Motivation Is Something You Do To Somebody While Inspiration Is Something, They Do For Themselves

What is motivation? It is simply defined as; The act or process of giving someone a reason for doing something.

Pretty simple yet so complicated. I’m sure some of you right now are looking for motivation to continue with your new year’s resolutions, or to complete that project that is due tomorrow, heck just to complete your homework or get out of bed in the morning. In my time as a coach, athlete, student, human being on this planet I have found that it is our emotional connection to something that motivates us! Before we get to emotionally involved let’s look at the facts.

Why do we do the things we do? What is it that drives our behaviors?

Psychologists have proposed some different ways of thinking about motivation, including one method that involves looking at whether motivation arises from outside (extrinsic) or inside (intrinsic) the individual. Both types are important and have different effects on behaviors and how people pursue goals.

What Is Extrinsic Motivation?

Extrinsic motivation occurs when we are motivated to perform a behavior or engage in an activity to earn a reward or avoid punishment. In this case, you engage in behavior not because you enjoy it or because you find it satisfying, but in order to get something in return or avoid something unpleasant.

• Participating in a sport to win awards
• Cleaning your room to avoid being reprimanded by your parents
• Competing in a contest to win a scholarship
• Studying because you want to get a good grade

What Is Intrinsic Motivation?

Intrinsic motivation involves engaging in a behavior because it is personally rewarding; essentially, performing an activity for its own sake rather than the desire for some external reward. Essentially, the behavior itself is its own reward.

• Participating in a sport because you find the activity enjoyable
• Cleaning your room because you like tidying up
• Solving a word puzzle because you find the challenge fun and exciting
• Studying a subject, you find fascinating

Carrot on the stick

Many people use the carrot on a stick method or extrinsic motivation. If you want people to perform better, you reward them! Right…??

There have been many studies that show rewards narrow our focus and concentrate the mind and dulls our thinking and blocks creativity. They work well for tasks that are routine, have a clear set of rules and a single solution. How many things do we do in life that are like that? Most tasks have mystifying rules, and non-obvious surprising solutions. When tasks even call for rudimentary cognitive skills, a larger reward leads to poorer performance.

Perhaps most importantly, research suggests that providing physical rewards, undermines the development of any internal, or intrinsic motivation to do the very same thing.

Using Incentives Carefully

If someone already enjoys doing something, then it must mean that rewarding them for the behavior would make them like it even more, right? In many cases, the answer is, no. Rewarding people for doing things they are already intrinsically motivated to do can backfire. Doing the task is its own reward.

Outcomes & Achievements

When we create outcomes and achievements as our motivating force for taking actions in our lives, we just want the carrot. The problem lies in when we get those carrots the feeling lasts for like 15 seconds, what happens in the 16^th second? We get another carrot, creating a new outcome and achievement to motivate us. That process does not lead to a very happy individual as you are continuing to strive for the next outcome and achievement.

What does this all mean? Rewards don’t work all the time for motivation. Chasing outcomes & achievements only lasts for that 15 seconds of fame when we catch the carrot. That brings us to what truly causes motivation or inspires us to do something.

Daniel Pink tells us in his book Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us that working is as natural as playing and resting and that, under the proper conditions, humans will accept and even seek this kind of responsibility. In the long term, intrinsically motivated people are more successful than those who only seek rewards, because they have strong inner desire to control their lives. They also tend to have higher self-esteem and better relationships.

The Three Key Components of Intrinsic Motivation

According to Pink, intrinsic motivation is based on three key factors: Autonomy, Mastery and Purpose. Let's look at each factor in more detail:

1. Autonomy is the need to direct your own life and work. To be fully motivated, you must be able to control what you do, when you do it, and who you do it with.
2. Mastery is the desire to improve. If you are motivated by mastery, you'll likely see your potential as being unlimited, and you'll constantly seek to improve your skills through learning and practice. Someone who seeks mastery needs to attain it for its own sake.
3. Purpose- Why are you doing what you are setting out to do? You set out to do ‘X’. What is the reason you want to do ‘X’? Go deep with this one. Find the purpose and you will find the emotional connection to keep you going. You will become that story and see yourself as the person already. This wins not only in your mind but in your heart!

Going Even Deeper – Inspiration

Culturally we are motivated not inspired. Motivation is of the ego and it forces us to keep up with others, compete against others and measure ourselves to others. Motivation compels us to act, to do, give, expend, push past limits, and push the envelope.

Inspiration is defined as: Something that makes someone want to do something or that gives someone an idea about what to do or create. Inspiration is of the soul. It is about understanding who you are or want to be and as a natural byproduct you accomplish things that, previously, were not thought possible. So, inspiration is something that you feel on the inside, while motivation is something from the outside that compels you to take action. Inspiration is a driving force, while motivation is a pulling force.

Inspiring Minds Want to Know

Motivation is tenuous in nature; it ebbs and flows. It's because our desire for safety and comfort is in a perpetual tug of war with our desire for growth and meaning and contribution.

Things that are inspiring align with your core values and hold deep personal meaning that you connect with on a deep emotional level. Most people want to look better or have more money, but you must go beyond superficial desires and connect with what truly matters most to you.

Whatever you resolve to do, get really clear about why it really matters and the personal price you’ll pay if you put it off any longer. If your resolutions don’t come with a big burning Why you’ll find yourself hard-pressed to keep your resolve at the first temptation to ditch it. Looking at the things that inspire you. They give you a chill, or feeling in the center of your chest, or tingly all over or something to that affect. This isn’t in the head it is what are your soul wants. In order to find out what that is, we need to step back and ask a ourselves some questions:

1. Am I the kind of person who…?
2. What is the reason you want to do this?
3. What is the reason for that?
4. What is the reason for that?
5. What gives you the satisfaction of a job well done?
6. What makes you feel good about yourself?

And keep going till you feel that tingly feeling, that chill rushing up your spine, etc…Be mindful as you embark on this new adventure whether in love, career, health, etc…Always remain conscious of how you feel before during and after. Your feelings will let you know if inspiration or motivation is dictating the execution of your plans. If inspiration is guiding your steps, then continue and be assured that the outcome will be magnificent. Inspiration is autonomy, mastery & purpose all rolled into one.

What inspires me to spend hours on an article? It is the story I tell myself each day to be the change I wish to see in the world. Maybe someone will read this, and it may affect them in a way to change. What is your story? Be like water my friends.

What is BLUE WAVE About…?

My name is Michael Kraeuter, most just call me Coach Mike and I have proudly led the BLUE WAVE Swim Team as its head coach for the past eleven years. I was asked to write a bit about this great swim team you all have in Ashburn Village. Contemplating what to write, I asked myself what things would interest the community.
I could share stats, such as placings at competitions, times, meets we have attended, records broken, etc... Those are just the results of what we do on a daily basis (you can see all of that at our website, www.pvbluewave.com). That’s it! What we do daily…So, what do we do daily besides swim in the wonderful Ashburn Village Sports Pavilion?

• We teach kids how to preserver through the hard stuff in life by challenging them to become the best version of themselves...
• We offer a space for kids to develop life-long friendships.
• We have amazing coaches that teach the kids that swimming is not just about going fast but about life.
• We offer an environment where kids can and will learn to be disciplined.
• We offer a space where the kids learn to take care of their body, mind and spirit.
• We teach the kids to learn to work with others and to be a proud, supportive, kind and respectful team members.
• We offer a safe space for a child to deal with disappointment, when they don’t get that time they hoped and worked for or handle an experience that didn’t go their way even though they practiced it a thousand times. They still get up, determined to do their BEST next time...
• We teach the how to embrace the process of life and make and accomplish goals.
• We teach the kids that it takes hours and hours and hours and hours of conscious work, planning and practice to create a champion, and patience that success does not happen overnight.
• We offer them a wholesome alternative to being in front of a screen…

This can be summed up in our team’s values, symbolized here –

It is made up of three parts;

‘Ohana – extending beyond your core family. Being a part of this wonderful Ashburn Village Community comes with the responsibility to act with integrity, care for, relate to, lead, build relationships, plan, organize, teach, mentor or be a role model.

Kaizen – is all about change, the practice of continuous improvement. Embracing the process of becoming an improved version of ourselves. We are all a work in progress.

Tabano – is about unity of purpose, strength, confidence and hard work to reach a destination or goal. One cannot simply achieve greatness without sacrificing, working hard and staying strong. When joining BLUE WAVE, you share in the team’s mission of developing extraordinary people through the dedication of mastery in the sport of swimming. Dedication to this purpose gives us common ground to stand upon in our individual journeys. When we have purpose, it helps us navigate the choices we must make each day. From what to eat, when to go to bed, how we treat each other, etc…
I could go on but, to be short, we don’t just swim laps we create opportunities for children to develop attributes that will serve them well throughout their lives and give them the opportunity to give back to the community and the lives of others. From what I have seen for many, many years, this is what makes not only this swim team great but the world we live in!
Thank you for the opportunity to be a part of this great community!

