If you think the road to achieving your goal is going to be a perfect linear path I have some bad news for you.
It’s going to look more like this
All of these changes in direction are actually a good thing. Each time you change course you learn something. Eventually you will get to your destination and once you do you will have the knowledge you need to return if you ever veer off track in the future.
When I work with clients looking to improve their athletic performance, one of the lessons I try to instill from the very beginning is that the journey to reaching their goals will be full of all kinds of twists and turns and will most likely take them in a direction they never thought they would go. In order to be successful in this crazy journey, they need to be open minded about the process.
Far too often I see athletes banging their heads against a wall trying to make a square peg fit in a round hole. They have tied their training, diet, or lifestyle (or in some cases, all three) to a dogmatic approach that most likely served them well in the past, but now is no longer working.
This is often where a “U-turn” needs to be made. It is time to do something different, maybe something completely opposite of what you have done in the past. Often the reason why a change is necessary has to do with our bodies amazing ability to adapt to its surroundings.
From an ancestral point of view, the more stress the less chance of survival, adaptation is how we have survived for so long. A very simple adaptation example any athlete can relate to is training.
When you first start a training program it will probably be very challenging. Over the course of a few weeks your body responds to this new training stress and you start to see gains. You are able to lift more weight, your runs get quicker, you are able to jump further, etc. After a while though, your body adapts, and you no longer see improvements. Once that happens you need to change your training in order to improve further.
This model of change in order to improve can be applied to more than training though. The same thing could be said for diet, mobility, recovery, sleep, relaxation. If something you were doing has stopped working and it is affecting your performance, don’t be afraid to try something else, even if that means making a U-turn and doing the complete opposite. The worst thing that could happen is that your performance still suffers, but at least you tried and you probably learned something along the way.
In my Ancestral Athlete program I improve athletes performance in sport and life using an ancestral health model. This model gives me the ultimate, time tested approach, that is very flexible and can be applied to various types of athletes pursuing all types of goals. U-turns in my program are encouraged and are often the time where my clients see the most success. If you have been locked into a specific approach to your training, nutrition, or lifestyle and it is negatively impacting your athletic performance, consider applying for my Ancestral Athlete program and we can work together to find a different approach that will work for you.
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