Episode 226: Halfway There - Performance and Life Lessons from 2022 So Far
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“While it is challenging, and we now face a whole bunch of new challenges ahead of us, there is opportunity.”
As we approach the midway point of 2022, it is important to pause and reflect on the challenges we faced and lessons we learned throughout the year surrounding our overall performance in life, and the habits we can establish moving forward to set ourselves up for success.
In part one of our two-part series on Lessons from 2022 so far, we look closely at how we were able to adapt our lives to the slower pace and smaller scale of life in the bubble, to determine the challenges we face as life after lockdown begins to grow and pick up speed.
Matt discusses the habits you should avoid and the practices you should consider to help you manage and thrive through the changes and challenges of the coming year.
Matt highlights five main observations and lessons:
Change is hard: How we adapt to evolving circumstances.
(13:23) “We started to have a real start of a return back to normal. the thing is, normal was never going to be a simple return of the way that things were before. There's been an evolution in how we work, and what's actually important to us individually and collectively.”
Life is accelerating: Shifting gears to face the amplifying demands of life.
Leverage the lessons of change: Building on positives and avoiding stale habits of the past.
(25:53) “So many athletes and fitness enthusiasts had the opportunity, and still have the opportunity in many ways, to actually take the lessons of structure, routine, prioritization, and apply it to, now once again, a really busy life. But instead, they're just running right back into the same challenge that they experienced before the slow down.”
There is strength in numbers: Look for growth in a group environment.
Stress accumulates: The importance of building the capacity to handle the load of multiple stressors.
(36:26) “Our body is highly complex...It is a powerful thing. But one thing it's not very good at, and it's really not good at all, is differentiating different sorts of stressors.”
If you are struggling or feel off course in your performance journey, this is an opportunity to take stock, and course-correct by reframing your approach to performance in life and sport through a renewed perspective.
(43:47) "As you pause at the halfway point of this year, consider, I ask you, are you on a journey to thriving? Or are you just right back to the place of surviving?"
Episode Timestamps
0:00-04:32 Introduction
4:40-6:33 Matt's News-ings
6:48-8:26 Word of the Week
8:27-9:11 A word from our sponsor
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Purple Patch Website and Newsletter
9:16-The Meat and Potatoes: Halfway There - Performance and Life Lessons from 2022 So Far
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Full Transcript
Matt Dixon 00:00
I'm Matt Dixon and welcome to the Purple Patch podcast. The mission of Purple Patch is to empower and educate every human being to reach their athletic potential. Through the lens of athletic potential, you reach your human potential. The purpose of this podcast is to help time-starved people everywhere integrate sport into life.
Matt Dixon 00:21
So you've got your strength training, you've got stress levels and inflammation, you've got the myriad of supplements that are available, foods that you need more of, maybe foods that you need to limit, red flags to course correct in your health and performance. There is a lot to consider. It's almost impossible to keep up. But knowledge is power. And with the assessment of your biomarkers combined with the insights and recommendations from the team, at InsideTracker, what you get is focus, you get precision, as well as trackable metrics to ensure success and improvement for sports performance, health, and of course, longevity. It's a great tool that I use, and you might consider it too. You don't even need to be a Purple Patch athlete to do so. All you need to do is head to insidetracker.com/purplepatch and you can use this code purplepatchpro 20. And you get 20% off everything at the store. Alright, let's buckle up and dive in. I hope that you enjoy the show.