BLUE WAVE ON 3…BLUE WAVE ON 3…1...2…3 -

GO BLUE WAVE! - www.pvbluewave.com

Comfortably, Uncomfortable

The other month at our season’s first swim meet I was talking to one of our team members post-race, one of favorite part of swim meets, and we covered what he thought he did well and what he could improve on at practice. The interesting part was when I asked him how he would go about improving and he stated, “get better endurance.” To that I asked

What is endurance?

He then stated, “well, better stamina” then I asked, “what is stamina?” and the cycle started over again with him stating “better endurance.”

The power of asking questions like this allow me to delve deeper and uncover what they are truly thinking and how I could best serve them.

He could have stated anyone of the other words that are a synonym for endurance such as: persistence, stick-to-itiveness, grit, spunk, guts, backbone, courage, longevity, durability, diligence, tenacity, tolerance, patience, fortitude, etc…Now, you’re probably wondering what endurance means (even if you think you know what it means here is my perspective). Endurance is basically the ability to be uncomfortable for an extended period or as I like to say, “be comfortably, uncomfortable.”

By a show of hands how many of you like to be uncomfortable?

You have basically two choices; use will power and fight your way through uncomfortable feelings, or you can learn to work with your body and make them become comfortable. The nervous system creates the discomfort and pain. When we feel pain, our body is telling us that something might be wrong and needs our attention. We can teach our bodies that what we are experiencing does not need our attention and that it is alright. Or if you decide to go with the other choice and fight your way it is kind of like having a knife pressed against you skin and then trying to distract yourself from it only that it keeps pressing harder and harder into your skin. I would rather figure out what the reason the knife is there in the first place and take care of that.

First step to this is delving into what is uncomfortable and opening your awareness around it. Most tend to move away from discomfort by distracting themselves in ways that do not serve them, it only provides a temporary reprieve. A simple question to ask is “what’s causing this discomfort?” and see what comes up. Now that you know what is causing the discomfort you can work with it. One way we work with it is through breathwork and breathing. One technique that we teach is a box breath. Here is a simple explanation.

1. Close your eyes. Breathe in through your nose while counting to four slowly. Feel the air enter your lungs.
2. Pause your breath inside while counting slowly to four. Try not to clamp your mouth or nose shut. Simply avoid inhaling or exhaling for 4 seconds.
3. Begin to slowly exhale for 4 seconds.
4. Pause your exhale while counting slowly to four.
5. Repeat steps 1 to 4 at least three times. Ideally, repeat the four steps for 4 minutes, or until calm returns.

Next time you find yourself experiencing discomfort give this a go and see what happens. Finding what we are looking for is typically on the other side of discomfort.

When you become “comfortably, uncomfortable” and work with and not fight your discomfort you will develop more endurance. Discomfort is what happens when we are on the edge of change and tends be the currency of your dreams.

What can you become “comfortably, uncomfortable” with today?

Conscious Thought Revolution

Always learning and keeping an open mind

Before writing this, I didn’t know what to share with the community for this month. Then a wave hit me as I was listening to one of my favorite podcasts “Bulletproof Radio with Dave Asprey” and towards the end of the podcast one of the guests named Gordy Bal asked the question “What does a Conscious Thought Revolution mean to you?” and the answers he received opened my eyes! You can listen to the podcast by going here. https://blog.bulletproof.com/coffee-talk-evolutionary-biology-food-hangovers-conscious-parenting-439/

Conscious Thought Revolution

When we have conscious thinking, we are learning to pay attention to the world outside of our own ego. One by one we increase our consciousness with which we make decisions about what we do for a living, about the way we respond when we get bad customer service, about the food we put in our mouth, etc…and then virally we spread that to the people around us. Then it becomes a revolution. This is how we can become the change we want to see in the world, by creating at conscious thought revolution.

The easiest way this can be achieved is by teaching kids to be conscious. It is being conscious and recognizes that every interaction you have with children generates meaning and to realize that the words we use are taken by a child and then are made up into some meaning for which they create rules for which they live by. I’m sure we can all find things that adults have stated to us when we were kids which we interoperated into rules which we still live by today. My life coach has helped me delve into this to help me understand why I do certain things.

In coaching kids, we ask them to pay attention when they are looking around and not listening to the coach. We forget to ask ourselves; do they even know what we mean when we state “pay attention”? Probably not. This is being conscious of these things so I can teach them how to be conscious and then they will “pay attention”.

When coaching I encourage kids to ask questions and teach them to be aware of what they are doing. I try to draw their attention to the thoughts that flow through their minds.

Dave Asprey stated: “A revolution means something that’s disruptive. It means it’s different and it’s a radical step out. And we can think about all sorts of stuff, but when you have a conscious thought what you’re doing is you’re thinking about what matters rather than just thinking for the sake of thinking. Or thinking and telling yourself a story, so when you have conscious thinking, you’re actually learning to pay attention to the story you told yourself but pay attention to the real story as the world exists outside of your own ego.”

Then Eric Edmeades of getwildfit.com stated: “It’s not so much we need a conscious thought revolution right now; it’s been going on for probably 2-million years. And 2-million years ago there was very little conscious thought and then slowly a little conscious thought developed, and then slowly a little bit more. And then maybe some point in time the ‘60’s, it started going the other direction, and maybe even earlier than that. For me, what it really is exactly that, it’s that – one by one, that whole “be the change you want to see in the world.” One by one we increase our consciousness with which we make decisions about what we do for a living, about the way we respond when we get bad customer service, about the food we put in our mouth, and one by one we do that. And then virally we spread that to the people around us. And then it does become a revolution.”

As the conversation went on, they expanded upon their answers and this is what hit me - It is a lot easier to teach kids to be conscious. It is something we do every day at BLUE WAVE. Last excerpt from the podcast that was a great insight was from Eric Edmeades. He stated; “I'm so clear about this I noticed when I was a kid that my parents could say something and if I ... As a kid you don't have a lot of meaning yet, right? You walk into the world; you don't know what the rules are. And I remember one day I was eating an apple, and I wanted to go to the bathroom. So, I was eating the apple, and I went into the bathroom, closed the door, put the apple down, did my business, washed my hands, picked up the apple, walked out of the bathroom. My mom saw me come out of the bathroom with an apple and she was like, "Oh, my God what are you doing! That's dangerous." But then she got busy with something and didn't explain to me what dangerous meant. And I must have been eight or something at the time, but I'm thinking, well, she knows I'm smart enough to have washed my hands, so it can't be that. What else could it be? And as a kid when you don't have any meanings, you don't really understand the world, you will make up meanings. And I remember one day playing with a straw, and I noticed that if you block the top of the straw you can pull the liquid up. And if you let go of the top of the straw the liquid falls out. And I started thinking well, maybe that's what she meant by dangerous - that if you swallow while you poop, you just fall out. I became really nervous about this. I would not chew gum going to the bathroom. I'd go in there, I wouldn’t swallow. I thought if you opened both ends, it's all wrong. And years later when I saw the absurdity of this as a parent, I've looked at that and I thought, wow, there's a lot of things that my parents said that when I look back at those memories now the meanings I assessed were so incredibly wrong. For me, a Conscious Thought Revolution as a parent, is to recognize that every interaction I have with my children generates a meaning, and the meaning might not be the words I used. The meaning might be that they take those words and they make up some meaning, which for them will become a rule to live by. Just yesterday I was in San Diego, and I'm walking through the mall … I did a Facebook Live about this, because it just struck me. There was a little girl with her mom in the lineup. And the little girl goes, "Mom, mom I want one of…" whatever. I don't even know what it was, and the mom says to her, "Well, you better marry rich."

I’ll end it at that line, and you can come up with your own rule the mother at that moment set in motion for her child. It isn’t just about what you say, it is how you act and/or react. What you display in your body language and facial expressions. The main thing is becoming aware of these things and what better way to do that is with the help of the community of teachers, coaches, neighbors, family, friends, and from some of the best teachers of all your children.

How can you start a conscious thought revolution?

BLUE WAVE ON 3…BLUE WAVE ON 3…1...2…3 - GO BLUE WAVE!

www.pvbluewave.com

The Cottleston Pie Principle

“Knowledge is learning something new every day. Wisdom is letting go of something every day.” Zen Proverb

Marie Kondo instructs us to go through our clutter and ask, “does this still serve me?” In doing so I have come across things my past and due to the knowledge, I have obtained take on a whole other meaning. Here is one of those instances.

