Episode 270: Building the Mental Game in Sport - The Practice of Daily Reinforcement
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Are you showing up to your event in the best mental space possible?
You may have checked all the boxes in your training program and set yourself up to arrive at your event ready to allow trained potential to translate to race-day performance, but setting up the right mindset is one part of the performance readiness equation that is often ignored or misunderstood by athletes and coaches.
In this episode of the Purple Patch Podcast, IRONMAN Master Coach Matt Dixon shares his secret to supercharging your mental game so that you arrive physiologically fresh and mentally prepared on race day.
Most coaches and athletes jump to pre-event preparation with a heavy emphasis on training and physical readiness, which can sometimes reinforce performance anxiety.
Instead, Matt offers a path to developing belief and confidence in your approach by focusing on areas within an athlete’s control on a day-to-day basis and reinforcement strategies for framing and processing your post-training and race-day performance.
Matt lays out a strategy to help you identify what you should be applying your daily focus to, how to process your thoughts on your progress and performance in real-time, and in a healthy and productive way, and actionable strategies to build your performance.
This episode provides solutions for empowerment and building appropriate behaviors to help put you in control of what you focus on in order to improve resilience, consistency, and, most importantly, confidence.
"You don't have complete control over what your body gives you on any given day. But you are in control of where you place your focus, and how you think about things. What did you do well today? Start with that. What were the lessons that the day gave you? And what are you going to do with those lessons? This is a path to improvement."
Episode Timestamps
00:00 - 04:19 - Welcome and Episode Introduction
04:27 - 41:02 - The Meat and Potatoes - Episode 270: Building the Mental Game in Sport: The Practice of Daily Reinforcement
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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 00:24
Today's show is all about the mental game. But there's no point in having great belief and great confidence if it's built on a weak platform of physical readiness. One of the tools that we leverage at Purple Patch to help you design a platform of health of which all of your journey to performance is established from is InsideTracker. By assessing your biometrics and combining it with the insights and recommendation from the team of scientists and experts at InsideTracker, you can get a strategic plan to place your emphasis on the tools and the elements that are going to help yield that platform of health. And the best of all, all of your results are trackable. By assessing multiple times, you can start to get a deep appreciation of what works individually for you. Our athletes at Purple Patch, leverage it but you don't even need to be a part of the Purple Patch ecosystem to take advantage. All you need to do is head to insidetracker.com/purplepatch, that's insidetracker.com/purplepatch, and we have a nice code for you -- Purple Patch pro 20. Use that code and you can get 20% off everything at the store. Of course, if you ever need any help if you decide to take advantage of this. And then feel free to reach out to info@purplepatchfitness.com We can always set you up with an additional consultation or give you the best advice of how you might integrate InsideTracker into your own performance journey. I promise you, it's worth it. It's helpful. And it really helps establish a great platform of health. All right. With that, let's talk about the mind. Let's get on with the show. It's a cracker enjoy.
Matt Dixon 02:07
And welcome to the Purple Patch podcast as ever, your host, Matt Dixon. And let me ask you this, how do you arrive at your events and races in the best mental space possible? You're ready to allow your trained potential to translate to race day performance? Well, the truth of the answer in this is it's pretty complex. From arriving physiologically fresh to ensure that you established the right race day mindset. Today, we're going to focus on building belief and establishing your mental game. It's a big part of the equation. But one of my focuses today is a piece of the mental game, which is often ignored, or at least misunderstood by many athletes and coaches. And while it's ignored is actually I believe, central to performance readiness. So what is this secret to supercharging your mental game? Find out my perspective, as a coach, of quite a few years and quite a few good athletes, in today's show. Now Barry, we're gonna go right into it today, there is going to be no word of the week, there is no news-ings, we've got a lot of folks that have asked me to talk about the mental game a little bit and confidence. So I thought you know what we're gonna go right into it. But I do just want to remind the folks at home, that at the careers page of PurplePatchFitness.com, we have a very special opportunity. And that is a leadership position at Purple Patch, we are hiring a head of growth and business at Purple Patch. It's a cracking opportunity for the right San Francisco based person. And the reason I bring it up is because we're reaching out to our audience, our listeners, and we appreciate it if you would mind reviewing that, and perhaps sharing it with anyone that you think might be a suitable fit. Who knows, perhaps it will be you. Although a word of caution, that would mean working every day side by side with me. Goodness me that might be painful. All the details at Purple Patch fitness.com. Of course, we'll add it to the show notes. But with that, Barry, let's get going. You're a man of rock solid belief and confidence. Let's help all of our listeners get there as well. It is time for the meat and potatoes.
