It’s not going so well for you lately. You’re getting up every day and doing the work, but let’s face it, you’re doing the bare minimum. You’re even tweaking your workouts because today's just not your day. Ok. It’s time to get real for a minute. We’ve all been there but something separates the mind of an athlete from someone who’s content just coasting along – responsibility.
Responsibility gives you guilt for those days you didn’t give it your best. In fact, it leaves you hungry for next time, so you can come back and prove yourself wrong. Now hear me out, I’m all for listening to your body and dialing it back from time to time. You can ask the folks I coach, if something’s off, we’ll talk about it and make adjustments… BUT…there’s a line…Especially when there’s a race looming on the other side. Being a racer takes a lot of dedication. It’s definitely not for the faint of heart. When I say “racer,” I’m not referring to times or speed by any means, but I am referring to dedication and the willingness to do work. There are specific things you need to do to make your body respond when the gun goes off. Everything from eating right to getting enough sleep, and that’s on top of getting your butt to the track before work, if that’s the only time you can get it done.
BUT – there’s another layer of responsibility that many people tend to forget – that’s the ability to take ownership when something goes wrong. I can tell you that a weak mind will always look to others to place blame. If your speed workout fell flat, it’s easy to rattle off 10 excuses but at the end of the day, it all comes back to you. We’ve become so comfortable with finding “outs” that they’ll all eventually become a crutch. Instead of working on a weakness, we ignore it and then denial sets in and it’s everyone else’s problem – not our own. That’s a really common way to coast through life, but it’s not a common trait of people who succeed. So get up, and stop looking for someone else to fix it because chances are you already know what happened and ignored it from the start. Just own yourself – truly own you. Take responsibility but even more – take pride- pride in the work and progress you’ve made to get yourself this far.