Cottleston Pie by A.A. Milne

Cottleston, Cottleston, Cottleston Pie,

A fly can’t bird, but a bird can fly.

Ask me a riddle and I reply:

“Cottleston, Cottleston, Cottleston Pie.”

Cottleston, Cottleston, Cottleston Pie,

A fish can’t whistle and neither can I.

Ask me a riddle and I reply:

“Cottleston, Cottleston, Cottleston Pie.”

Cottleston, Cottleston, Cottleston Pie,

Why does a chicken, I don’t know why.

Ask me a riddle and I reply:

“Cottleston, Cottleston, Cottleston Pie.”

In reading the book “The Tao of Pooh” by Benjamin Hoff. He allows us to revisit the lessons that Pooh was attempting to teach us from his adventures in Pooh Corner with Rabbit, Piglet, Eeyore, Owl, Kanga & Roo and Christopher Robin. Let’s explore one together called the Cottleston Pie Principle.

And here’s the explanation, according to the book “The Tao of Pooh” by Benjamin Hoff.

“A fly can’t bird but a bird can fly.” Very simple. It’s obvious, isn’t it? And yet, you’d be surprised how many people violate this simple principle every day of their lives and try to fit square pegs into round holes, ignoring the clear reality that Things Are As They Are.

It is useless to try to make things into ways they’re not. Everything has its own place and function, including people, even if they don’t realize it, and that’s why they keep the wrong job or stay in the wrong marriage or relationships. You need to learn to know and respect your Inner Nature. When you do so, you know where you belong and where you don’t belong.

Respect yourself, respect your Inner Nature. Make friends with what you are, because that’s the only thing you have.

“A fish can’t whistle and neither can I”. This means “I have certain limitations, and I know what they are”. There’s nothing wrong with not being able to whistle, especially if you’re a fish. But there can be lots of things wrong with blindly trying to do what you aren’t designed for. That doesn’t mean that we need to stop changing and improving. It just means that we need to recognize what’s there. The wise know their limitations, the foolish ignore it…

Respect your limitations, respect what you can’t do. If you know what is that you can’t do, you’ll work on it, and that will save you from trouble.

“Why does a chicken, I don’t know why”. Why does a chicken do what it does? You don’t know? Neither do I. Neither does anyone else. The important thing is that we don’t really need to know. We don’t need to play Abstract Philosopher, asking unnecessary questions and coming up with meaningless answers. Cottleston Pie means Inner Nature, and if you substitute the words in the song, you’ll get that Inner Nature is the answer to the riddles!

Stop trying to find an explanation for everything, stop over analyzing, things are as they are. Learn to accept them as they go.

We often forget the most important of our childhood lessons until we clear the clutter. All we must do is recognize Inner Nature and work with things as they are- after all "You can't get very far if you don't know who you are"

BLUE WAVE ON 3…BLUE WAVE ON 3…1...2…3 GO BLUE WAVE!

www.pvbluewave.com

Practice (is) Everything is Practice

During Yoga practice, I was doing a headstand and I tumbled ever so gracefully out of it, in other words I fell. Reflecting on what happened the first thing that came to mind is that I learned what not to do but in further reflection I found out what may have aided my hasty decent. During the headstand a thought kept coming up that I was going to fall. Self-fulling prophecy, as the old saying goes; “if you think you can or can’t, you’re right”. Proved that one once again.

The people I coach ask me all the time, “how do I get better?” Looking for the secret or short cut to this elusive path. I tend to loosely state “one stroke at a time”. It isn’t so much about what you do, necessarily, but what your attitude is about your actions. So, what does this have to do with my “failed” headstand? It wasn’t a failure, it was play, it was an attempt, and each attempt is a step forward, it was practice.

"Practice is everything. This is often misquoted as Practice makes perfect." ~ Periander

Improvement involves the three P’s;

• Perseverance- keep doing something despite of difficulty or delay in achieving success.
• Patience- is the calm acceptance that things can happen in a different order than the one you have in mind.
• Practice

Everything you do is practice. If you look at it any other way, you are not only setting unreasonable expectations of yourself, but you are assuming you can predict an unpredictable outcome. When a hit song tops the charts, a book becomes a best-seller, an athlete does something no one has done before, it’s easy to see the occurrence in an instant and ignore everything that preceded it.

"Success comes through rapidly fixing our mistakes rather than getting things right the first time." ~ Tim Harford, author of Adapt: Why Success Always Starts with Failure

How do you get better? Just like you learned how to walk, talk, put food in your mouth without missing. One fall, mumble, messy face at a time. You have been doing it your whole life and look at you now. We endlessly experiment, play and learn. The faster we learn to look for ways to fall the less falling will happen because we will finally realize that we are continuously falling, we just don’t know it because it looks like standing or for the purpose of this article, success.

What are you practicing today? You know my answer, everything!

BLUE WAVE ON 3…BLUE WAVE ON 3…1...2…3

GO BLUE WAVE!

www.pvbluewave.com

The UN-Comfortable Zone

by Coach Mike

“Life begins at the end of your comfort zone.”

We typically avoid situations that feel scary; fear and anxiety overwhelm which can cause us to typically search for relief from those uncomfortable feelings. The feelings we experience are our irrational side working to keep us “safe”. If accept the feeling instead of allow time to understand it, it gets stronger throughout our lives. The feeling can become so strong that it can overpower us, and we find ways to numb that feeling, like avoiding conversations or situations, eating “comfort foods”, using drugs to forget our worries, etc…We live in a world of comfort. House is cold turn up the heat; house is too hot turn on the AC. Hungry? Grocery store/restaurants are everywhere. I could go on but look at your everyday life and imagine how you avoid being uncomfortable.

Take a COLD shower…brrrrr

Close your eyes and imagine standing under the shower head and turning on the cold water. What did you just experience? That is uncomfortable, right? What makes it uncomfortable though? For me, it’s the feeling on my skin and how my body reacts by starting to shiver and breathe erratically.

Becoming comfortable with being uncomfortable…

This is a paradoxical statement but that is exactly what I did. I asked myself, “How can I make this experience more comfortable?” For me, focusing my attention on my breath and evening it out allowed me to draw focus inward where my body is still warm. In that moment I no longer felt the cold water beating on my skin but a sense of calm and warmth. This is something you can do. At the end of your normal shower turn it all the way to cold and stand there for 10 seconds. What is uncomfortable for you and how can you make it more comfortable?

“The only thing you have control over is your reaction.”

What has something so simple allowed me to practice?

1. Being present: Just standing under the shower knowing that I’m going to turn on the cold water my thoughts go into overdrive and it allows me to practice listening to them in a safe environment and flex my “focus” muscle to stay present.
2. Managing fear: Acknowledging the fear and listening to it allows me to release it by proactively changing my perspective and instead of fear I decide to react with joy.
3. Taking small steps: Joy of taking a cold shower didn’t happen overnight. I started with 10 seconds and disliked it very much. However, by sticking with it and adding about 5 seconds each time I was able to compassionately work with myself and now my whole shower consists of cold water.
4. Kicking my own butt: Getting uncomfortable allows me to demonstrate by example my initiative to kick my own butt instead of waiting for someone else to do it. Doing something you are resistant to, every single day, builds mental strength and over time this discipline becomes a habit that echoes in every area of life.
5. Break up the habit: Life is often a series of habits followed by other habits. Doing this allows me to practice getting uncomfortable, break up the habit and then work through the new situation.
6. Tolerance: Having a cold shower has helped me train my mind to not react to changes within the body, like leg cramps, itchy nose, or sore back. This tolerance has extended over to other aspects of life. For example, when someone cuts me off in traffic, I have learned to ignore the rush of adrenaline in the body and react properly.
7. Being humbled: Cold showers humble everyone and serve as an amazing way to give myself an occasional psychological kick in the butt. We are all the same, and you are not better than anyone else. As powerful and strong you consider yourself, we are all human beings. The cold shower has the power to humble everyone.
8. Acceptance: Overcoming this situation on a regular basis has helped me practice acceptance of the fact that there are things beyond my control and that life is not always going to go my way. This has helped boost willpower, build tolerance, and allows me to practice accepting the things that life throws at me.

Finding simple ways to move outside your comfort zone on a regular basis allows you to practice being comfortable with being uncomfortable. So, ask yourself this question. What makes you uncomfortable? How can you make it comfortable for you?

If you want more information regarding the health benefits of cold showers just Google it, you too may start this practice.