Matt Dixon 04:20
Yes, folks, the meat and potatoes. We're talking about confidence. We're talking about belief, but perhaps not in the way that you might anticipate. Because most of the times that I read or listen to a show, and we talk about performance readiness and the mental game it's all about imagery, and setting the mind up before the event and race. We're actually going to tackle this today from the other side of the equation. Because when thinking about the mental game in sports, most coaches Isn't athletes just jump to pre race or pre event preparation. And you might think about imagery, getting pumped up a determination to focus on things ahead that are under your control. And all of that has great value. It's all important. But developing belief and confidence often emerges from how you actually approach the aftermath, the post workout or post race review. And this is something that you can develop and improve on every single day. In other words, how you review your training sessions is going to leave an imprint. And is your strategy that you leverage right now, perhaps there is no strategy, but is your practice right now reinforcing performance anxiety, or is it reinforcing the development of confidence and belief? there is a powerful difference, and it's gonna go one way or the other, you will evolve or die athletically. And this is what we're going to talk about today. And so we're gonna dig in, we're going to talk about reinforcement, because I feel like this is the forgotten part of the mental game for any level of athlete. And there is one that is important, and most importantly, really easy for you, without any external help -- shift the mindset, shift your practice, and it's all under your control. This is actionable today. And so this is why I want to emerge from today's show, with some really actionable steps and tackle it from this side reinforcement. That's going to be the focus of today.
Matt Dixon 06:38
Now, before we dig into mindset, and before we start to drive into the topic of reinforcement, the main topic of the day, I think it's important that we ground ourselves. And so I want to talk about goals. Because I believe that goals create your framework of which yes, your training plan is constructed under, but also how we think about mindset and developing the mental game. When we think about goals, at Purple Patch, we tend to frame things in terms of the process of development and improvement. Now, to explain this, I need to give you a really tangible example. And so why don't we think about a typical goal of an incoming athlete? Quite often we'll have someone come in and join Purple Patch, very excited. And I might say, what's your goal? What do you want to achieve, and they'll say, I want to qualify to the Hawaii Ironman World Championships great, a worthy goal. It's measurable. You either do it or you don't. And so it's very objective. And it's very simple. And that is under the traditional banner, a great goal, I want to qualify to the Hawaii Ironman World Championship. Well I believe that that's worthy, it's aspirational. I can understand that, with the achievement of that goal, getting the qualification, the athlete is going to receive a whole bunch of pride and satisfaction from the successful completion of the goal. But on a day to day basis, it's not that useful. It might help you get out of bed at five o'clock in the morning to go to that very chilly master swim session, but it's not actually actionable. And so a goal is only useful if it is leveraged to develop or convert into becoming a process goal, as we like to call it. In other words, can out of this goal, the athlete and coach create a strategic plan that outlines the steps in order for that athlete to succeed. Now, all of these steps, while we talk about it as being a process goal, all of these steps that we establish, need to be under athlete control. And these are the elements that day to day the athlete has under their control and is actionable and is helping them progress on towards that ultimate aspirational goal.
