love that clip

Is what we believe to be true; true ?

Do subconscious limiting beliefs cause us to stop short of our full potential ?

Sport and particularly endurance sport seems to be a tremendous amount about mental ability. Not withstanding of course the fact the body has to be trained thoroughly and carefully.

Meditation or mindfulness could be looked at in two broad camps; concentration and  insight.

If we concentrate on a certain anchor, such as the breath,  the body, a mantra or a candle then we train the mind to stay where we  put it.

Focus as far as I have managed to assess is a pretty good way to ensure things get done, or not as it maybe.

So if we can train the mind to stay where we put it then there is an opportunity to be present and get things done.

Why could mindfulness help in these situations….?

If anyone has ever stopped through pain or suffering when training which I am sure at some point we have all had too, then surely this will ring a bell.

The minute we stop it seems that it is not as bad as we thought and wish we had continued.

Time doesn’t exist when racing or training the pain we feel is just in the moment, perhaps just maybe half the problem is the expectation that it could  be unmanageable in the future.

If all is ok in the moment then quite possibly it will be ok in the next also or we will cope.

Meditation isn’t there to stop our thoughts it is there to help so we are not stopped by our thoughts.

We can build this mental resilience with mindfulness, we train out bodies to perform and in doing so train our mind but surely there is a place for specific mind training enabling us to maximise the ability of a well trained body.

Guaranteed its your mind more often than not that gives out before the body totally collapses.

Using a focus on the breath or perhaps a technical movement we can moment by moment ensure that we tune out from the mind focusing on any pain resulting from the activity and remain focused where we wish to be.

Practise and practise and practise watching and observing the mind, noticing we may see that what we focus on is our reality. Seeing this we have the power to affect the balance point of pain and performance by using concentration.

possibly worth just considering for a moment.

see you on the water.