Matt Dixon 01:30
And welcome to The Purple Patch Podcast. As ever, your host, Matt Dixon, and give or take we're sort of at the midpoint of the year. And so what I thought we'd do today is have a little bit of a pause, come up a level, get out of the weeds, get to that 3000-foot level, and think what have we learned so far? What are some of the performance observations that we've had? And so, in doing that, I'm hoping that we can also gain some perspective in where we're at in the performance landscape. Now, there's no doubt that we do this show in the middle of some pretty uncertain times. But we can also be certain that within that uncertainty, we are well equipped to manage and thrive throughout the challenges. And so I'm excited to map two episodes. We're going to anchor around performance lessons. Today, we're going to think more about global performance, a lot of the foundational topics. And so we go well beyond sport, we think about work, life, and just the systemic overall observations around performance. Next week, we're going to dial in and narrow our focus a little bit, we're going to really think about what are we seeing in the endurance sports landscape and the triathlon world. And so two little midpoint years where we have a little bit of pause on the show, and we think, Okay, let's see where we're at. Now, I hope that as you join me on this journey, you too can have a little bit of pause, you can look at your own journey, and perhaps course correct if you're feeling like you're off track. So as you listen, I want you to think about a few things as we go through, both today and also next week. The first which is really important, is we want to remember that we are all biologically adaptation machines. In other words, we are equipped to evolve and adapt through all sorts of challenges. And so if you're struggling right now, don't worry, you are set up to lean into this challenge, and you can evolve. So I hope that that's a little bit inspirational for you. Secondly, on the other side of the equation, complacency kills. And so it's important that even if you feel like things are going well, you have these little opportunities to pause and reflect because you should always be seeking growth. You're looking for development. And on top of it, it keeps things interesting. It keeps things fun. So we want to always keep progressing. And finally, as we go through some of the topics that we talk about, I want you to look for the threads. Because it's important for us to remember that we shouldn't get myopic when we think about performance. The different areas of life are always connected, and they thread together to ultimately make us who we are. And so you cannot succeed. Even if you're really dedicated to sport, a professional athlete, you can't succeed without considering the big picture. And I hope today's episode brings you some of that perspective. And so with all of that, let's roll in. But first things first, ladies and gentlemen. We get to do it. Yes, it is Matt's News-ings
Matt Dixon 04:40
Yes, Matt's News-ings and this is a little reminder that we've got two really fun episodes coming up. We've already had some great questions coming in. But remember, we have two Ask Matt Anything episodes and opportunity for you guys the audience to ask me any questions that you would like. Now, we're going to focus these two upcoming episodes around two distinct subjects. The first one is going to be about racing. So all of your questions around racing, hydration, and fueling, tapering, whatever it will be to help you get ready and perform at your races. We want trained potential to meet race day performance. And so that's going to be the first episode. And then following up from that, something that really hampers a lot of people's opportunity to race well, they might be physically prepared. But this thing gets in the way. Yes, the monkey brain. And so the second ask Matt, anything episode is going to be all around performance anxiety. We want you to dial in your performance mindset. And so you can ask any question that you have around race fears, anxiety, handling adversity, whatever it might be. Ask your questions, I will do my best to help. How do you do it? All you have to do is head to purplepatchfitness.com. Go to the podcast page and right there, you'll see a nice little icon where you can leave a voicemail. Now please, please, please add in your first name and where you're located. That's always helpful. And then we'll filter through the questions and we'll play the best on the show. I might even invite you to come on and join the show live, which will be fun, wouldn't it? Now, after you've done that, it's going to be over to me, I'll have to do my part. And I will do my best to impart some wisdom and knowledge that I hope will be helpful. Alright, we've got a busy one today. And so let's get a reminder here we're going to talk about the chassis. Yes, your muscles and you tissues. But we are going to do Word of the Week.
Matt Dixon 06:48
Thank you for that intro Barry, fantastic stuff. It is Word of the Week. And the Word of the Week this week is STRENGTH, goodness me, strength. A timely reminder for many of you guys, because as we hit summer and the weather warms up, we all get to go outside and play a little bit more. And it's fun, and it's healthy, and the warm weather is welcome. And of course, I want you to make the most of the opportunity for this longer daylight, weather, the chance to connect with nature. But please don't forget your strength training. The journey and process of strength training is a year-round habit. And that's important for the athlete, for the fitness enthusiasts, for males and females, for all age categories. We are designed to move heavy things, it is one of your four pillars of performance. And so many athletes and fitness enthusiasts drop off. It's starts to get relegated to an afterthought. The problem with that is that you are taking all of the effort and all of the work that you've done up to this point, and packaging it up into a nice little box and throwing it in the trash. And I don't want you to waste all of that time and energy that you've put into it. And so remember that a little goes a long way. But it is still absolutely critical as a part of your overall development and health. And so commit to it, stay with it, and your performance and health or Thank you. And that is why this week, the Word of the Week is STRENGTH. Alright, so, before we get into the meat and potatoes, let me just say this a very quick commercial break.
