Life After Speedskating (And Other Hard Transitions)

Summer is over and fall is here. Our sleeves get longer as the days get shorter, but what about the transitions we’re not ready for like a new job, a new team, or a new school? How can we make a positive impact despite our fear of failure?

About 9 months ago I retired from the only sport/lifestyle I’ve ever known, Short Track Speedskating. For decades I planned my days around workouts, personal bests, and the never-ending pursuit of perfection. This passion and persistence pushed me towards great things, but what now? Enter, a really tough transition!

This week I’m taking a look back at some of the strategies that helped me succeed through my toughest transitions as an athlete. I’ll be taking my own advice to heart and hoping that these examples will resonate with and help you too!

The 85% Rule

Just like a changing pace or strategy in the middle of a race, change in life tends to speed up our thoughts. Sometimes operating at 100% is necessary, but if we stay there too long we start making mistakes. Mistakes lead to annoyance, stress, frustration, and eventually, burn-out.

Instead, try operating at 85% of your top speed. 85% is enough to be effective while also maintaining awareness of how to avoid mistakes and/or respond to them properly. At 85% you can easily speed up when it’s time to work and slow down when it’s time to relax. Who doesn’t need more of that?!

Control the Controllable

A natural reaction to change is to get back in control by planning for every variable. However, it’s not possible to control every variable very often. The stress and anxiety become even worse when the wheels fall off of our well calculated plan.

Instead, ask yourself, ‘what are the things I can control today?’ ‘What are the things I can influence?’ ‘What are the things that I cannot control?” Prioritize your time, energy, and resources on what you can control or influence. Let the rest go.

Impacting Others

A tough transition can feel like you’re in over your head. In this state of sink or swim our judgement is clouded. Our response to emotional triggers often leaves us responding in ways that don’t align with our core values.

Instead, start your day by journaling the answer to this question: ‘How can I build and create the best environment possible while also serving others?’ Whether you’re in over your head or not, the response to this question will leave you feeling better.

Procrastination

As the care-free days of summer come to an end our to-do lists get longer and our schedules become more rigid. This leads to a common symptom of the default mindset, procrastination.

In Mindset Coaching the words used to describe procrastination are “mental resistance”. That’s because there’s no tangible reason for procrastination. It happens in our minds as we resist doing something that needs to be done.

It may be a project, a tough conversation, or starting a new habit. Whatever it is, we mentally resist it until the consequences of not doing the task become greater than the annoyance of doing it.

When we look at procrastination in this way it’s easy to see why the tasks we procrastinate feel boring, annoying, and pointless. We put them off because we expect them to feel boring, annoying, and pointless! But there’s a different way to look at it….

When training with the US Speedskating National Team in Salt Lake City there were several workouts that I dreaded every week. I would spend extra time stretching or chatting with support staff to avoid the on-start of these brutal workouts only to find that once I got started the workout wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. It was the build-up in my mind that had caused my dread.

What tasks are you dreading, and therefore procrastinating, the most? Are the tasks really that bad? Or is it the reaction in your brain that makes them feel that way? Fight this feeling by bringing purpose to your work.

For example, skating sets of 20, 30, and 50 laps all summer long is boring, monotonous, and seemingly pointless; but training endurance in order to prepare for maximal performance in the 1500m was full of purpose. Challenging myself to skate more efficiently as fatigue set in kept the work engaging. And pushing myself to race my teammates on the last few laps of every set kept the work exciting.  

How can you bring purpose to your work today in order to avoid mental resistance and keep your work purposeful, engaging, and exciting?

Responding to Pressure and Frustration

We all feel pressure to perform at work/school, accomplish our goals, and to exceed the expectations of others. Pressure is uncomfortable and as human beings we tend to avoid feelings of discomfort at all costs. This leaves us feeling comfortable, but not always prepared to perform in stressful situations.

Then when it’s time to perform the pressure feels 10x greater because we never stressed our preparation. We feel worse because in an effort to be comfortable and confident we forgot to practice managing pressure and frustration.

A simple strategy to avoid this issue is to turn your preparation into a competition or a game. Do this by creating a fun challenge and keeping score each week as a way of tracking improvement.

As an athlete I would make challenges daily like, ‘I’m going to practice sitting lower by increasing the number of reps I can do with a full range of motion every week’. Now I’m not doing reps mindlessly because coach said so. I’m doing reps with the added challenge of increasing quality and quantity each week.

If there was a week when I failed to improve (which was inevitable) I was met with the opportunity to practice performing under pressure as well as bouncing back from the frustration that often comes with falling short of a goal.

Sometimes you’re physically incapable of achieving a goal on a certain day. Sometimes an external stimulus that’s outside of our control gets in the way and derails our plan for the day. Even though this isn’t our fault, it’s still our responsibility to manage ourselves effectively.

During my comeback I had countless days when my body couldn’t achieve my physical goals due to back pain. This wasn’t fun or challenging. It was incredibly frustrating! So, I would change the rules of my game. Instead of trying to improve quality/quantity of reps I would challenge myself to be a positive influence for my teammates. I would make a game out of encouraging others.

The challenge was to keep frustration from getting the better of me. The game was increasing the amount of positive impact I could have on others. Using this strategy, I’m an athlete that lifts up my teammates even when I’m having a bad day. Instead of an athlete that cracks under pressure/frustration and brings negativity to the team around me.

What kind of teammate would you prefer having? What kind of athlete do you want to be? How can you turn your preparation into a competition or a game in order to perform under pressure?