Here at MLA we are so excited to be bringing you our very first Fitness and Mindset retreat this April, in partnership with coach Tamara Akcay and Mindset RxD.

After receiving questions from the MLA community asking exactly what it will involve, I thought I’d put together a short post to explain why I think training fitness and mindset together is so important.

Having now been a Mindset RxD client for 40 days, alongside training in the gym, I can give you an example from my own journey and share some thoughts on what it means to work on fitness and mindset at the same time.  

Negative self-talk

Back when my fitness routine was going for a run, I wasn’t used to preparing mentally before training. I would lace up, find a pace, and try to sustain it for the required distance. Tenacity was definitely required during the run, and I worked on that over time by training with a club, which provided friendly competition. This ‘just do it’ approach helped me prepare for a couple of marathons but once that goal was achieved, I gave up running entirely. I never quite worked on my inner game.

When it came to strength training, I once again turned up with no mental preparation. This time though, the heavier the weights got, the more I would back out. I typically would have one of these three thoughts:

• This is too heavy for me, I’m just not strong enough to lift it.

• This is too heavy for me, I’ll fail and I’ll look ridiculous.

• This is too heavy for me, I’ll fail and I’ll get injured.

Having these thoughts meant that until quite recently there was an upper limit to the weights I would attempt, and beyond that, I would struggle to get stronger. It has been a dead-end situation.

I realised this self-talk was somewhat unfounded when one day someone else was in charge of the weights on the bar. Had I known how much weight was on, I would definitely have backed out. As it happened, I picked it up and it was a successful lift. It wasn’t easy, but it was definitely repeatable. I put the bar back down and realised I’d never lifted that much before, because I had always talked myself out of it. I realised then that my brain was in the habit of giving up a lot earlier than my body. 

Awareness

Around the same time, I started journaling with Mindset RxD about what I was thinking during my training sessions. The more journaling I did, the more aware I became of what I was telling myself during training. Slowly I started becoming aware of all the unhelpful, non-serving thoughts that were going round my head unquestioned: ‘you aren’t strong enough’, ‘you will fail and look silly’ and so on.

I started observing those thoughts without judging them or taking them to heart. I would then give myself a little pause, to allow myself to think differently. For example, I would catch myself thinking ‘I can’t’ and I would tell myself ‘I know my brain is telling me I can’t, but I’m going to choose to believe that I can do it, because I’ve surprised myself in the past.’

Constructive self-talk

Prior to journaling, I would just jump into a training session without really knowing where to focus my thoughts. I could be thinking about a conversation I had started with a friend, or I could be distracted by the music that was playing. But I realised that in Olympic lifting, I can’t just have any thoughts in my head. For example, I can’t :

• be thinking anything negative.

• think about the lift too much, or I will talk myself out of it.

• tell myself ‘let’s just give it a go’, otherwise, seconds later I will realise it’s heavy, I will get scared, and fail.

I have to believe that I can lift what’s in front of me, otherwise it won’t happen. I also need to give myself no option of bailing: e.g. ‘you must lift this or you cannot finish this session’ or something else equally threatening, so that I will not bail half-way into it.

Discovering what cues and thoughts are constructive for you is a lightbulb moment in training. By writing down daily what went on in your head during a session, you can reinforce the constructive cues and remember to use them when it matters. 

Training your mind and body together

‘The body achieves what the mind believes’ is a well-known saying. The issue is that often we aren’t quite aware of what we believe. Making time to observe our beliefs, positive or negative, is the first step. Then we can examine them to see if we would consciously choose them to drive us forward on our journey, or whether we need different thoughts and cues. 

Over to you

Have you had limiting beliefs in your life so far? What method have you used to overcome them?