Episode 337: Off-Season Assessment
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Off-season training
Welcome to the Purple Patch Podcast!
Join IRONMAN Master Coach Matt Dixon discusses the importance of reflection in achieving high performance, both in athletics and business. He emphasizes the need for athletes to assess their previous season to avoid performance plateaus and set goals for the next year. Dixon outlines a five-step reflection process: pausing to review past goals, identifying strengths, acknowledging growth opportunities, prioritizing key areas for improvement, and setting future objectives. He highlights the success of Purple Patch's leadership workshops and coaching programs, noting their effectiveness in driving performance improvement. Dixon also promotes Purple Patch's one-to-one coaching opportunities and encourages listeners to reach out for support.
Matt shares a story about a recent one-day workshop for a private equity organization designed to help teams achieve sustained high performance. The workshop included planning, execution, and follow-up, with a two-hour team meeting to dissect the event and identify areas for improvement. The reflection process involved identifying what was executed well, where improvements were needed, and defining actions to enhance the program. Matt transitions to applying the reflection process for athletes, urging them to pause and reflect on their past season before committing to the next year.
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Episode Timestamps
00:00-04:20 Episode Introduction
04:20-22:07 Meet and Potatoes
11:43-22:07 Five Tips for Successful Journey
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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 00:29
And welcome to the purple patch podcast as ever, I'm your host. Matt Dixon, we're gonna revisit reflection this week. Last week, if you missed the show, we unpacked reflection as a core concept around high performance, and we talked about fueling your journey to sustained high performance by leveraging reflection as a tool no matter what arena your focus on. And after the show, we had several folks, mostly athletes, reaching out, asking us to expand on the topic to really focus on some postseason reflection. In other words, folks that have just finished their triathlon or marathon running season in the pursuit of setting up the best path ahead for a breakout year next year, you folks asked. And so here we are again reflection. It is this time with a few thoughts on how to assess your last season of racing so to you can ensure that you up level next season, and you avoid that dreaded performance plateau that infects so many people's performance journey when they go year to year, onward and onward. Now my quest today is to make it simple accessible, but also extremely valuable for you. We are going to dig into the meat and potatoes, but before we do get going, I am going to sneak something in today, as ever, this is ad free and promo free. I'm going to do a little promotion, I'm afraid, because as we discuss this show as much as possible, we bring ad free. But I do want to mention that if you'd like to extend the conversation. You have any questions, reach out to us directly info@purplepatchfitness.com all the programs as ever found at purple patch fitness.com but we really appreciate the questions, and we're here to support as necessary. But I do want to take this opportunity just to remind people that at purple patch we want and desire, real human coaching from a team of experts and coaches with a wonderfully engaged community. This is real life, genuine engagement. It's the program and it is different. It's the only program specifically tailored to time starved athletes who chase ambitious goals, and we believe in connecting directly with you, the athlete, to ensure that you feel engaged and connected no matter where you live in the world. We're in the midst right now as a team, as a group of athletes across the world, building the foundation for the next year ahead, it's off season, and so this is a time that's ideal if you're considering to join purple patch to get involved. And with that in mind, I just wanted to highlight that we do have, currently four spots open for our one to one coaching. We are typically, quite often at capacity for one to one coaching. It's a very popular program, but we do have a few spots right now. It's typical for this time of the year. Of course, as some people decide to roll off. They've had a great experience. Maybe they've finished their racing, they've moved on to other sports, or whatever it might be, but we have a couple of spots. So if you want to discuss coaching and how it's different, feel free to reach out. You know the email info at purple patch fitness.com if your goal is qualification to a World Championships, or maybe it's a first time finish. I'm just going to be straight out eager to go and tell you purple patch has secured more first time finishes and more qualifiers to world championship events than any other coaching company, so you're going to be in good hands. And so I know I said it was promotion free, and then I stripped it down and smacked it in straight in your face, but feel free to reach out to a complimentary consultation if you're interested with that, folks in mind, let's get on with it. I made it quick. We are going to go back to completely promo free next week, but from the meantime, let's do it. It is the meat and potatoes
Matt Dixon 04:24
Yes, the meat and potatoes folks and we are going to talk all about endurance sports, but to help lay the foundation here, I'm going to talk a little bit about us and something far removed from endurance sports. I want to tell you a little bit of a story in part one. You see, we recently completed another one of our one day workshops. And these workshops are specifically designed for organizations, leadership teams or broader teams that they bring us in for, and they are highly experiential. These workshops help. Lay the groundwork for each participant in them, typically around 10 to 12 participants and the whole team to feel better and to deliver a pathway to move towards the progression of sustained high performance. Now, far from these workshops being athletic conversion therapy or anything like that, they're actually designed to help normal executives and business professionals move along the continuum towards optimization of performance. Most of the folks we work with are pretty high performing already, but as they said in Top Gun, we want to go from best to better still, and that's really the focus where each one of these experiences are really, special and different. And the one that we recently finished was working with a team with a private equity organization. And as we finished it, we went to dinner after the end of the long day, and we thought that was successful. It felt like a great success. The feedback in the day was wonderful. People enjoyed it. They left energized. They left with a vision, a pathway with clarity. By all accounts, we could just go to dinner, have a beer, celebrate and say