Matt Dixon 09:06
And so some of the things that are typically under an athlete control is the training program, how much they train, how often they train, how many hours that is the structure of the training program, much of the reason that most athletes come to a coach for coaching. So in other words, building out the roadmap, how often you're training getting up, etc. Also, under the athletes control is the supporting habits. So your approach to nutrition, fueling hydration, rest, recovery, massage, sleep, downtime, all of those supporting habits that we've talked about so much in the show, that is under the athlete control. We also have under the athlete control, where the athlete places their focus and attention. And in today's world, quite often that is where they don't place their attention as important as where they actually place their focus and attention as well. And finally their mental game, what they actually think about. And that's obviously central to today's topic. And there are other basic elements. But the key is when we think about goals, we don't like them as just simply, there's the goal Pass/Fail. Instead, we only leverage it to create a framework of the strategic plan. And it is those elements that are under the athlete control, that they become actionable. So if we go back to the Purple Patch, pro squad, we had 15 years of great success. And many as those athletes, they might aspire to become a world champion. But that was never the driving goal. Instead, it was all about becoming, it was all about becoming the best version of themselves, the very best athlete that they possibly could. And the goal was to create actions that could help them on that journey. And so the central word that our pro squad would always use is 'what are you becoming?', and that's really nice, it's liberating, 'this is what I am becoming.' And when we are successful in that, helping the athlete become better, become the best athlete possible, the outcomes typically took care of themselves. So in this case, we shift from qualification, which isn't really an athlete control, to having your best performance possible because of you taking action on the steps that are necessary for you to improve, which gives you the best opportunity to have a performance that leads to that aspirational goal. And that becomes important.
Matt Dixon 11:51
Now, in today's show, under that banner, we're not going to talk about training, we're not going to talk about habits, we're going to think about the mind. And so what can and should you be thinking of? And equal to that if you're a coach listening, what should you coach an athlete to, to help facilitate the process of using it or drawing from the pro squad becoming? So the good news is that what I'm going to outline today is a practice that's very simple. It can be deployed every day. And when embraced what emerges out of it is greater athlete resilience, improved consistency, and most importantly, confidence and belief. So with that grounding, an athlete, you, you have three considerations every single day, every single day, as it relates to your mind, where you're placing your attention. Because your mindset has a key role to play.
Matt Dixon 12:58
The first is how you're approaching the training session, or we extend it to the race as well. So we can think about that as anticipation preparation. And that, of course, is where there's a lot of attention given. But what are you thinking about? Where are you placing your focus before a training session before race? Great. The second element that you have in control is what are you thinking about are focusing during the action during the training session. So that's where you're placing your focus and your decision making. And then finally, what we're going to place our emphasis on today is how are you reviewing and thinking about the training session following. In other words, reinforcement and review. And that becomes really important.
Matt Dixon 13:47
Now, the vast majority of athletes out there, absolutely obsess particularly prerace on number one. And the reason for that is because they're wanting to build confidence. They're seeking to reduce those prerace butterflies that anxiety, that body priming feeling that we always get. And sometimes there's a little bit of bravado that's mixed into the whole equation. And so the anticipation phase gets a lot of attention. There's also an emphasis on the second, what are you thinking about during the actual activity, the training or the race, and this is a part of the equation where coaches tend to lean into a lot of this and Purple Patch equal to this as well. In fact, we've done whole shows, and we've got t shirts written around process, not outcome, thinking about the process, don't get distracted by the results that you want. And that's what we're talking about. In that doing phase of the mindset that becomes really important. Placing your conscious mind on the aspects of the training session that you control. And so what we're trying to help an athlete do is avoid getting blinded by the outcomes, the results and worrying about what they're looking to achieve, and instead, place their mind into a place where the aspects that they've got control on 'How am I riding or running? How am I managing my energy? What's the Terrain Management?' et cetera, all of the aspects that they can control over the doing part of it. And of course, this is really important. In fact, I would argue that you can't have a great outcome. And unless you are successful, on placing the mindset around the focus, and the doing really, really well throughout, it's a key aspect of the mental game. But the area that is often de emphasized or forgotten about is post training sessions, and post racing. And yet, I believe that this part is the opportunity. So few coaches and athletes spend much time reflecting on or reviewing or enforcing their daily training. But when you develop this, it has a really important role in keeping you focused on solutions, and the steps to facilitate growth and important. It also, when framed correctly, an actioned well is going to help you stay positive. And that's a good thing. And out of this process, when you build little mini victories, the end result is the development of greater resilience, confidence and belief. And that is your platform of a positive mindset. And so I think that, yes, pre race and pre training, anxiety and preparation is important. And of course, it's critical to stay focused on the doing and the doing well, during the actual training or racing. But the priority, the absolute priority should be what occurs post. And we want to move to response, not reaction, and ensure that the way that you look back at every single training session, and then the grander phase, how you look back at a race is constructive and progressive to you -- here's the phrase again -- becoming a better athlete. And so therefore, it deserves priority. And that's why we're talking about it on today's show.
