Get Belief In Your Running Ability
It's one thing to have belief in your running, but do you really? It's one thing to be confident in your running ability, shouting your positive mantras before you take to the start line of a race, but underneath, do you really believe it. I talk about this a lot with friends and we agree, a runner can do all the right things in training, but at the end of the day, if they don't believe in their own ability, this will usually get in their way of achieving their running goals.
When it comes to my own running, and sport, I've always believed I can get what I want as long as I put in the hard work and effort. It's always worked well for me. If I didn't reach my goal or set my PR, I would always look back at the process and try to work out what I did wrong. The interesting thing is, I don't know where I got this idea from. If any Psychiatrist out there that can fill in the blanks, let me know. My sporting life growing up was anything but successful. Playing basketball for nine years as a kid, my team would regularly go through a year, only winning two or three games. That didn't stop us getting out on the court each week, hoping all our hard work would finally pay off and we would be able to match it with the top teams in the league.
When it comes to running, the interesting thing is, belief can completely set two people apart. I've seen it many time when someone who looks "athletic" and "fit", being up staged by someone else who simply has the confidence in their own ability. Certain triggers, especially during a race, can start to creep into a runners head and eventually take over, squashing any chance of achieving your ultimate goal. This seems like belief is then a placebo, but seems to have a huge effect, both positive and negative, on runners results. The question then, you may need to ask yourself if you aren't achieving your goals is, do I have belief and confidence in my own running ability?
So how are some ways you can improve your belief in your running ability. There are a lot of ideas out there, and some are pretty useful, including the following:
- Stop comparing yourself to others - This can be easier said than done, especially if your circle of friends are all into running as much as you are, but pay attention to your own goals instead of the goals of everyone around you.
- Set Specific Achievable Goals - Even if they are a little lofty, I think this should be encouraged, but make sure to set achievable steps you can achieve along the way.
- Try to turn everything into good - I recently read the book "You Are a Badass" which has nothing to do with running. But it does propose an interesting technique to change around mindset by starting your sentence with "This is good because". For example, it's a hot day, "This is good because it could be hot on race day and you can get used to this temperature". You are injured, "This is good because you will be well rested and have ample time to cross train and improve your core strength".
- Don't be afraid of failure - OK, bare with me here. If you can challenge yourself and find a way to be safe and comfortable with failing, you should do it. You'll actually learn so much about yourself and the process of getting where you want to be.
- Self talk - This can definitely help even though I was a little sarcastic at the start of this article, but you need to really believe it. Avoid being negative, even though this is difficult to highlight sometimes, and of course you need to believe in what you are actually saying.
- Practice Visualisation - This is not to say, you should be visualising you achieving the end goal, but more so going through the steps you need to take towards achieving that goal.
Conclusion
If I was to describe myself, I would say I have belief in my own running, but that's actually wrong. There's be many times I've been looking at my training and been afraid to set my treadmill to a higher speed, or run a longer than usual tempo run. But what's holding me back, why wouldn't I even at least try it and see. It's sometimes difficult to see yourself getting into this kind of mindset, but at the end of they day, you need to ask yourself, how much better could my training and racing be, if I had true belief in my running ability.
About the Author
Hey I'm Vince, an Aussie living in New Zealand, trying my best to make the most of the time I have. I work as a Software Engineer but love to run and all aspects of it, including geeking out on the latest science to help get the most out of my body.
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Written by @run.vince.run on behalf of the @runningproject
This is great! I remember when I was first getting into running back in like... 2010 / 2011... I started to realized how much my mood / headspace would affect my performance:
I'll admit to putting a bit more emphasis on visualization and positive thinking when I go climbing as compared to my running, which I take pretty casually these days. But it certainly goes a long way. If I start a climbing route thinking, "There's no way I can do this... it's way too hard/scary/runout!" there's a HUGE chance that the entire episode will be a struggle, and my brain wont recruit even close to the power that's required (or available).
The mental game is real.
Great post!
The weird thing is you mostly don't realize your doing it half the time...I think that could be the greatest skill to achieve from all this. I tell people all the time they need to be positive and believe in their ability but I am just as bad sometimes.