2008

Wow, what a great season.

I overstayed my welcome on the season just a bit, but it was a great ride and 2008 will absolutely be one of my favorites ever.

One thing I learned was to really stay focused on your goals, and execute those. I had a goal as of June to do Kona. I decided to do Clearwater with some friends in Aug. it was not a bad move necessarily, but after Kona I really lost focus (rightfully so).

My Father in Law is a motivational speaker and points to a theory he calls “The goal achieving mechanism”. This is a very powerful mental tool, but it is also a tool you have to learn to use correctly. Let me explain. I set my Goal achieving mechanism to Kona as of Mid June. Once that goal was achieved, the mechanism was turned off. The goal had been achieved so subconsciously I was finished with my season. I still wanted to do Clearwater but I would tell people “Just for fun and a chance to hang out with friends”. This is a fine goal to have in its own right, but if I really was honest with myself, when I toe the line, I want to do the best I can. My body was completely not into this race today. Not only was I tired, but it was very hard to do any training leading into the race. The inner fire was gone because as I pointed out, the goal had been achieved in Kona.

Lesson learned and I will use this as a way to talk to my athletes next year as we discuss goals. I think this is also the danger of changing goals significantly mid season. Not only is the goal sometimes a physiological change, but also mental.

Clearwater weekend was a blast. I was able to have some meeting down here with some key players which will allow us to launch our very successful youth program here next year. In addition to that I hung out with some great clients, and was able to host Simon Thompson as well. So the trip was well worth it, and after all, it snowed at home today, I was on the beach. J