Announcer 08:27
AND NOW A WORD FROM OUR SPONSORS.
Matt Dixon 08:34
Yes, we'll do this quickly. Although it is still very important. Remember, for precision in your health and performance, I recommend leveraging InsideTracker. All you need to do is head to insidetracker.com/purple patch. And we have a special code purplepatchpro20. That's purple patch Pro two zero. You get 20% of everything at the store. Now we're going to put that into action. We've got some lessons to talk about today. We're going to get back to the show because this is beefy. It is indeed. We're going with red meat today. Ladies and gentlemen, it's time for the meat and potatoes.
Matt Dixon 09:16
Yes, it is the meat and potatoes. Here we are, 2022. It is summer. Many of you guys in England made the journey down to Stonehenge, hung out with the druids, watched the sunrise, and that means that we are, let's call it, at about the halfway point. Now, very recently, myself and the Purple Patch team had a really fun team meeting. Had a little bit of a roundtable and we talked about the lessons and observations so far, some of the challenges that we're seeing athletes face, some of the mistakes that unfortunately we see athletes still making, and the trends of those that tend to be setting themselves up for success. What are we seeing as a team?
Matt Dixon 09:56
Now the outcome of that meeting -- everybody got involved. There was a lot of perspective, some really interesting lessons, and opportunity that came out of that. And I said to the team, you know what, we need to do a couple of episodes here because we've got one-half of the observations that we saw that were really broad, really foundational for people that are just seeking better performance in overall life. And then we had the whole other half that were really pretty narrow around athletes and endurance sports and triathlon. So let's separate these and let's talk about the performance lessons today and the more foundational. And the triathlon ones that we will do next week almost sit on top of these foundational lessons. But you don't need to be a triathlete, certainly, to learn from today. It's really important. Now we went through and we filtered, and we tried to combine as much as possible. And we boiled it down to five main lessons. Some of the observations, now, some of them are new, some of them are really fresh for this year, others that we felt are still really important lessons that have not sunk in for many athletes and fitness enthusiasts. So we decided to bubble up again. And so we've got five to go through. It's a very simple episode. It's very fun, but I hope that it is insightful and gives you a little bit of pause as we go through this. So are we ready? Barry, I'm going to need you on these because we are going to go through sound effects, graphics, everything that we have with the video podcast, and of course, the rest of the audience listening on audio. Let's start with observation one, and it's very simple. Change is tough.