The Elephant & the Rider

I’m reading this book entitled Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard by Dan Heath and Chip Heath. They reference NYU psychologist Jonathan Haidt’s lovely analogy about the Elephant and the Rider to represent the two systems at work in our brain. The emotional side is represented by the elephant and the rational side is the rider. The rider of the elephant looks to be in charge, but when there’s a disagreement between the elephant and the rider, which do you think wins?

Dan and Chip, talk about directing the rider (rational brain: responsible for planning and direction, but can get paralyzed overthinking things) and motivating the elephant (emotional brain: prefers quick gratification over long term, but gets things done). Have you ever noticed that when you are tired you tend to make choices you don’t’ really want to? Imagine changing the direction of an elephant. This task would be exhausting. This might explain why it is difficult to stick with a diet for any extended period. Your elephant wants to constantly go for things you are used to while the rider is attempting to steer towards the healthier choices. You can keep it up for a little while, but the elephant wins in the end. If you want to make sustainable, meaningful change, the rider and elephant need to work together.

Direct the Rider

The rider loves to contemplate and analyze, doing this with a negative bias, focusing on problems over solutions becoming easily frustrated by uncertainty. How do you direct the rider? Follow the bright spots, see what works and clone it. Script the critical moves. Don’t think big picture, think in terms of specific behaviors. Point to the destination. Change is easier when you know where you are going and why it is worth it.

Motivate the Elephant

The elephant is easily spooked and hates doing things with no immediate benefit. It is stubborn, needs reassurance, and is quickly demoralized. But it is powerful, tireless and difficult to actively direct. How do you motivate the elephant? Find the feeling. Knowing something isn’t enough to cause change. Make it somehow felt. Shrink the change. Break down the change until it no longer spooks the elephant.

Shape the Path

Without a clear vision of the destination, change will not happen as the elephant tends to follow the path of least resistance. This means focusing on the surrounding environment to make change easier. How do we shape the path? Tweak the environment. When the situation changes, the behavior changes. So, change the situation. Build habits. When behavior is habitual, it’s “free” and doesn’t tax the rider. Look for ways to encourage habits.

Those are the Facts

I would like to share my point of view and how I apply this and get the rider and elephant to work together. Here is a personal example; a few years ago, I completely changed my diet because I wanted to be a healthier version of myself. In order to initiate the change, I read material put out by bright spots, by people who struggled with becoming healthier. This allowed my rider to formulate a plan. From the material I was reading I found out that some foods caused inflammation in my body. I visualized myself purposely giving myself bruises. This visualization caused an emotional reaction motivating my elephant. The change to becoming healthier was now directed at cutting out all the foods that could cause my body inflammation. Shaping the path, I started with throwing out all the foods in my kitchen that could potentially cause inflammation and learned to make a few easy things to help remove any obstacles from my path to becoming healthier. How powerful is this? One day I wanted sweet potato fries and I was too tired to make them from scratch. I took a drive to the grocery store and found a bag of frozen ones and read the ingredients which contained some inflammatory items and the elephant kicked in and said “NOPE” and I ended up making them from scratch.

Now, whenever I find my elephant off tract or my rider spinning wheels, I ask myself, “How can I get the elephant and the rider moving together?”

BLUE WAVE ON 3…BLUE WAVE ON 3…1...2…3

Words are POWERFUL!

By Coach Mike

Being a bit of a Star Wars geek, I have always loved this quote by Yoda.

“No! Try not! Do or do not, there is no try.” -Yoda

However, I was always confused, by “there is no try”. What did he mean by that? You grow up and your parents say to you, just try it and see if you like it. Teachers said, just give it a try and see if it works. There are so many more examples, but when Yoda spoke those words, he teaches a very valuable lesson. When you say, “you’ll try”, you are lying. If you tell yourself that you’re “going to try”, you’ve subconsciously planned to fail, and it gives your brain an out. This doesn’t mean that you must do everything that is asked of you. If you don’t think that something is the best use of your time and energy, you can honestly and clearly (and kindly) say no. But if you choose to take something on, commit to it with all your might. You either do it or you don’t and if you fail in the process of doing at least you truly learned something.

What I’m getting at is that words are powerful. They set expectations and limits and send messages to our brains and even our bodies about how much we are capable of. You may discover that you may use self-limiting words without even realizing it. Our subconscious may choose safe words that make unimportant things feel huge and other words that allow wiggle room to avoid doing the big things we want to do.

Weasel Words

As I was scrolling through the team’s Instragram feed one of my favorite authors, Dave Asprey, posted a pic with the term “Weasel Words”. In his new book “Game Changers” he delves into four particularly insidious weasel words that you likely use many times a day without even noticing it. “Try” is one of those words, here are the other three.

Can’t: It is perhaps the most destructive word. The word “can’t” mean’s there is absolutely no possible way you can do something. When you say “I can’t do…” something, you may actually mean: I could use some help; I don’t have the tools to do it; I don’t know how to do it; or you I don’t want to do it. Using “can’t” creates confusion and stress between your conscious and unconscious parts of your brain. Instead use words that mean the same thing to both parts of the brain and it will help you be calmer and more empowered as a person. “Can’t” is always a lie. Learn to see it that way, and you’ll solve problems differently.

Need: You probably use this word in all sorts of ways; “I need a snack” or “I need this new iPhone”. You don’t need those things and lying to your brain about what you need is making you weak, turning a desire into a straight-up survival issue. There are only a few things we do need: oxygen, water, food, shelter, and warmth. The rest are wants, not needs.

Bad: Very few things are inherently “bad”; bad is a value judgement you assign something. When you label things as “bad” your subconscious listens and prepares for impending doom. Most of the time what we mean is; I don’t like it or don’t want it. The world doesn’t naturally fall into two camps. There are truly tragic things, such as violence and natural disasters, but when it comes to our everyday lives judging things through a filter of good or bad is limiting and creates unnecessary obstacles. When labeling something as “bad” you miss out on an opportunity to figure out how it can be good.

“Your words become your world.” Nadeem Kazi

Our subconscious interprets what it hears very literally. Your mind and body will follow the direction your words lead. The words you use hold immense power. Power to fuel your confidence and ambition and power to make you feel anxious and inadequate. Power to make a strong first impression and power to be quickly forgotten. Power to create opportunities and power to shut them down. So, stop trying and start doing!

BLUE WAVE ON 3…BLUE WAVE ON 3…1...2…3

GO BLUE WAVE!

www.pvbluewave.com

by Coach Mike

“Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.” -Ferris Bueller

We are in our second month of competing now and we have been teaching how to develop your own process. At our last swim meet I had two contrasting examples of this. This swimmer who we will call Process made up index cards with the events she was scheduled to swim and little reminders to herself on what to focus on during the race. I like to refer to this as the plan. Contrast this to another swimmer who we will refer to as Outcome, was really upset after his races because he didn’t get the result he wanted. When I asked him what his plan was, he stated “I just wanted to go faster!” In turn I asked him did you do the things that you have been practicing? Outcome stated, “No…I just wanted to go faster!”

Process was focused on the process while Outcome was focused on the outcome. After speaking with Process at the end of the meet she knew where improvement could be made and how to modify her plan for the next time she raced and what to focus on during practices. After speaking with Outcome he changed the way he raced the following day and made plans for each of his races and executed them leading to an improved day of racing and now he knows what to improve upon moving forwards as well.

Moving Pebbles

A while ago I had this vision pop into my head which mirrored what Confucius said, “The man who moves a mountain begins by carrying away small stones.” Then I pictured what people today might do when trying to move a mountain. Can you guess?

• They look for a better mountain to move because this one is too difficult.
• They look over at everyone else’s mountain and start comparing and second guessing should I even be spending my time on this, their mountain looks so much better, FOMO.
• They try to move too much at once when they are not ready because it isn’t happening fast enough and quit or hurt themselves.
• They just start hurtling stones because they fixate on “I have to move the mountain” and when they are done the mountain may have been moved but look at the mess, they made.
• They stand there looking at the stones wondering which one is the best one to move first because they don’t want to make the wrong choice, and nothing gets moved.

There is a saying that I like to keep in mind when things get complicated in life, it is…

K.I.S.S. - Keep It Simple Stupid

Einstein stated once; “Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.”

How I look at what Confucius stated, is to start small by moving the smallest pebble you can find. It may seem insignificant now and you may question how will I ever get this mountain moved? Remember that by starting with that one pebble you have begun. Moving that one pebble is easy and you will go back and grab another and another. Now you have started to build the habit necessary to move the mountain. As you progress, you start taking bigger stones and rocks because you have gained the strength to do so. With momentum you start to see the mountain moving and you don’t look at what other people are doing because you see your progress. Because you started small you learn from your experience and pick up so many more skills like the most efficient way to carry bigger and bigger loads, you develop relationships, processes to move everything better, all because you started by moving one pebble at a time. Since you have developed the habit of moving pebbles, even when you come across something bigger than you can currently handle you break it down into pebbles once again allowing yourself to keep moving forward and learning from each pebble.