Matt Dixon 17:26
Good. All right. Now, if you're listening, as a coach, you have a huge opportunity here. And that is to create a positive coaching catalyst by nailing your language, and the practice around post training and post race review. But equally a word of warning. If you get this part of the equation wrong, unfortunately, and not even realizing it, you also have an opportunity to do plenty of athletic damage by ignoring this part of it. So if you're a coach listening today, I'd really encourage you to take this on board and think about the language in which you apply when you're giving athletes feedback. Last week, we did a whole show on kids development, youth sports, you hear this a lot -- 'Jimmy, why are you throwing it there, don't throw it there, that's really bad,' -- reinforcing a negative we're gonna get into that a little bit today. Constructive, progressive feedback. So as a coach, as we go into the real depth of the meat and potatoes, this is the slice of a sausage that we're going into now. I want to bubble up this is really good for athletes. But I think it's really important for coaches as well.
Matt Dixon 18:47
All right, let's put it into action. Because if you don't believe me that the reinforcement phase is important to belief, to confidence, and to allow you to show up to races, more able and equipped to put your trained potential into race day performance. It's probably best that we talk through it with a couple of examples. And so I'm going to try and give you a couple of athletics examples. The first is a micro example. In other words, just a training session. And then we'll build on that and give you the context of an athlete who is actually one of my one to one athletes, and their post race review of a recent Half Ironman, Ironman 70.3 that they executed just a month ago in April. So let's begin with the basics. Let's go day to day and talk about a training session.
Matt Dixon 19:37
Let's imagine that I prescribe to you a bike session. And on that bike session, you receive it on your training calendar and it has a key on to it. In other words, it's one of the two or three workouts that week that are actually prescribed to drive your performance readiness very challenging workout. And lo and behold during the session it integrates some very strong intervals. Let's think about two things that are could occur. Imagine that you feel great, fantastic, you warm up. And as they say, on the bike, you had no chain, and you produce some outstanding, outstanding power. Super. What happens with that? You're happy. It was a good day. I'm really ready for the upcoming race. But let's think about the converse situation. What happens if you're sluggish, and the power is harder to come by that day, or perhaps you're frustrated, it was labeled a bad day, that was a bad day. The truth is that the vast majority of athletes when they review training sessions, tend to focus on what went wrong. That's a natural human instinct. 'Oh dear, it was bad, I had no power, I felt awful. That was just worthless.' And in fact, a common review, or reaction to that was 'today was terrible, I had no legs, and on top of it, you put key on the workout. And so that was an important one. Now, I'm never going to be ready to race well.' When an athlete uses language like that, they're simply reinforcing a negative. In fact, what you're doing by leveraging that type of language, is taking a single workout that happened to be ladened, with a little bit of fatigue, and creating a long tail, negative emotional imprint. And from this reaction, 'now, I'm never going to be racing well,' evidence of a lack of preparation and readiness, confidence erosion builds, and every single workout becomes pass or fail.