Matt Dixon 11:35
We are seeing this, it is challenging. Two years ago or so our world changed. It genuinely changed. We had lockdowns, we had anxiety, we had closures. And on top of that all parts of our worlds, our existence, tended to collide. They tended to occur under one roof, work, family sport, back then there was sport, and of course, any social life that we could cobble together. And it was frankly, disorientating, it was challenging, there was this bubbling stress, it was really disconcerting, it felt like suddenly, the ground was moving under a lot of our feet Things that we took for granted, at the start of the pandemic, such as getting the coffee on the way to work, or maybe some of them ME time that we had when we were going through that oh terrible commute, suddenly, we missed those things. But you know what happened? We adapted. Remember that I said at the top of the show, we are adaptation machines. Well, we adapted, and this was, I think, in many ways, a really amplified example of something that is always true. And that's the fact that our worlds are always evolving. They're always changing. It's just that this happened in a really accelerated and global manner. And it was fast. And it was harsh. But as we always talk about we are adaptation machines. And so over the following months, we found new ways, we did what we needed to do. And most of us managed to make the most out of the situation. So as we fast forward now to 2022, this year, represented really, I think across most parts of at least the Western world, we started to have a real start of a return back to normal. But the thing is, normal was never going to be a simple return of the way that things were before. There's been an evolution in how we work, what's actually important to us individually and collectively. And what caught many people out is that there was this real surprise of the fact that now we must change again, we've gone through this change, and we adapted. And suddenly, just by going back to normal, it wasn't just oh, thank goodness, I can take that cloak of the pandemic away, and everything's fresh again. Because the problem and our challenge was that we had adapted to that huge and harsh change. And the unfortunate or fortunate reality in many ways is we must evolve and change again. Now, this of course has been amplified. And the way it's been amplified is the mix of real uncertainties that we face and start to bubble up again, globally - wars, macroeconomic state around potentially a recession that we're going into, gas prices, inflation, whatever it might be. So why is this happening? Why are we struggling with this? Well, it's not complicated. Let me give you an analogy. Imagine for the last two years, I said, okay, I want you to walk around walking with a limp. Okay, that doesn't feel natural. I just have my natural walking gait. I said, No walk with a limp. And over the weeks and over the months, you started to adopt this new motor pattern, this new gait, and it was a limp hitch. hitch, hitch. Okay, everywhere you went, you're walking around with a limp. Suddenly now in 2022, we say, okay, now walk normally. What do you think would happen? It's the same thing that we're going through now. Now, there is going to be this whole process, we are right in the middle again of change. Because that's life, we're going back to this new normal. And once again, it's been frustrating for people, it's been destabilizing. And one of our observations is we see many folks just starting to fall into almost a learned helplessness. The truth is that through this, again, while it is challenging, and we now face a whole bunch of new challenges ahead of us, there is opportunity. Because as we return back to this new blended normal, as we might call it, you actually have agency. And the opportunity is this, you don't need to just go back to old habits. The vast majority of people out there, whether they were pursuing sport, wherever they were just pursuing better energy or work performance, didn't have their recipe nailed. And so I see this now as a chance throughout the midst of global uncertainty once again and evolving back to some form of new normal, it's an opportunity to create. What a nice word that is -- CREATE. Think about how you want to structure your life, what's really important to you, from a performance standpoint, how can you actually plot a structure and a pathway so that you can amplify your health and your performance? Now, there is a reason during times of uncertainty, stress, even recession, that folks, populations, actually start to look inwards. They start to look at themselves, they focus on themselves and their health. And it's a really good thing. And it's normal.
Matt Dixon 16:54
And so as we hit the midpoint of 2022, and we find ourselves adapting once again, I say again, let's emerge stronger, something, a phrase that we use through the pandemic, but let's create collectively, even if there is some potential economic challenge for many of us, let's go after us. Because this absolutely is the opportunity, a performance opportunity, a real chance to create and build positive habits around health and sport. And so take your helplessness if you feel like that your frustrations, your challenges, and move into a creative mode. That is the big observation that the Purple Patch team saw. And it's important, we're halfway through this year, let's make sure that the second half of the year is one of creation.
Matt Dixon 17:48
All right, observation and lesson number two, what is that one, we labeled this life accelerated. Now, this is within context of that first observation. And as I outline this, I bet that many of you guys feel the same. As soon as I go into this, you're going to be like, you know what is right here. Because this is really, really noticeable across almost the whole population. Guess what happened? Life got fast again, it got really, really fast. You see, the last couple of years forced a lot of things in our lives to really slow down. And in fact, in many ways, life got a little bit more simple. Our social lives really shrunk. We had real restrictions around travel, school activities, and kids' sports, which is really highly limited, sporting events were either delayed or canceled altogether. And outside of frontline workers, key pandemic-related businesses, maybe some tech companies that actually accelerated through this, most of us actually adapted to working from home and immersing ourselves in a slightly more simple life. We found ourselves actually juggling less. And suddenly now, folks, it is I can declare back on. In many ways, I think that there's almost been an overcorrection. If you're anything like me, sports, it's a blizzard. I've been right back to it. School activities and events, back on, here we go. Work summits and off-sites, training camps. Yes, we've been promoting our training camps. Work travel, travel vacations. Goodness me if you don't believe me go to any airport right now. It is anarchy. And we could go on and on. It is back on. Life is accelerating. And actually, interestingly, far from us taking stock and thinking you know what, we're going to build new ways of framing my life. Because many of us had this semblance of goodness me the pandemic is really, really bad. Obviously, it's a terrible event to go through. But there were some things for some of us that were kind of nice. And it's tough to admit that. But wow, that's actually quite nice and simplified. But the vast majority of us this year, as we return to normal, didn't think let's create new ways of doing things. Let's take some of the good and add on some of the old habits. But let's build a new way of framing life. Instead, we all just collectively hit the gas pedal across all areas of life. Now, why is this important to highlight, from a performance standpoint? Why do I sit here on the show and say, this is really important? Because it comes with a heavy performance warning.