This goes back to the swimmer we called Process. Her events are the mountains and practice are her pebbles, while the notecards are her reminders on what she has learned thus far to keep her focused on her own mountain.

Next time you see a mountain you want to move, look at the pebble at your feet and pick it up.

What mountain are you looking to move today?

Tabono is Dedication

By Coach Mike

So far we have explored kaizen and how it symbolizes our team’s core value of mental toughness and ‘ohana which symbolizes our value of family. This time we are delving into our third core value of dedication. When researching this I came across an African Adinkra symbol called tabono. Tabono means “oar” or “paddle” in the Adinkra language of Western Africa. It is a symbol of unity of purpose, strength, confidence and hard work to reach a destination or goal. Drawn as four conjoint paddles/oars, tabono symbol means that one cannot simply achieve greatness without sacrificing, working hard and staying strong.

How does this parallel our core value of dedication?

What does dedication really mean? Defining dedication will allow us to uncover the true meaning of tabono and how it relates to the team.

The dictionary states it is the quality of being dedicated or committed to a task or purpose. I don’t think this does the word justice. There are about 16 different synonyms listed in the dictionary such as commitment, devotion, faithfulness and loyalty to just name a few. It can be interpreted many ways and it truly depends on many different circumstances. I think a better way to go about defining this complicated word is through experiences and people. The experiences I’ve had myself and watching people that inspire me to go deeper into the meaning of what it truly means to be dedicated or have tabono.

Purpose

Why do you do something? By joining BLUE WAVE, you share the team’s purpose on becoming the best person you can become through the dedication of mastery in the sport of swimming. Dedication to this purpose gives us common ground to stand upon in our individual journeys. When we have purpose, it helps us navigate the choices we must make each day. From what to eat, when to go to bed, how we treat each other, etc…

This states that none of us are just here to be better swimmers but by dedicating ourselves to this one unifying purpose we develop the tools to be the best version of ourselves. This team and sport give us a playground to test ourselves and learn from each other with the support of our ‘ohana. It will allow us to develop the strength, confidence and work ethic through kaizen.

Why Symbolize Our Team’s Values?

Human cultures use symbols to express specific ideologies and social structures and to represent aspects of their specific culture. Thus, symbols carry meanings that depend upon one's cultural background; in other words, the meaning of a symbol is not inherent in the symbol itself but is culturally learned. A cultural symbol is a physical manifestation that signifies the ideology of a culture or that merely has meaning within a culture. Culture is an accumulation of the beliefs, traditions, language and values of a group of people. Generally, it is an object representing another to give it an entirely different meaning that is much deeper and more significant.

When we combine all these together we get this powerful symbol. It reflects who we are and what we stand for. It’s a symbol that speaks our language and is as unique as the people who make up this team.

BLUE WAVE ON 3…BLUE WAVE ON 3…1...2…3

GO BLUE WAVE!

‘Ohana Means Family

by Coach Mike

Last time we explored Kaizen and how it symbolized our team’s core value of mental toughness. This time we are delving into our second core value of family. When thinking of this the first thing that popped into my mind was the Disney movie Lilo & Stitch and its famous quote from the movie

“ ‘Ohana means family, family means nobody gets left behind or forgotten.”

I had an opportunity to experience Hawaii years ago and the culture really brought this to life. Right off the plane I felt a sense of belonging, a sense of ‘ohana. This is what the essence of our team’s core value of family is all about!

‘Ohana extends beyond your core family to include both blood and other people such as friends, co-workers, teammates, classmates, teachers, etc…basically your informally adopted kin. Being part of an ‘ohana comes with the responsibility to act with integrity and to bring honor to them.

Responsibilities of ‘Ohana...

Being a part of the BLUE WAVE Swim Team makes you a part of the BLUE WAVE ‘ohana. In turn we share in the responsibilities of our ‘ohana and some of these responsibilities include: care for, relate to, lead, direct, build relationships, plan, organize, teach, mentor or be a role model. It means being accountable for the consequences of the choices we make.

When you are a part of an ‘ohana, it includes everyone in that family: those accepted into the family, those of the past, and those of the future. The people who make up our ‘ohana are bound together by genuine compassion, culture, support, loyalty, and love for each other. These relationships cultivate growth with an eye toward the future. At BLUE WAVE we want to see relationships grow, sustained for the long haul. For this reason, we are focused on community. There’s a saying: “Prepare for the seven generations ahead.” That means do your work so that those seven generations from now, will also benefit.

Preparing the Seven Generations Ahead…

We each have the responsibility to mentor and cultivate the next generation of team members. Therefore, knowing and sharing the team’s values of family (‘ohana), dedication (tabono) and mental toughness (kaizen) is so important for the next generation of youth. We all have a responsibility to share and teach these cultural values which prepares for the “seven generation ahead”.

Cultivating Our ‘Ohana…

Being mindful of our ‘ohana we look outward and include others. There is a strong desire within to find connection with others. We are all interconnected and once the connection is found there is acceptance. BLUE WAVE Swim Team is full of unique individuals that are bound together by the common desire to swim. From there we can make powerful waves of positive encouragement, support and love—all aspects found in ‘ohana.

Now how do we symbolize this very powerful word?

Of course, I went to Google. Many symbols came up for “symbols for ‘ohana”, but something that was used quite often was the honu or Hawaiian green sea turtle. Turtles are one of the oldest creatures on earth. The honu symbolizes good luck, endurance and long life. This really spoke to me and felt this encompassed the meaning of our BLUE WAVE ‘ohana.

I’m looking forward to delving into the symbol of dedication the next time and unveiling the combined symbol of our team’s core values.

We are all in this together, so let’s make it great! Although our swims are individual, our team ‘ohana helps push us along to reach new levels of personal achievement. The growth within each of us creates a powerful ripple effect that can reach far beyond the pool. Personally, I think the world could use more ‘ohanas and that everyone should know the comfort and support with being a part of one. Who is part of your ‘ohana? Everyone on the BLUE WAVE Swim Team is mine!

by Coach Mike

When I was at a swim meet the other day, I saw a team’s shirt with an ancient Greek word άρετή, (Arete’) which means excellence or virtue; being the best one can be. My college coach loved this word for its philosophy and it sparked an idea to symbolize our team’s core covenants of FAMILY – DEDICATION – MENTAL TOUGHNESS. As the old saying goes a “symbol” speaks a thousand words.

Kaizen – Change Is Good

The Japanese word Kaizen came to mind to symbolize our core covenant of mental toughness. Mental toughness means so many things but at its core is the concept of adapting to change with no loss of enthusiasm. Kaizen is all about change, the practice of continuous improvement. One of the most notable features of kaizen is that big results come from many small changes accumulated over time. It is about aiming to find small changes or actions you can make starting today. This is the foundation for making habits stick.

Kaizen can be applied to almost anything we want to be better at in our lives. It goes from day to day actions, work/school environment, social relationship, and sports. It is about becoming a better version of you over time. Change in order to be more capable, efficient and successful in the things you do. This requires discipline, concentration, knowing your strengths and your weaknesses. Getting better at the sport you play requires following the kaizen philosophy and to be patient with yourself.

“Be patient with yourself. Self-growth is tender, it’s holy ground. There’s no greater investment.” -Stephen Covey.

Kaizen teaches you to embrace the process of becoming an improved version of ourselves. The reason to this is motivation. Motivation comes:

• When you realize you can become better at what you do.
• When you are able to detect what you are doing wrong and identify what you need to do in order to fix it.
• When you start seeing the results and your body reacts differently to the same stimuli.

The good thing of kaizen in sports is that it allows motivation to stay because we are not perfect; we are all a work in progress. James Clear explains, “We place unnecessary stress on ourselves to lose weight or to succeed in business or to write a best selling novel. Instead, you can keep things simple and reduce stress by focusing on the daily process and sticking to your schedule, rather than worrying about the big, life changing goals. When you focus on the practice instead of the performance, you can enjoy the present moment and improve at the same time.”

There is no final destination on this journey, there is just improvement.

“You will never change your life until you change something you do daily.” -Mike Murdock

We are lifelong learners who always have room for improvement. Embracing kaizen in your life it will never go away. It joins you through your training, diet, practices and everything you do. It becomes a dynamic part of your life because you will have it ingrained in your mind.

The general idea is to focus on consistent improvements in your life, every day, no matter how small the step you take to be a better you than you were yesterday. Kaizen is an amazing practice that yields extraordinary results with virtually no effort at all!