Matt Dixon 19:37
Now, it doesn't have to be like this. With each session, having a pass fail assessment of your state of readiness for events that are weeks or months apart. By a simple shift in mindset and on top of that language, the way that you think about the way you talk about the way you write about in your review notes of any workout is an opportunity for you to start to build the development of resilience and confidence. Because here's a key part to this, you are in control of how you think and what you focus on. And so your body might be tired. Guess what, that's a part of training that happens. And the body is trying to execute this training in a blizzard of competing demands, often, stresses from travel, family logistics, prior training sessions, nutrition, lack of quality, sleep, whatever it might be. And sometimes a workout is demanding, and your body can't respond. That's a part of the fabric of training. There isn't an athlete alive, all of the great champions that haven't had training sessions, where their body doesn't show up and cooperate. But but that doesn't mean it's bad. That isn't evidence that you're never going to be ready to race well. In fact, you still have the opportunity to draw lessons and positives from any single training session. You might have low output but you can ride that session with great posture and technique. You can stay positive. When you're met with that physical adversity. You can focus on another skill, maybe how you're managing terrain.
Matt Dixon 23:51
A master of this was Purple Patch pro Meredith Kessler, one of the great champions, in fact, she was labeled the greatest American triathlete ever. And she loved to label her tired training days as WEB days. Why even bother? You see, the thing about Meredith is she never took fatigue personally. Instead, what she did is shift the mindset, how can I get better today, and it wasn't going to be with the greatest output ever. Instead, what she did is focus on the small details that she could control. So if I was coaching on her on deck swimming, we would put swimming paces -- perhaps we were swimming a set of one hundreds and she was going very, very slow. She would just start to integrate sighting drills. So because that's a skill she can refine. She would push off every single wall with a great streamline. And she would use and leverage the low physical output as a chance instead to improve a different element of her performance readiness. It was a WEB day, that signaled to me that I in no longer should chase or coach to output. Instead, shift the emphasis. And it still enabled her to get better in that day. When shifting your mindset from pass fail to longer term becoming, and trying to improve every day with a broader perspective. It enables you to think about development. Because you can get better every day, it doesn't always mean getting faster or stronger.
Matt Dixon 25:31
So let's place an emphasis on a slightly more complex situation, but one that I think will really ground you in this. Let's think about a half Ironman distance and Ironman 70.3. And this is an example that is piece to piece, line to line, absolutely true. It happened just a month ago. It was an athlete that I coached. Now they had their racing plan, we laid it out, this was the strategy. And race day came and she and they got through the swim, and then onto the bike. And the athlete just got well, let's call it a little bit excited. And they were over aggressive in the first half of the bike. We had set up the strategy to ride very strong. We wanted to as I called it, bring the bike ride. We'd been working a lot over the winter, on the bike and resilience and I asked the athlete bring the bike ride. And they were just a little aggressive in the first 25% of the ride, really the first half of the bike ride. And the turnaround point, the race was at Galveston, Texas, if you know that it's an out and back, at the turn, at the halfway point, the athlete had ridden their best power ever. And it yielded in their best speed ever. And for the very first time, they were in the race. In other words, by the end of the bike ride, they actually came off very, very close to the podium. They put together a very strong bike ride. And if the overall triathlon had finished then they would be throwing champagne in the air. They were very, very happy. And when they came off the bike, they began to run very, very well. They were at their goal race pace. So this stronger than anticipated ride that was very, very aggressive up front, they came off the bike and they still ran off the bike well. But then the last few miles of the run, it unraveled. Cramping, some big walking breaks, and they dropped down the order finishing seventh place in their rage group. Not too bad, but not their best performance overall. And of course, there was a clear impact of the early aggression on the bike. So after the race, 24 hours passed, I asked the athlete for their report, their thoughts. And here's what they said, 'I went out too hard. I was dumb. I just simply didn't have the fitness to carry it. And I absolutely came apart. I need to sort out my cramping. That was a terrible race.' So how should I coach that? There's the athlete review. 'I went out too hard.' Objectively, that's kind of true. 'I was dumb.' Let's come back to that. 'I didn't have the fitness to carry it and I came apart, I need to sort out my cramping. That was terrible.' Pretty negative, yeah? So how should I coach?
