stage come game day? Be Perfect Today.
Doc
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