Matt Dixon 20:49
Let me explain. With a slower and less scheduled life, many folks had the opportunity to really prioritize health. Many got to go outside more. New habits were built around training and exercise. Perhaps you even ramped up your focus and your time commitment to sports, fitness, and performance. You had a new almost training regime, and it fit within this more simple and slow life. And that was great. You found a new and evolved and perhaps even over-focused recipe of performance, and it fits within the context of a more simple and slower way of living. You are less scheduled with the other components of life. And so you could amplify the focus on exercise and training. A lot of people got really fit, felt better start to say, Well, I'm on a good start. And now what is happening, and this is a huge, huge mistake that we're almost walking blindly into. And it's why we're starting to see a lot more injury, a lot of fatigue right now, athletes coming in frustrated, is many folks are now making the mistake of allowing their life to accelerate, bringing back work, travel, kids' activities, social engagements, etc. And their commitments amplify, but they're simply maintaining that previously successful schedule of positive habits and training and exercise. They haven't adapted back within the new context of life. And so, unfortunately, with this, with this observation of life accelerating, there comes a prediction, we are facing looming injuries, struggles, and deep fatigue again, and it's all spawned from really good intention of athletes and fitness enthusiasts. And so I really want you to encourage, as you sit here at the midway point, have a little pause, and think about your total stress accumulation, and ensure that as you move forward, you do a really good and smart job of fitting your training and your positive habits, good quality, eating, good sleeping, et cetera, into that now once again, really busy life.
Matt Dixon 23:11
All right. So, so far, so good. We are two down. Should we go to observation number three? Observation number three is this - we have agency to apply the lessons. But are we? Hmm. Are we actually taking advantage of leveraging the lessons that we learn through the last two years of the pandemic? For 20 years or more, I've been battling the challenge of so many folks that I see and work with that come into Purple Patch, and walk around in sport and life really fit, but fatigued. In fact, that was the very premise and basis of why we started Purple Patch. We wanted to take athletes and fitness enthusiasts to take their hard work and allow it to convert to being fit and fresh. There's real meaning behind that saying, I know it's a cute Purple Patch saying fit and fresh. But it's something that carries a lot of emotional and practical weight and is what the methodology is designed to build. And as folks really tried to integrate sport into really busy life, ambitious people consistently struggled and still struggled with creeping fatigue injury cycles and underperformance. And it's been an ongoing game of education, holding folks to new accountability, supporting them so that they can find a better way for themselves. Well boom, as we hit the mid-year of 2020, it feels like most people are failing to follow through on some of their ambitions that they found and they stated through the more simple and slow life that we're actually forced into over the last couple of years. You see, our blended lives that we went through forced folks to become really structured, because family and work and sport and social, all sat on top of each other. And so what we wanted to do and what we were very successful doing and helping our athletes is to create structure and routine within these lives that were collided. And so many athletes were really successful in creating boundaries, and ensuring that they could adopt habits that actually leveraged time for rejuvenation, space, good quality sleep periods of really focused and dedicated work, but at the same time, leveraging maybe what used to be a commute into a really positive action, such as going for a walk or integrating training, whatever it might be.