that was success. We could all go home happy, yeah, yeah, we could. That's true. But that's not the end of the story. We don't just move on with that. You see, after an event like this, a whole day with several members of the purple patch team engage with the planning, the execution, all the way through to the end of it. We ensure that a couple of days after the event, we have an important two hour team meeting with every purple patch team member that was engaged in the program. And over the course of that meeting, we dissect the day. What was the lead up to the workshop like, including the materials we sent, the communication, the timelines and more. We then go into the day of the workshop itself, and then we talk about our follow up and the results that we got out of it. And every member of the purple patch team asked themselves the same questions focused around these three areas, the lead up the day itself and the follow up. What did we execute really well. Where do we feel like there was great value in the programming on the materials. And then where did we fall out short, what do we not execute to the best of our ability? We then define for ourselves, first, what actions should we take to improve the product and experience? It's great time for reflection, and we do this individually. After making our notes that we make, we then have that two hour meeting. It's a round table. Everyone has a go. And it isn't always that comfortable for me, to be honest, because I'm the prime presenter at these workshops, and the expectation is, if there's an ounce of improvement possible, it needs to be called out. We want to identify the holes, the gaps, the weak presentation, the better ways to deliver the information. How well the stories sat with the audience, whether the activities in the format was ideal, and we go through and we compare our internal thoughts with the feedback and the results that we get that we've received from the participants in their post event questionnaire. Now, pretty often, as was the case in this one, our instincts actually match the feedback that we get, although we tend to be tougher on ourselves as hosts, and that's really typical. But the key part is that this is a great example of a process of reflection. The most important part of this is not just looking back. It's yet to come, because with all of that information where we're all dumped. This is what we did. Well, this is where we struggled or we could improve. Is what's next. What do we do with all that information? So as a team, we go through the process to start to chart a pathway forward. What should we do to focus on improving the materials, the timeline, the communication, the product, the deliverable, and any other aspect of the experience. And I think this process has been incredibly helpful for us, because while our leadership program has been almost two years in development, emerging from 20 years of groundwork in coaching, world class athletes and executives. This is the first year of the formal programming of this product for purple patch. And I believe that the reason that this program has been met with such positivity so far isn't just down to the fact that the programming fits into a pretty unique space that actually drives. Better daily performance and better outcomes for teams and organizations. But is also in the fact that we've really quickly accelerated our learning what truly works, what is effective, and how the product actually syncs with the needs of a wide range of the variety of teams that we tend to work with. In other words, the fuel of our very quick development and improvement of the product has been reflection. So why do I tell you this story? What is? Because this is what you need to do as an athlete before you start committing to next year. Don't just go and sign up for a bunch of races and start chasing your 2025 goals. I really recommend that the first action you do is pause, come out of the wheats, get to the top of the T and reflect, look back, so that you can channel your energy and your actions into components that are going to drive and fuel your long term success.
Matt Dixon 11:06
And so for part two, let's break it down. There are several steps that you can help yourself with if you want to set a path towards an up level in performance in 2025 and it's very simple. It's molded off exactly the same concepts that we leverage a purple patch when we reflect for ourselves and our whole improvement. Let's go through it. There are five core components, and it doesn't take long, and it's not overly complicated. I'm going to unpack each of the five to ensure you understand it. But this is a pre quick process we go through. Part one in the process is to pause, come up and go back a year and think back when you started whatever type of season planning you did a year ago. Perhaps you looked ahead and you chose your events, maybe set some goals for yourself. But a question that I love my athletes to answer is, what does success look like for me in a year's time? Well, if you did ask yourself some form of question like that a year ago, this is the time to pause, look back and reflect on the year that what just was and Were you successful in developing and improving in line with what you are hoping to achieve globally. Now, while this show isn't about goals or goal setting, generally, I prefer athletes and individuals to determine their own high performance being anchored in a journey of improvement. In other words, what does improving look like, and what's the picture that I have at the end of this? I prefer this generally to having very strict outcome goals, wins, pass, fail. That's not really what we're talking about here. And so a year ago, you might have said, I want to improve ABC, or I want to develop better X, Y and Z, whatever it might be, you might be driven by the excitement of wins, podiums, qualifications, but the bigger driver of long term performance is in the improvement of your performance and your readiness to show up, and that's really the key. And so the question that you look back is, Did you deliver on your process driven goals over the last year? And that's a pretty objective reflection. The second step is to actually reflect on all of the good stuff that you did. The second step is to reflect on all the things you did really, really well. What were your strengths? What did you nail over the course of the season? Now, these might be aspects that you added into your program, you improved, or you integrated for the first time and proved really valuable and helpful. These are the things that you're going to want to build on in the coming season. These were great. I executed them well. They delivered something of value. I want to build on them here on out. And you want to be really, really honest with yourself. This might be things like I successfully integrated year round strength. And I feel like the impact was whatever it might be, or I really worked on rate of solving my race fueling, and I executed well in my races. And I feel like the impact of this was over the course of this season. I never felt burnt out. I was wholly