3 Journal Prompts to Unlock Athletic Performance

Last year at the Gorge Downwind Challenge, I had a really bad start. I was all in my head and I had gone down a negative spiral of feelings and emotions instead of just relaxing and enjoying a fun downwind run.

I'm back up here preparing for this year's event, and I came across an article recently about how researchers at Tufts are looking into the signals our brains give that lead us into negative emotions.

You can scope it out here: https://neurosciencenews.com/amygdala-emotion-20969/

I read the article hoping it would shed light on what causes our brains to switch to a negative state, because I think this matters for athletes. Unfortunately for me, that wasn't what the article was about! They hope to create a pill one day to interrupt those signals and prevent negative emotions. For those with an imbalance, this could be a huge breakthrough - but for me in a bad mood, I just need to cultivate discipline. I don't need a pill, I need tools and strategies to stop negative thinking from taking over. I need to stay mindful of my thoughts.

If we are vibrating in a negative state, then we will attract negative outcomes. We will manifest our reality. We essentially 'will' the negative into existence. So much so at times, that even if we were to “win” in a given moment, the same moment could be soiled by our own negative attitude. One thing I've found to be true - if you ever want to free yourself to perform well, you have to first be able to feel like you won even when you're dead last.

I've been losing races for years (I've lost far more than I've won), and instead of feeling like a loss or like a failure, I reframed the outcome and understood that every result was merely a part of the long-term process. It was vital for me to learn how to cultivate enjoyment and still be "loosing." Regardless of the outcomes I needed to enjoy the process, do it for the sake o