Why Kaizen Works

John Wooden stated “When you improve a little each day, eventually big things occur. When you improve conditioning a little each day, eventually you have a big improvement in conditioning. Not tomorrow, not the next day, but eventually a big gain is made. Don’t look for the big, quick improvement. Seek the small improvement one day at a time. That’s the only way it happens — and when it happens, it lasts.” 

Think of the smallest step you can take every day that would move you incrementally towards your goal. This is a simple, practical way to achieve big goals but it feels less intimidating and more manageable. It might feel less exciting than chasing huge wins, but its results will be stronger and more sustainable.

A kaizen mindset turns a problem into an opportunity - we learn and become better. By focusing on continual improvement, we form a habit of asking why something didn’t work which leads us to discovering the root cause. When we reach out to others and seek their wisdom, we relinquish our pride and make greater gains of improvement. Taking critique is no longer personal but an opportunity for growth.

Keep your eyes out for the next one as I delve deeper into the symbols for FAMILY & DEDICATION.

The most important skill nobody taught you

Written by Zat Rana This post was originally published on Medium.

Before dying at the age of 39, Blaise Pascal made huge contributions to both physics and mathematics, notably in fluids, geometry, and probability.

This work, however, would influence more than just the realm of the natural sciences. Many fields that we now classify under the heading of social science did, in fact, also grow out of the foundation he helped lay.

Interestingly enough, much of this was done in his teen years, with some of it coming in his twenties. As an adult, inspired by a religious experience, he actually started to move towards philosophy and theology.

Right before his death, he was hashing out fragments of private thoughts that would later be released as a collection by the name of Pensées.

While the book is mostly a mathematician’s case for choosing a life of faith and belief, the more curious thing about it is its clear and lucid ruminations on what it means to be human. It’s a blueprint of our psychology long before psychology was deemed a formal discipline.

There is enough thought-provoking material in it to quote, and it attacks human nature from a variety of different angles, but one of its most famous thoughts aptly sums up the core of his argument:

“All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.”

According to Pascal, we fear the silence of existence, we dread boredom and instead choose aimless distraction, and we can’t help but run from the problems of our emotions into the false comforts of the mind.

The issue at the root, essentially, is that we never learn the art of solitude.

The perils of being connected

Today, more than ever, Pascal’s message rings true. If there is one word to describe the progress made in the last 100 years, it’s connectedness.

Information technologies have dominated our cultural direction. From the telephone to the radio to the TV to the internet, we have found ways to bring us all closer together, enabling constant worldly access.

I can sit in my office in Canada and transport myself to practically anywhere I want through Skype. I can be on the other side of the world and still know what is going on at home with a quick browse.

I don’t think I need to highlight the benefits of all this. But the downsides are also beginning to show. Beyond the current talk about privacy and data collection, there is perhaps an even more detrimental side-effect here.

We now live in a world where we’re connected to everything except ourselves.

If Pascal’s observation about our inability to sit quietly in a room by ourselves is true of the human condition in general, then the issue has certainly been augmented by an order of magnitude due to the options available today.

The logic is, of course, seductive. Why be alone when you never have to?

Well, the answer is that never being alone is not the same thing as never feeling alone. Worse yet, the less comfortable you are with solitude, the more likely it is that you won’t know yourself. And then, you’ll spend even more time avoiding it to focus elsewhere. In the process, you’ll become addicted to the same technologies that were meant to set you free.

Just because we can use the noise of the world to block out the discomfort of dealing with ourselves doesn’t mean that this discomfort goes away.

Almost everybody thinks of themselves as self-aware. They think they know how they feel and what they want and what their problems are. But the truth is that very few people really do. And those that do will be the first to tell how fickle self-awareness is and how much alone time it takes to get there.

In today’s world, people can go their whole lives without truly digging beyond the surface-level masks they wear; in fact, many do.

We are increasingly out of touch with who we are, and that’s a problem.

Boredom as a mode of stimulation

If we take it back to the fundamentals—and this is something Pascal touches on, too—our aversion to solitude is really an aversion to boredom.

At its core, it’s not necessarily that we are addicted to a TV set because there is something uniquely satisfying about it, just like we are not addicted to most stimulants because the benefits outweigh the downsides. Rather, what we are really addicted to is a state of not-being-bored.

Almost anything else that controls our life in an unhealthy way finds its root in our realization that we dread the nothingness of nothing. We can’t imagine just being rather than doing. And therefore, we look for entertainment, we seek company, and if those fail, we chase even higher highs.

We ignore the fact that never facing this nothingness is the same as never facing ourselves. And never facing ourselves is why we feel lonely and anxious in spite of being so intimately connected to everything else around us.

Fortunately, there is a solution. The only way to avoid being ruined by this fear—like any fear—is to face it. It’s to let the boredom take you where it wants so you can deal with whatever it is that is really going on with your sense of self. That’s when you’ll hear yourself think, and that’s when you’ll learn to engage the parts of you that are masked by distraction.

The beauty of this is that, once you cross that initial barrier, you realize that being alone isn’t so bad. Boredom can provide its own stimulation.

When you surround yourself with moments of solitude and stillness, you become intimately familiar with your environment in a way that forced stimulation doesn’t allow. The world becomes richer, the layers start to peel back, and you see things for what they really are, in all their wholeness, in all their contradictions, and in all their unfamiliarity.

You learn that there are other things you are capable of paying attention to than just what makes the most noise on the surface. Just because a quiet room doesn’t scream with excitement like the idea of immersing yourself in a movie or a TV show doesn’t mean that there isn’t depth to explore there.

Sometimes, the direction that this solitude leads you in can be unpleasant, especially when it comes to introspection—your thoughts and your feelings, your doubts and your hopes—but in the long-term, it’s far more pleasant than running away from it all without even realizing that you are.

Embracing boredom allows you to discover novelty in things you didn’t know were novel; it’s like being an unconditioned child seeing the world for the first time. It also resolves the majority of internal conflicts.

The takeaway

The more the world advances, the more stimulation it will provide as an incentive for us to get outside of our own mind to engage with it.

While Pascal’s generalization that a lack of comfort with solitude is the root of all our problems may be an exaggeration, it’s isn’t an entirely unmerited one.

Everything that has done so much to connect us has simultaneously isolated us. We are so busy being distracted that we are forgetting to tend to ourselves, which is consequently making us feel more and more alone.

Interestingly, the main culprit isn’t our obsession with any particular worldly stimulation. It’s the fear of nothingness—our addiction to a state of not-being-bored. We have an instinctive aversion to simply being.

Without realizing the value of solitude, we are overlooking the fact that, once the fear of boredom is faced, it can actually provide its own stimulation. And the only way to face it is to make time, whether every day or every week, to just sit—with our thoughts, our feelings, with a moment of stillness.

The oldest philosophical wisdom in the world has one piece of advice for us: know yourself. And there is a good reason why that is.

Without knowing ourselves, it’s almost impossible to find a healthy way to interact with the world around us. Without taking time to figure it out, we don’t have a foundation to built the rest of our lives on.

Being alone and connecting inwardly is a skill nobody ever teaches us. That’s ironic because it’s more important than most of the ones they do.

Solitude may not be the solution to everything, but it certainly is a start.

Want to think and live smarter? Zat Rana publishes a free weekly newsletter for 30,000+ readers at Design Luck.

This post was originally published on Medium.

WHEN YOU WORK HARD BUT AREN’T SWIMMING FASTER

by Olivier Poirier-Leroy. Join his weekly motivational newsletter for competitive swimmers by clicking here.

Reposted from swimswam.com

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I work hard every day at practice but don’t seem to be getting faster. How do I stay motivated when this happens?

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Sound familiar?

I bet it does.

I’ve experienced it, continue to experience it, and judging by the number of emails I get from swimmers frustrated with this exact thing, a whole chlorinated bunch of you do as well.

The dreaded plateau.

We all experience it. For those of us who have been around the block a few times we might even know that it’s coming, but this doesn’t make it any easier when it does happen.

• Am I doing this all wrong?
• Have I maxed out my abilities and talent in the water?
• Will I never get any faster than I am right now?
• What if I keep working hard in the water and nothing ever gets better?

There are about a thousand different reasons that things have flat-lined for you in the pool.

But there are a handful that I see pop up over and over again both with other swimmers and in my own travels around the black line.

Here are some of the more common reasons your hard work doesn’t appear to be paying off:

THE ILLUSION OF THE CLOCK.

The way we judge our swimming, both in practice and in competition, is usually based completely on the scoreboard and pace clock.

Best time? Great success.

Slower than our PB? Booooo.

Using the clock as the only marker for whether a swim was good or not is a problem because the clock isn’t the only marker of improvement in the water.