consistent throughout the season, and I feel like it was really helpful committing to that off season for the first time, I wasn't chasing from behind the eight ball. And the impact of that was boom, boom, boom. Over the course of the last year, I nailed it. I drove forward my open water swim skills. I swam straighter than ever, and. The impact was A, B and C. So start to unpack this, and you can have a whole big list of them. Be kind to yourself. What did you do? Well, typically, when we look back and we start this process, you start to realize, well, I actually did some really good stuff here, and you're bolding that's part two. Be extensive here, but aim to reflect on the results and the impact of each of the areas of strength as well. Tie the improvement to a result or outcome. How did you improve as an athlete? Now, I should be clear here, what you don't need to focus on as much is some of the outcome stuff. So it's not really helpful to say I got faster, I can generate more power. I won six races. That's not what's actionable for you. That's an outcome that emerged out of the focus or the actions or the habit changes that you implied, and so don't think about faster, boosting FTP, improving your track speed, whatever it might be. Instead, think about this is what I did. This was the improvement, and this was the outcome. Fantastic. Now you got a lovely, rosy picture of your life and your last season. Section three is your growth opportunities. Where did you actually fall short? Where did you not execute as intended? Or what did you just skip over? And what you want to be very careful of here is thinking about these as failures. This is again, less about outcomes. In other words, if you really wanted to qualify to the Hawaii Ironman World Championships, and you failed to do so, that's not what we're talking about here. That's not the focus of this exercise. That's not why we're reflecting instead, the focus is more on the process it's driven under the aspects that you can control. I'll give you a few examples. We talked a little bit about this last week in my a race, I didn't execute my race plan as intended. I went out too hard, and the impact of that was or I didn't take action to become acclimated to the performance readiness in heat. I knew I was going to a hot race, and I skipped over it, and therefore I suffered in the conditions. I think I need to take action to prepare better for my A races that are in heat. Or perhaps you could reflect and say, You know what the truth is, I didn't really follow and adhere to the plan, and I ended up going too hard in too many of the easy sessions. What ended up happening is I started to get burnt out and stale, and I got more injuries than I thought I should have, whatever it might be. Now remember, this whole exercise is not about confidence erosion. It's not about bashing yourself and thinking I'm a failure. We're not looking for self punishment here. And as human beings, we, nearly all of us, steer towards being harsher critics on ourselves than any other people. But this isn't about criticism. What you're actually doing here is objectively reviewing so that you can open up opportunity for growth. This is something that's empowering, helpful, powerful. And when you've got all of this information down, you've got a really nice picture. How did you do relative to what your initial goals and what success looked like? What did you do? Well, where are the opportunities for growth, things that you didn't do well, or maybe the things that you ignored. And with this, then you can begin the fourth set of questions, and that is with all of this information, what are the most important areas that I did well and should build on and continue to emphasize my efforts, as well as the most important areas that I didn't do as well as I could. Where were my weaknesses and where were the ones that truly require my intention or a focus if I am going to drive to a better performance next season? So really, what this is, is a prioritization exercise, because typically we write down, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam. Lots of things, but you can't have 10 things to focus on, because then nothing is a priority. So instead, I encourage you to filter this down. What are the two to three key aspects that you really are going to apply your attention to? And there may be a few others that are worth keeping top of mind, that can be nurtured along and nudged along on the continual development of optimization and improvement. And the most important part of this exercise is to really look at things that are under your control. Those are the things that you believe, or you and your coach believe will drive for. Performance gains. And the key aspect here is, the more simple and actionable, the better, and the greater chances of your adherence, improvement and success. I'll say that again, the more simple you can make these and the greater in action that they are, the greater the chance of success. Fantastic. That's it. No, there's one more to finish it off. You repeat the exercise. You ask the question again, when I look forward in a year's time, what does success look like? Because under that then you can start to go through your season planning. How shall I plot my path towards
Matt Dixon 20:42
success? Where you start to have your priorities? What are the stepping stone goals? So quite often, your races that you might choose to do that are going to help me maintain my short term motivation, keep me accountable, and enable me to help move along the continuum towards my success. And by the way, one final addition, what are the things that I'm going to focus on, including races that are going to be really fun and keep me happy and enjoying it, because that's a big part of it. Now don't forget, in a time starved life, you want to ensure that you define your successes, your goals, all within the realistic framework and the context of the realities of your life. Now we're not going to get overly focused on goal setting and season planning in this show, but I have to at least touch on that, because it is anchored as a part of reflection. Reflection isn't just looking back, it's looking back so that you can chart your path forward. And that's really the key message. This is the process, and by the end of this process, our process, you should have some clarity, excitement for your actions ahead and the beginning of the emergence of a plan for your next season and year ahead. This is the antidote to the stagnation, the snake bite of plateau. It is the catalyst to your performance progression. That is how we do it. I hope that helps athletes, and I hope that it was enjoyable and helpful, a quick one today, but high value. We'll see you next time. Take care, 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.
KEYWORDS
athletic potential, high performance, postseason reflection, performance plateau, real human coaching, time starved athletes, one to one coaching, world championships, leadership workshops, team engagement, process improvement, growth opportunities, season planning, performance progression, community engagement