Matt Dixon 25:49
And now we come back, and we're in the middle of 2022 and so many athletes and fitness enthusiasts had the opportunity, and still have the opportunity in many ways, to actually take the lessons of structure, routine, prioritization, and apply it to now once again, a really busy life. But instead, they're just running right back into the same challenge that they experienced before the slow down. And how do we know this as a team? When we had that teammate meeting, why did so many of the coaches say, Oh, my goodness, me, the opportunity was there, and it went straight over the top of so many people's heads? Well, the reason is what we hear from so many folks coming into joining Purple Patch, stress and anxiety is amplified, it's more common than I feel like it's ever been our injury cycles, so many people are showing up, and compared to the last two years, where injuries actually really reduced - I realized that there wasn't racing - but injuries were really reduced probably because of the ability to adopt more positive habits and make sure that you create smart training, injuries are back with a vengeance, a lot of injury cycles are starting to occur. We're having athletes join us coming in, quote, broken. And folks who are arriving to Purple Patch, really frustrated once again, the results, the fatigue, the challenge of integrating sport into life, it's back on like it's 2018. And all of that is pointing right back to that same fit and fatigue syndrome that we've discussed so much. The crazy part of this is that you have agency, you're not powerless in this journey. It's up to us how we respond, how we create, and how we take things on, we're absolutely empowered to take actions to create a smarter recipe for ourselves. But despite this, so many people out there right now are right back to approaching their health, their performance, and their training for the sport, almost like a victim, they're absolutely failing to apply lessons that hit them hard. That was a slap around the face a big wake-up call in 2020, and 2021. And simply forgetting it all, letting it go right back behind the ears, and going back to old ways.
Matt Dixon 28:20
So what can we do about this? I say this summer is a really good time to pause to take a very deep reflection on your own approach. And I want you to ask this question first. What's really important to you? Why are you doing this? You're putting all of this effort into exercise training, perhaps getting ready and preparing for events, thinking about how you eat and sleep. But what's the real purpose behind this? What does success look like? Because I think whether you're an athlete or a fitness enthusiast, the tendency is just to turn it back on. Events are there, alright, let's get back to racing. Let's get back. Come on. It doesn't matter what's happening in the blizzard of life. I need to exercise, I need to train, I need to sleep. I know it's important for me and I want to be healthy globally. I want to perform and I want to get faster. But actually come back to some of the foundational components of why you are committing yourself to this performance journey. What's important to you? Why you're doing what you're doing. What does a picture of success look like? And once you answer that, once you answer those really important foundational questions, build from that. It's so so easy just to go back to how you did things before because it's familiar with you. But it's tougher to create. But by taking on a journey of evolution and development, I promise you if you move to the creative mind that we talked about before, you will never end up in a worse spot. You can only improve. And so as we do re-enter our normal lives and life is accelerating, let's make sure that we accelerate with it and move into that performance within context. Because it is past time, I hope, I believe, but I also hope you can do it.
