5 Characteristics of a Successful Track Mindset
- Passion– Don’t run track or do a field event for reasons other than yourself and your love for the sport. Don’t do it because your friends do it, or because you just want to win. Compete because you love it, and you’re passionate about it. If you truly love track and field, then it’s not going to seem like work for you, it’s going to be enjoyable: “Everyone in life is looking for a certain rush, racing is where I get mine.” said John Trauttman, OIympic runner. If it’s your rush, you know you’re in the right place.
- Courage– Putting yourself in a race or track meet takes courage. You could lose. Embracing the courage within you will help you feel comfortable taking risks. Courageous athletes don’t mind the risk of failure, instead, they take risks anyway. They know they have done everything within their control to prepare for the event. Marathon runner, John Bingham, said, “The miracle isn’t that I finished. The miracle is that I had the courage to start.” There is always going to be a seemingly endless list of things that could happen if you were to take a risk. That is why it is a risk, but courage means that you are going to ignore the potential negative outcomes and try your best anyways. You need to have the courage to really go for it and do something great!
- Vision– You have the ability to see your goal. You’re able to create a long and short-term goals for yourself. You have come up with an action plan to reach your vision. Also, literally using visualization is a great tool to help with this. A lot of the Olympic athletes use visualization right before they compete, and it helps them get focused. Muhammed Ali, the infamous boxer, has a quote saying, “Champions aren’t made in gyms. Champions are made from something deep inside of them: a desire, a dream, a vision.” You can’t do anything that you can’t see yourself doing. Visualization will help you develop the mindset you need to make that vision a reality.
- Resilient– Resilience means that you are able to bounce back after a mistake, setback, or adversity. A setback could be something as small as a not running a good time or something big like coming in last at every meet. Being resilient means that you’ll still be able to succeed after you’ve experienced those setbacks. A good way to put this one is to think about the old Japanese Proverb that says, “Fall seven times, stand up eight.” It literally means even if you face a challenge, don’t let it stop you. And, even if you overcome that challenge and then face a new one, don’t let that stop you either. There will always be setbacks and we need to be ready to face them head-on. Remember that successful people fail far more than they succeed, and they also fail far more than unsuccessful people. You will experience failure, guaranteed. Your ability to be resilient has everything to do with your success.
- Confident- To stay confident in yourself, focus on all of your strong skills and accomplishments. If you dwell on past mistakes or shortcomings, then you won’t feel confidence in yourself. Focus on your positives: “Be confident in the work you did to prepare for the race. Take a look back at your training logs to remind yourself that you’ve done everything possible to prepare. The race is the fun part where you get to see the hard work pay off. Enjoy it.” – Diseree Linden, U.S. Olympic Marathon Star. You could put in countless hours in practice and training and know all the skills you need to succeed, but if you aren’t confident in your skills and abilities, then you won’t be as successful
Always be confident in your skills and in your ability to improve.