As a masters athlete, your approach to training your mindset will be different to non-masters athletes.
There are three main considerations I take when working with a masters athlete. Today, I’m going to show you what they are.
The mistake I used to make was treating everyone the same in their mindset training. Turns out mindset is one-size-fits-one. Your age plays a factor in that.
Today, I’ll explain how being a masters athlete affects what you focus on, the total amount of time you spend training your mindset, and how to focus on your unique challenges.
Are you set in your ways?
This is pretty obvious - as a masters athlete, you’ve been alive longer than the 22 year olds’ who most advice is written for. From a mindset perspective, this means one thing:
You’ve put a lot of reps into thinking the way you currently do.
This means the pathways which facilitate those kinds of thoughts are heavily reinforced.
Now, when I work with younger athletes, I can throw new stuff at them and there’s not too much crap in the way.
Teen athletes for sure you can just throw new ideas at and they just accept them into their worldview.
But you - dear masters athlete - have had more events reminding you that you should play small, are destined for mediocrity, or shouldn’t believe in yourself.
For that reason, when I work with masters athletes, I spend more time detaching limiting beliefs, than introducing new beliefs.
Think of these beliefs like roadblock which are preventing you from progress.
You don’t need more, new ways of thinking. You need fewer unhelpful ways of thinking.
You need to drop the story which is holding you back. That’s your foundation, and if you’re reading this article, chances are it’s not as stable as it could be.
Less is More
As a masters athlete, you don’t have endless hours to train. You’ve got responsibilities. You’ve got a job. You’ve possibly got family commitments. Maybe you’ve got a significant other.
You’re already investing countless hours into training, and the idea of doing more toward your training feels selfish.
So when you know your mindset needs work, but you are worried about investing the time, you need to get smart.
You need to find three things:
Your highest leverage nervous system regulation tool (which single thing can you do which has the greatest impact on your regulation? This is quite often sleep, but breathwork, or cold water exposure have a high bang for your buck too).
A daily system you can implement in less than 10 minutes that rewires the stories you believe about yourself.
A toolkit of three techniques - maximum - which help you perform at your best in workouts.
With the commitments you have as a masters athlete, your mindset practise is about finding a high ROI on your time and energy.
Use Your Responsibilities as an Advantage
You can moan about how your kids/job/ageing family members etc. mean that you can’t give your training everything you wish you could.
Or, you can realise that in every action, you’re setting an example for those around you.
Every responsibility you ignore or give up, is an opportunity to uplevel also given up.
Every additional responsibility you bear is an opportunity to develop your mindset.
Maybe the challenges you have are your reasons to succeed…