Not even close.

The time on the clock doesn’t lie, but it doesn’t tell the whole truth. If we base how feel about our swimming completely and totally on what we see on the clock, then we are ignoring the millions of other things that are happening in the water.

Improvement in the water isn’t always reflected by the clock.

When you think about it, becoming a faster swimmer is a transformation—your body is literally adapting and learning to move through the water with less effort.

Not all of the changes you want to happen are going to happen at exactly the same time, and they don’t happen at the same rate.

Read that again, because it’s important to understand. Change and improvement doesn’t happen uniformly.

That being said, even though the clock might not be telling us what we wanna hear that day in the water, what are you doing to improve today?

Are your turns improving? Is your breakout getting better? Are you getting better at holding the breathing patterns? Are you being mindful of your stroke rate on every lap? Are you crushing the high elbow pull? Not rolling your head too much to breathe?

See where I am going with this?

The clock is just one measure of getting better in the water.

Being “faster” means doing countless things better. Just because your overall rate of improvement isn’t there today doesn’t mean you can’t hammer away at those other little aspects of your training.

The most powerful side-effect of this mindset change is realizing that there are always things you can control and focus on during workouts when you feel like your hands are slopping through Jello.

We can’t always control how we feel in the water, or what the results are, but we can choose to work on something today that has nothing to do with either of those things.

And of course, the fact that there are so many things you can be working on means that there are countless ways for you to take control of your swimming (and consequently, feel motivated again).

THE FASTER YOU GET, THE SLOWER YOU IMPROVE.

This is one of the less-talked about aspects of high-performance swimming—when we first commit to getting better we improve quickly. Everything is gravy during this phase.

But as we master it (whether it’s a skill, a conditioning level, or a higher elbow catch), and those first few waves of adaptation pass us by, improvement starts to slow down. It might even completely stall out.

Even though we are still working super hard and doing everything right.

It’s just the nature of improvement.

The top swimmers in the world know this better than most. Think about all of the training and practices they do just in the hopes of matching or slightly improving their best times.

When we first start something the rate of improvement is hilarious—just don’t expect it to last forever.

Which transitions well into…

YOU ARE WORKING HARD AT DOING THE THINGS YOU ARE COMFORTABLE DOING.

Progress comes from doing new things.

By “new” I don’t mean suddenly switching coach and club mid-week—but by doing a new interval, a lower stroke count, or more dolphin kicks off the wall.

“Working hard” is a really subjective thing to say and just about every swimmer in the water can find a way to justify saying it.

For example, I can say that I went and swam 2,000m really hard, but that certainly doesn’t mean I swam well or even in a way that is going help me become a better swimmer.

If you are working hard at doing the same things you’ve always done you are just gonna get really good at swimming the same speeds you always have.

Effort isn’t enough.

Your effort needs to be focused at swimming better in all respects, and not just “hard.”

Those times where you experience violent bursts of improvement come from when you are swimming harder and better.

ACCUMULATED FATIGUE.

One of the biggest crises in confidence I experienced in my competitive days was around a month out from big meets.

This was usually when training was at its hardest.

The volume was high, the intensity was cranked, and I would find myself frustrated with a lack of speed in the water.

Because I was showing up and working hard every day at practice I was carrying around some serious work fatigue that had built up over the weeks and months of training.

Contrast this with other swimmers in the group who had missed a fair chunk of training. To my chagrin and frustration, they’d crush me in practice because they were essentially tapered.

It felt hilariously unfair to be getting dusted by swimmers who were barely showing up to practices.

The harder you train, the more fatigue you are going to carry around with you.

The effects of yesterday’s hard workout don’t just disappear after a night of sleep. Now imagine the stockpile of fatigue that comes from weeks and months of hard training.

This is the burden of being the swimmer who shows up and kicks butt every day.

The good news?

Have faith in the program and when you get your chance to fully rest up and recover you’ll discover a new gear in the pool you never thought possible.

YOU AREN’T GIVING YOURSELF A CHANCE TO RECOVER.

Speaking of fatigue, how hard do you work at the recovery aspect of your training? How serious are you about getting to bed early each night? How well are you eating before, during and after your swim practices?

Along the same vein as accumulated fatigue, if you aren’t giving yourself a chance to recover properly between thrashings in the water you aren’t giving yourself space to adapt to the training.

Think of your body as a big old battery. If you don’t let it charge overnight, how much battery are you left with in the morning? If you aren’t giving it sporadic charges over the course of the day how much charge does it have left by the end of the day?

With 25% juice left you are scrambling for ways to get a quick charge over the course of the day (coffee, pre-workouts, etc).

Working hard is awesome, but you should be recovering just as hard.

Think of all those recovery activities as ways to recharge your personal battery.

Stretching and foam rolling after practice. Staying hydrated over the course of the day. Doing some form of mindfulness work to help keep stress at bay. Getting all the sleep you can get your hands on.

Recover as hard as you are working in the pool.

THE HARDEST PART OF ALL… KEEP SHOWING UP.

I’ll never forget the first time I swam a :27 long course for a 50 free in practice.

I’ll never forget it because I didn’t expect it.

It came on a Saturday afternoon after a bruising week of training. It was my tenth session of the week, and it was around the 51,550’th meter that I’d swum during that span. At the tail end of a race pace set I dropped a :27 high.

Immediately buoyed by this and wanting to make sure this wasn’t a one-off or a fluke, I was able to repeat this result on the next rep.

Ka-boom. Massive breakthrough.

I certainly hadn’t planned on it that morning. But I’d shown up, done everything right in training, and gave myself the best possible chance that day for improvement to burst through.

That’s what you can do each day. Show up, give your best, and good things will happen.

Those breakthroughs won’t happen every day, and you can rarely predict the exact moment they will happen, but you exponentially increase the likelihood of those huge new jolts of improvement by showing up.

That breakthrough you want might not happen today.

Maybe not tomorrow.

But it’s coming in hot as long as you keep showing up.

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ABOUT OLIVIER POIRIER-LEROY

Olivier Poirier-Leroy is a former national level swimmer. He’s the publisher of YourSwimBook, a ten-month log book for competitive swimmers.

He’s also the author of the recently published mental training workbook for competitive swimmers, Conquer the Pool: The Swimmer’s Ultimate Guide to a High Performance Mindset.

It combines sport psychology research, worksheets, and anecdotes and examples of Olympians past and present to give swimmers everything they need to conquer the mental side of the sport.

Ready to take your mindset to the next level?

Click here to learn more about Conquer the Pool.

COACHES: Yuppers–we do team orders of “Conquer the Pool” which include a team discount as well as complimentary branding (your club logo on the cover of the book) at no additional charge.

Want more details? Click here for a free estimate on a team order of CTP.

You’re Stronger Than You Think You Are

BY WILL JONATHAN swimswam.com

June 04th, 2018

Being human is such a complex experience. It’s by no means simple. There are times when you feel like you’re on top of the world and where you feel totally invincible. There are other times when you feel like you’re stuck at the bottom and where you feel completely vulnerable.

Swimming is also a really complex experience. Again, it’s by no means simple. There are times when you feel like you’re a fantastic swimmer who can take on anyone who steps up next to you. There are other times when you like you’re never good enough and everyone else around you is and will always be superior to you.

Swimming can lift you up and make you feel incredible things. It can show you sides of yourself that you love and give you a sense of self-worth and meaning. Swimming can also throw you down and make you feel horrible things. It can expose aspects of yourself that you hate to see and give you a sense of self-loathing and hopelessness.

No matter what you experience in swimming, it’s important to understand this: You’re stronger than you think you are.

You’ve had bad races before, haven’t you? You’ve swam races that were dreadful. You’ve performed really poorly and gotten some pretty awful times. However, no matter how badly you managed to swim a race, what happened each time you swam one of those bad races? You got back up on the block for your next race and you decided to go again.

You’ve had some really bad training sessions before too, haven’t you? You’ve had some practices where you were basically worthless and couldn’t accomplish a thing. You couldn’t hold your pace at all and seemed to miss every single turn off the wall. However, no matter how bad a practice or training session was, what did you always do? You showed up the next day and went back at it some more.

You’ve also had some really painful races, haven’t you? You’ve had some swims where the physical and mental pain and exhaustion just felt like it was swallowing you up. Your legs were burning, your arms numb, and your lungs felt like they were on the verge of collapsing. However, no matter how painful a race may have been, what were you always able to do? You were able to finish that race and get your hand to the wall.