Matt Dixon 28:26
Well, this is where reinforcement becomes key. Because through that mindset, the athlete is ensuring that this race experience that they just had is imprinting a negative self image. Confidence, erosion is sure to be the result. But the truth is, there's a great opportunity in this racing experience. They are missing through that reaction, growth opportunity. And so we need to shift the mindset because it's natural, it's understandable. I have a lot of empathy. And this athlete is just doing what athletes tend to do, which is to focus on what went wrong. Instead, we need to try and help them build on the successes, because it's much more empowering to build on what was done well, and then focus on the lessons that were drawn. And then finally the actions that we take from there's lessons. So from a coaching standpoint, coming back to my question of how should I coach, there is absolutely no value, in fact, this is where the harm can occur, it is harmful to point out what they did wrong. The last coaching words that I would use in a case like this is 'ah, you went out too hard. It's no wonder that you blew up.' This simply magnifies that chances that they're going to do exactly the same thing again. Remember what our focus is, it's on becoming. We're trying to coach development, becoming a better athlete. And so by that, my role as a coach is trying to drive this athlete towards becoming solutions based. Shifting from that reaction that we just heard to response. A reaction is emotional, 'that was bad, I blew up.' A response is solutions based, 'this is what I need to do to improve.' And that focus on solutions increases your chances of improvement.
Matt Dixon 30:45
So the way that we think about it a Purple Patch, all of the coaching team at Purple Patch is a simple review action plan. And this can be used day to day. And of course, in races. We're trying to empower the athlete to guide the athlete into helping them find the solutions. So we're not trying to force feed, I don't want to come in in an occasion like this and say, 'Hey, this is my perspective, this is what you should do, right?' Instead, we're driving towards great behavior. So in this example, in this scenario, I would try and lead the athlete to shift the lens towards becoming solutions based. So after 24, 48, 30, 48, 72 hours, I would pause and ask the athlete Okay, now I want you to go back when the emotions, the natural emotion, so you can be frustrated, there's nothing wrong with that there's nothing wrong with an athlete being frustrated, angry, disappointed, those are emotions, and we should feel the emotions, but after those have dissipated, which time always enables, then we should actually have a more objective and productive review. And we always start with the positives. I want you to go through that day, swim, bike and run and tell me what you did well, okay? And now I want you to keep this confined to the aspects that are under your control. What did you execute well? Because I promise you might be disappointed with the outcome at the end but I bet there are things that you did well. The second thing I want you to do is I want you to think about the lessons that you could pull from that race -- opportunities for growth or improvement. I'm sure, as you know, there are elements of that. And then finally, give me a little bit of an action plan. What are you going to do about those lessons? What are the things that you're going to take from the positives? What you did well, and the lessons that you learn? And how are you going to implement for positive change in the future?
