The Mighty Pause

You've had that moment when you realize you're close to cutoff.

Or you missed a turn.

Or you forgot your headlamp.

And you panic.

You assume you're going to miss cutoff and pace doesn't matter anymore. You get so rattled by missing the turn that you can't think straight. You can't think of a solution to the missing headlamp - it’s just not there.

And you make decisions you'll regret the next day.

So your race falls apart.

But when you look back on this moment after the race is over, you realize it wasn't as bad as you thought. You could've gone on and finished. You had enough time to make up for those bonus miles. And you could have borrowed a headlamp at that busy aid station.

You kick yourself for the mistake.

But it wasn't the mistake that caused the bad decisions - it was reacting to the panic.

You don't think clearly when you're panicked. You react first, think later - after the race is over.

You can promise yourself you won't panic next time, or that you'll make smart decisions. But that's a tough promise to keep when you don't know what you'll be facing.

What you need is a way to think clearly in any panicked moment, no matter what you’re facing.

One of the capabilities I teach my clients is how to think instead of react to unhelpful thoughts and feelings, like panic. One piece of that: when they feel the panic and the urge to react, they give themselves a pause between the feeling and the response.

It creates the moment your thinking brain needs to kick in and decide how to respond to the situation.

It creates the moment your thinking brain needs to kick in and decide how to respond — instead of reacting to bad news before you've even had a chance to think.

Panic tells you to react as fast as possible. The faster the better. But you need to do the opposite: pause for a second.

It costs almost nothing but it can save your race.

It can make the difference between giving up and a PR — between a DNF and your best day out there.

And unlike "don't panic," a pause is a promise you can actually keep.