Lastly, I’m sure you’ve experienced some miserable failures during your time as a swimmer. I’m sure you’ve gone through some excruciating losses and moments of unbelievable heartache. You somehow managed to lose a race you weren’t supposed to lose or just barely missed getting that time cut you desperately wanted to get and worked hard for. However, no matter how much you’ve failed or how painful an experience has been for you in swimming, what have you always managed to do? You’ve always managed to stick with it, believe in yourself, continue to show up, and not give it up.

There’s a real power in recognizing small feats of strength and resilience. Many times, success and accomplishment isn’t the act of holding a trophy in your hand or grasping a medal that’s been placed around your neck. More of than not, success and accomplishment is simply the small act of showing up the next day. It’s having the eagerness and the willingness to suit back up, strap on your goggles, squeeze on your cap, and jump into the water despite the disappointment and pain you’ve experienced.

Perhaps you’ve just swam the worst race you’ve ever swam in your life and you still have 3 more events to go today. Perhaps that bad race has caused you to lose confidence in yourself and doubt whether or not you can swim your best in your next event. If so, just remember that you’ve always managed to bounce back from a bad race before and climb back up onto the block to go again. You’re stronger than you think you are.

Perhaps you’ve just had the worst meet you’ve ever had, where every single event you swam was really poor and the times were equally as awful. Perhaps that bad meet has caused you to doubt yourself, to think that something must be wrong, and to think that you’re going to have a bad remainder of the season. If so, just remember that you’ve had bad meets before and have always been able to get through them and turn things around. You’re stronger than you think you are.

Perhaps you’re coming off of the worst season you’ve ever had where you weren’t able to drop time in any of your events and it feels like you’ve done nothing except manage to go backwards. Perhaps this past season has caused you to question yourself; to lose the desire and determination to continue on. If so, just remember that you’ve had a bad season before at some point, and yet you still managed to continue on, to not give up, and keep pursuing your dreams. You’re stronger than you think you are.

The strength to keep going despite the pain, both physical and mental, is no small thing. The perseverance to continue onwards and stay the course despite your setbacks is not at all insignificant. It takes great courage and great bravery to WANT to keep going and push on despite everything you’ve been through. It takes real heartiness and real guts to wake up each day and keep moving forward. It takes true fearlessness to walk out of your front door and face the world. Each time you do, you’re proving to everyone around you, and most importantly to yourself, that you DO have great inner strength.

The fact that you’re still here, the fact that you’re still swimming, and the fact that you’ve managed to continue moving forward and following your path despite what you’ve been through proves without a shadow of a doubt that you do indeed have great inner strength. If you didn’t, you would have walked away a long time ago. You would have given up after the first painful swim, the first bad race, the first bad meet, or first bad season. Yet, you didn’t.

Swimming will always be complex. It will always hurt, both physically and mentally. It will always place challenges and obstacles in front of you. It will always present you with setbacks and roadblocks. It will always give you moments of disappointment and experiences of heartache. You’re always going to swim a bad race, get a bad time, have a bad meet, or have a bad season at some point. However, no matter what happens, and whenever you start to doubt yourself, just always remember this:

You’re stronger than you think you are.

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About Will Jonathan

Will Jonathan is a sports mental coach from Fort Myers, Florida. His clients include athletes on the PGA Tour, the Web.com Tour, Major League Baseball, the UFC, the Primera Liga, the Olympics, and the NCAA, as well as providing numerous talks and presentations on the mental aspect of sport and peak performance to various sports programs and organizations across the country. He’s currently the official mental coach for the Florida State University Swimming & Diving team. He provides private, 1-to-1 mental coaching sessions for swimmers on location or through Skype, as well as providing talks and presentations to swim teams on the mental aspects of swimming.

• Website – https://willjonathan.com/
• YouTube – https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC33_eUb7wjnlB1AGw4sDSfQ
• Twitter – https://twitter.com/_WillJonathan_
• Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/WillJonathanMC/

Stop Making New Goals—Create Habits Instead

Finally become the person you want to be.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/wander-woman/201802/stop-making-new-goals-create-habits-instead

Marcia Reynolds Psy.D. - Wander Woman

The scenario: You declare a change you want to make to achieve the results you desire. You eagerly set a goal and plan the steps. You tell yourself this time, you will commit to your goal.

Then you go back to days full of urgent emails and texts; projects falling behind; messes to clean up; fires to put out; agendas, lists and people who need to be heard out.

You think about your goal between frantic interruptions, but the days feel so overwhelming and out-of-control, you cling to what you have done in the past. You say, “Next week I’ll change when I have more time.” Lapses of distraction and masterful rationalizations crush your best-laid plans.

Sound familiar? You might feel guilty for a while, but then you conveniently forget your goal so you can focus on the more important things you must do. Or you say things like, “I am who I am” and people should accept me for that.

Humans are creatures of habit. Nearly half of what you do each day is repeated behavior. ¹

No matter how invested you are in your goals, taking consistent action to change your habits is difficult. There is safety going back to old thinking and behaviors. You must take deliberate, consistent actions repeatedly over time to defy your brain if you want to achieve the results you desire.

To achieve a goal, don't plan on taking progressive steps. You must first create new habits.

People do like change, they just forget they do.

Your desire to create different outcomes is not enough to sustain change.²To create new habits of behavior, your brain needs consistent evidence that your goal is achievable and worth the effort. Without consistent evidence, your brain will fabricate rationalizations for not changing, and give you reasons for decreasing the value of the goal. You forget why the goal is so important unless you have someone help you see your way through these typical blocks to progress.

Change is a continuum, not an event.

Your brain’s primary function is to protect you from harm and discomfort. You must convince your brain that you will not only be safe if you change, you will be better off.

To convince your brain, you must compose easily attainable steps that you will repeat for a period of time until they comfortably fit into your routine. You need visual reminders that there is a feel-good payoff for the change you want to make. Then every day, you want to recognize every time your remembered and tried to meet your commitment, even if the attempt was small. You have to show your brain that you will succeed, little by little over time.

The key to transforming your choices into a long-lasting behavioral change is to:

1. Use pictures and notes to visually remind yourself of what you want to create.
2. Plan and repeat small shifts in behavior so you can see early and consistent evidence that you can be successful.
3. Document the evidence of each positive step when you journal and dialogue about your progress.

First, make sure you define specific activities you can celebrate. Chunk your goal into small behaviors that will move you forward to achieving your goal one step at a time. For example, if you are trying to improve your relationships by being a better listener, you might start with the practices of releasing a full breath before you respond to a question. Notice when you do this for days or weeks until the pause becomes a habit. Follow-on steps might include 1) noticing and shifting your emotions to feeling curious after your breath, 2) making sure you have fully stopped walking and working to be present with people you talk to, and 3) seeking to understand more clearly what people need and already know before you respond.

Take time with each step. Don't be impatient. You are making shifts in your routines and behaviors, not drastic changes.

You can spend as many days as you like on each step until you see consistent progress but acknowledge yourself each day for even minor attempts at achievement. Keep reminding your brain you can succeed so it will support you instead of protecting you.

The transformation is more likely to stay on track if you make a point of noticing your accomplishments every day. Write about your victories in your journal. Talk about them with others who support your growth. Send congratulations notes to yourself.

Piece-by-piece, you shift your mind and behavior. Little by little, you create new habits. Eventually, you become the person you vision yourself to be.

Dialogue keeps your brain on track

Even if you accept that you must change a behavior or habit, the act of letting go of old ways takes constant self-encouragement. It is easy to be discouraged. You might feel rejection and embarrassment if your attempts to change are rebuffed by others. You have to try out less than perfect behaviors, which can be frightening.

Asking for support and assistance can make you feel vulnerable, yet social support is important to help you override the emotions that can trigger your brain to give up your plans.

Just sharing your desires with others will strengthen your commitment. Research shows that making a new behavior automatic can take 18 to 254 days, with 2 months being the average.³ During that time, ongoing dialogue with a coach or a trusted friend can:

• Remind you of your overarching desires when you question your choices.
• Call on your strengths when you question a goal’s achievability.
• Celebrate wins with you, no matter how small, as significant steps in your journey.
• Mine the learning from each lapse so all actions are seen as valuable instead of setbacks.

Creating consistent evidence that you will succeed and using a social support system that includes a coach or mentor can help become the person you want to be.

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References

[1] Neal, D.T., Wood, W., and Quinn, J.M. (20?) Habits—A repeat performance. Current Directions in Psychological Science. 15, 198-202.

[2] Nowack, K. (2017) Facilitating successful behavioral change: Beyond goal setting to goal flourishing. Consulting Psychology Journal: Practice and Research, Vol 69, No. 3, 153-171.

[3] Lally, P., Van Jaarsveld, C., Potts, H., & Wardle, J. (2010) How habits are formed: Modeling habit formation in the real world. European Journal of Social Psychology, 1009, 998-1009.