Matt Dixon 32:52
So what I'm going to read you now is the bullet list of the very same athlete, remember, 'that was bad, I was dumb, I went out too hard,' et cetera. And these are the same athletes’ written thoughts when they reviewed their race 72 hours after the end, emotions settled. 'Here's what I did well. I was brave. In fact, I was riding stronger than I've ever ridden. For the first time I was in the race, I've never been so far up finishing the bike. And when I review, I executed nine-tenths of a great epic breakout performance. And even my run, which was negative 75% of it was really good. And that was coming off of a hard bike. Super. And finally, even though I started to buckle and experience cramps, I stayed mentally engaged. I was suffering, but I didn't give up.' Okay, good. So if we pause there, suddenly, this race experience, 'I was dumb. I blew up, I didn't have the fitness.' Suddenly, it doesn't sound quite as bad. It doesn't sound all negative. 'I was brave, I was stronger, had a great performance. I was 75% of the way there. I'm almost putting this whole recipe together.' So now let's keep going. Here's the athlete’s thoughts on their lessons, 'I think I'm going to benefit from being a little more patient in the first 25% of the bike.' Well, they didn't need me to tell them that. 'I'm gonna need to wrap myself into the bike ride.' Super. Second element is, 'I need to ensure that I support the bike ride with proper fueling and hydration.' The athlete came to them in themselves. They probably under this instance, rode the bike aggressively. So premature muscular fatigue, but probably failed to actually implement their fueling and hydration. Something that we can really dig into when we're moving into the response phase. And the final lesson is, 'I need to ensure that I stay calm when under duress, I was doing so well that I actually began to stress and think about the outcomes in the middle of the run, instead of thinking about the things under my control,' well, that's good. That's very perceptive, a little bit of self-assessment. So really actionable lessons here. They're not failures, as long as they are lessons that you can start to apply in training and future racing.
Matt Dixon 35:35
Great. So now what you're gonna do about it athlete, here are the review of their actions. 'I feel like I would benefit for some very strong race-type effort intervals, and having good hard running off.' That's great. That's an athlete telling me as a coach, that this is what I feel like we need. And so, therefore, I can have a conversation and we can decide how and if to implement. 'I'm going to ensure that I practice race fueling habits during my training,' finally says the coach, good. That's something actionable that they can put in on a day-to-day basis. 'And in my next race, I'm going to make sure that I break the run down into actionable sections to keep me focused on the process.' Super. Process, not outcome, that's what we're looking for. And the final element, 'I'm really excited to give it another crack.' And that sentence is important. Because you can tell that this process of review, in which we built on success, and started to draw the lessons, and then we put into actions, it shifted this race into enabling the athlete to be excited for another opportunity. And that's what races are, opportunity. Not fear, but baseline belief that that magic performance is there and just in reach.
Matt Dixon 36:55
And so in summary, as coaches, we build training plans to deliver physical readiness and race day performance. But I do believe that the magic for athletes’ success emerges when athletes use that daily training plan as a positive reinforcement tool for growth. Because out of it comes self-belief, the ability to solve problems, and actually becoming a little better every day. And remember, by saying a little better every day, I'm not saying faster or more powerful. It's not always that. But it might be, 'Hey, I handled that tough output a little bit better. I held my posture under fatigue, I finished the workout with form despite my power or pace being terrible. Today, I got a great night's sleep. And I did everything around my fueling habits,' and so on and so on. You see building belief and confidence in yourself, and your program isn't something that needs to happen in the final week before the race. There isn't any mysticism around this, and actually starts to emerge from what you decide to focus on, and tell yourself after every single workout. It's not out of some pump-up song that's booming in your ears 10 minutes pre start. It's a healthy and long term mindset around smart review and assessment. Every single day is an opportunity. And you can make it a mini victory that's going to lead to a little bit of a building block to belief, even in the days when the body decides not to cooperate.
Matt Dixon 38:40
Remember, remember this, you don't have complete control over what your body gives you on any given day. But you are in control of where you place your focus, and how you think about things. What did you do well today? Start with that. What were the lessons that the day gave you? And what are you going to do with those lessons? This is a path to improvement. People often ask me, how do you achieve so much success -- male/females across the pro squad? This was a central part of it. What did we do? Well, what are the lessons? How do we grow? If you do that, and you nail it? Well, you can even make a bad training program look pretty good. I hope that helps. We'll see you next time. Take care.
Matt Dixon 39:31
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
athlete, race, training session, coach, purple, patch, focus, day, training, review, goal, bike ride, bike, today, lessons, performance, talk, mindset, actionable, confidence