Matt Dixon 30:13
Alright, so three observations in there or two to go, guys. And observation number four, this one, the whole of the Purple Patch team gave the proverbial knuckles and high five said this is absolutely true. A huge observation in the middle of 2022, we, you, me, all of us are social beings. Yes, friends and relatives, workmates and teammates, interactions at the coffee shop and the train station, sharing celebrations, struggle, failure, it's better when we are together. We are social beings. Perhaps the clearest observation of this year so far is the undeniable thirst for folks to connect to be a part of something, to share the journey. The question is, why? We are biologically wired to be social. And many folks realize that we are most successful in our journey. And we actually enjoy things more when we feel like we are a part of something. When we are connected. Now, when we look at our athlete population, and we try and highlight those folks of all levels on an individual level, that are the most successful, that are thriving, both in terms of the results of their hard work, but also in their happiness, the most common thing that we see is those folks tend to be the ones that are engaged, that are leaning into community that are searching out accountability, both providing accountability to others for them to show up on their journey, and receiving accountability by some form of mentorship, or coaching. These are the athletes that head to camp experiences that are engaged both online and in-person races and events with our video coaching, the people that lean in that support that are really part of the community, they're the ones getting the results. They're the ones thriving, enjoying it. Now relationships are important. A sense of belonging and connection is an absolute turbo boost. It is one of those things, that is the driver behind all of the stuff that you have to do to improve, I need to do good habits, I need to train and exercise, I need to make sure I'm eating well. But when you're doing it as a collective, your individual results always improve, and you have the service of helping other people improve their results. And that's a really, really powerful thing. Now we've seen this in the engagement of our community. It's really interesting, both in-person and online. More people are getting engaged. More people want to share both their struggles and their successes. People are really engaged. There is a thirst, a real thirst for meaningful training camp and retreat experiences. Our camps are full, they're great. And you can see the energy when people actually show up and join them. And the water cooler-type discussions that are occurring around our video-based coach sessions both bike and strength. Goodness me that one was tough. Dixon was a real nasty piece of work today. Why did he do that? Why are we doing this? I want to understand more. And those people that are engaging on that they're the ones that have been most successful. Now some of the poor victims, we need to feel sorry for some of these folks that are religiously showing up to my Tuesday and Thursday bike sessions, from all across the US and even the world live, interacting with others, having to absorb my irony, my sarcasm, my encouragement, and even getting the beating with my wooden spatula that I bring. But what starts to happen there is you start to feel even with me as the coach, like it's my little secret club. It's an engagement. It's something where I've got to show up and bring my best because my team's there. And they're all over the place. They're in Kansas, they're in Alabama. They're in Denmark, they're in Cornwall, England, and from all over the place. But it's our little club. And it's something that amplifies our life. It amplifies the meaning of the session. It's not just about what the intervals are. It's about being there and sharing it. The prescription of the training, yeah, that's great. But the sessions are tough. But the most powerful thing is going through that tough session with some suffering with others. It brings up the mood, the enjoyment, the engagement, and the results. So what's the lesson on this one, as we sit halfway through this year? No matter what your journey is no matter what your goals are if you tend to be a bit more of a solo flyer, realize that you might be missing out on some of the best parts, the things that go beyond just the physical training, I really encourage you in some way to get connections, to try and develop a sense of belonging. And it doesn't happen overnight, you've got to show up and show up again, but lean into clubs, lean into training partners, whether it's online, whether it's in person, it's just fun, but it's also powerful.
Matt Dixon 35:30
All right good, four observations down. One that brings us all the way back, it is our final observation at the midpoint of 2022. It is ladies and gentleman lesson and observation number five, and that is that stress accumulates. Now, when I talk about this, I sort of wrestled combining this observation with our second observation around life accelerating, but I decided that it's so important, and it's a reminder, but I felt like this should stand alone. And so it's quasi-related to observation number two of life accelerating, but I wanted to bring this back as a grounding to finish today's episode. Okay, now, I add this as a final reminder for you. And whether you're chasing readiness for an Ironman or a marathon or simply looking to feel better during the day, realize this, our body is highly complex, and it is a greatly intelligent machine. It's responsive, it's able to adapt, it can achieve things that even sometimes our brain doesn't realize it can do. It is a powerful thing. But one thing it's not very good at, and it's really not good at all, is differentiating different sorts of stressors, whether it's your training load, which of course is stress so that we then adapt and create fitness gains, etc. But training load, travel, commuting work deadlines that you have family commitments, add on top