Sports psychology can be the missing bit of your running training
To some people, their sport is everything and running is perhaps both the easiest and the hardest in one. Easy, because you don’t have to buy any special equipment other than the clothing and hardest because of the physical and mental strain it places on the body and mind. If you are running towards success, that motivation is more positive than moving away from something we don’t like.
I recently worked with a long distance runner, whose ambitions were to be the best for her age group. The biggest problem she had to tackle was her thinking. She worried what others thought, about the time she was spending to achieve her goals.
She had always been a high achiever, but just before she reached the top, something scuppered her chances. Usually, it was never feeling she was good enough or deserved to be at the top. Pacing herself was a problem, as she ran to her heartbeat but never quite made it to the front. Consequently, she and her fitness trainer changed a few of her tactics after I suggested she experiment. It worked and she won one of the races.
Challenge of the press
The next challenge was appearing in the local press. Her photo had been posted on the local newspaper’s website and she felt deeply embarrassed by it. It wasn’t very flattering as she had just run a considerable distance. She felt that people would look at it and think “look at the state of her”. Using some CBT I managed to help her recognise that people may be thinking things like “Wow she’s done amazing at her age” or “I know her, wow I didn’t know she could do that”.
Over a period of three months, she was able to change her thinking. The tools I gave her helped override the negative thought patterns and she had set herself a goal which included running up mountains. Now sleeping in an altitude tent at home, she was giving her body every advantage she and her trainer could think of. The hypnotherapy helped change her thoughts. It focused her mind on the task ahead and made her realise she needed to cut back on other areas of interest in her life.
Often people come for sports hypnotherapy because they find it difficult to keep the exercise going. The key is to turn it into a habit and habits take between 18 and 300 days to create. The average number of days is 66. If you can work out the best time and day to do your exercise regime, you are much more likely to succeed.
Also see for habits http://repositorio.ispa.pt/bitstream/10400.12/3364/1/IJSP_998-1009.pdf