Endurance mindset: think big for huge results
When you're looking for game-changing results in your performance, it pays to think big. Like really big. In fact, thinking huge is absolutely the key.
Here's why.
When you look at your race goals, it's natural to see where you're at and then look to extend the distance or speed a bit. That looks like progress, and indeed it is.
But it's safe progress. It's predictable progress: do 10% more work and, barring illness or injury, go 10% further/faster.
Jolly good.
Instead what I'm advising for the ballsy among you is throwing that soft-assed safe and predictable progress plan in the bin and replacing it with something very different.
Something much bigger. Something stupidly, frighteningly large.
What's your moonshot?
Let's say you hit a new marathon PB of 3:55 last year. Now you're booked for another marathon.
Safe progress would target 3:45 - 3:50.
Going large, I'd say stuff that. Shoot for 2:50. Don't just nudge the three-hour marathon boundary, decimate it.
It's scary, and playing games this big comes with a reasonable chance of failure.
But 'failing' to hit 2:50 and finishing in 3:05 still comes with serious bragging rights.
Mess up that safe, vanilla 3:50 on the other hand and chances are your finish will be slower than your PB. No bragging rights or fun to be had there.
It all starts with a BIG question
When you ask yourself a huge question, in this case 'how can I run a marathon an hour and five minutes faster than I ever have before?' two incredible things happen:
- Normal solutions become worthless. Nothing you have ever done before can prepare you for this. This forces you to go in search of better answers - to achieve what you've never achieved before you must do what you've never done before
- By stepping outside of all accepted parameters, you force yourself into a rarified air. Competition suddenly shrinks by a mile, potential rewards also skyrocket out of all proportion
So what's your moonshot?
Why can't you achieve it?
Chances are the only thing really stopping you is your monkey mind's entirely natural (yet not always entirely helpful) sense of fear and self-preservation.
If you want big results in your performance maybe it's time to find your huge question.
Godspeed!
Scroll down for more performance boosting content
Fuel your biggest goals with nutrition that matters. Our Premium Protein is a gamechanger
From the Podcast: Training motivation - you get to do this
From the Vlog: why we hit the wall, and how to avoid it
Related content from the blog
The ultimate endurance athlete mindset, with David Blakeley
Goal setting - 7 ways to achieve BIG goals
Maranoia - understanding and beating your biggest race day enemy
How to taper for your next big event and the one big key to free speed most athletes miss