of that potentially poor sleep, low-quality eating choices, dehydration, sickness, illness, all of those things accumulate. And they take a collective toll on your body. And that collective toll suppresses your physical readiness and capacity, and your ability to engage mentally, it drains your mental battery as well. And so the toll is both physical, systemic, and non-tissue health and mental. And that's important. And I want you to ensure that you don't underestimate it because your success isn't about trying to limit life. And it's not about trying to weed through and find some utopian easier way. The truth is that if you want to thrive if you want to improve if you want to achieve anything in life, it ain't easy. It's tough. It requires commitment, it requires hard work, you've got to be smart, and pragmatic, and you've got to manage things. The journey to success in anything that you do is fricking hard. Good, because it's earned. And that's an important thing. So we're not trying to reduce or cower or hide or find some easier golden path where it's just a shortcut to success. That's not what this is about. Life is full of stressors, and we have non-negotiables. We can't retire just on a whim, necessarily. We can't suddenly reduce all of our training. We're not going to stop being social beings. But as you chase your performance, if you keep in your mind, the context, and the reminder that stress accumulates, you're going to be better served. You can be empowered to make smarter decisions. If you think, if you just pause for one second, and you think about what we discussed today and our observations so far, the big observations, we said a few things that really sort of act as this observation coming to life. The first was that change is really tough. And we're in the midst of whether we realize it or not, we're in the midst right now of adapting. We are going through uncertain times, we are changing once again. So change is tough. And we're doing that as - secondly, life is really accelerating. So for most of us, our commitments are starting to amplify a lot of those things that we just talked about when we say stress is accumulating, and our tendency - thirdly as human beings - is to always just follow well-trodden pathways, and we're seeing it, let's just go back to how we did things before. And it's because that's the easier path. But my question to you is if you just go back down the way that you did things before, in this environment of accelerating life, and as we navigate change, where do you think that's going to leave you? It's not going to lead you in a good place. And so your only bet that you have is to bet on yourself. And I want you as you pause this year to really aim to think about your habits in sleep and recovery. Calm down, or carve out time that you can rejuvenate. It's important, step away from the challenge of work, of life, of sport. Give yourself sleep and recovery. And with that structure your life to allow to force to commit to those opportunities for recuperation. And then build your resilience, your physical and mental resilience and capacity through really simple but effective training and exercise. And when you do that and adapt some really good habits around sleep and hydration and nutrition, you're going to accelerate. Now, we could roll out so many examples of folks who have been really successful in transforming their performance through really simple habits, and little changes, just a whole bunch of commitment and support and some accountability. But my question for you when we think about stress, and we realize that our sources of stressors all accumulate, and that's what we have to navigate through to actually thrive. As you pause the halfway point of this year, consider, I asked you, are you on a journey to thriving? Or are you just right back to the place of surviving? I know what's better. And so it's worth considering? And if you need to, it's a good time to consider action to help you course correct.
Matt Dixon 41:47
I hope that helps. That is part one of our observations. Next week, we narrow the focus we talk about sport, both endurance sports, and triathlon. But for right now, thanks so much for watching the show and listening to the show. Always appreciate the audience. Remember, subscribe and follow the show. Wherever you're at, feel free to share with your friends who maybe need a little jolt of perspective. But until next time, stay healthy. And we'll see you then. Take care.
Matt Dixon 42:15
Guys, thanks so much for joining. And thank you for listening. I hope that you enjoyed the new format. You can never miss an episode by simply subscribing, head to the Purple Patch channel of YouTube, and you will find it there. And you could subscribe, of course, I'd like to ask you, if you will subscribe. Also share it with your friends. And it's really helpful if you leave a nice positive review in the comments. Now any questions that you have, let me know feel free to add a comment and I will try my best to respond and support you on your performance journey. And in fact, as we commence this video podcast experience, if you have any feedback at all, as mentioned earlier in the show, we would love your help in helping us to improve, simply email us at info@purplepatchfitness.com or leave it in the comments of the show at the Purple Patch page. And we will get you dialed in. We'd love constructive feedback. We are in a growth mindset as we like to call it. And so feel free to share with your friends. But as I said, let's build this together. Let's make it something special. It's really fun. We're really trying hard to make it a special experience. And we want to welcome you into the Purple Patch community. With that, I hope you have a great week. Stay healthy, have fun, keep smiling, doing whatever you do. Take care.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
life, athletes, important, observation, performance, people, sport, patch, folks, journey, pandemic, adapted, starting, racing, lessons, training, opportunity, habits, purple, challenge