The Thing You Can’t Stop Worrying About

You don't want to think about it - but you also can't stop thinking about it.

It wakes you up in the middle of the night.

The closer you get to race day, the worse it gets.

It's the "what-if."

What if my stomach goes south?

What if I get injured?

What if I can't stay ahead of cutoff?

You desperately want someone to tell you it won't happen. Some proof that it won't happen. Or to tell you the secret to preventing it from happening. You need to know it won't happen so you can stop worrying about it.

Because you can't stand the endless anxiety loop one second longer. You just want to race this race you trained so hard for, in peace.

But the hard truth is - it might happen.

Nothing in the world can remove that possibility from a race.

There's always the potential that the thing you most don't want to happen, will happen.

So the smart approach - and the less stressful approach - is to simply plan for it. Instead of letting the “what-if’s” rule you, you rule them.

Here's how: answer the question that keeps running around in your mind, like a dog chasing its tail - "What if?"

What will you do if the thing you most don't want to happen, happens?

If you're having a harder and harder time staying ahead of cutoff, what strategy will you invoke? What options do you have? What are you going to do differently?

This is exactly what I do with my coaching clients - we go through every what-if rattling around in their head and answer it, one by one. By race day, there's nothing left that can ambush them. They've already met it on paper.

Answering the what-ifs creating chaos in your head puts out the anxiety fire and helps you see how capable you are of handling them.

It gets you out of helplessness and into control.

Instead of being something you don't want to think about, the what-ifs you answer add to your capability. These things you feared become proof that you're ready to handle anything that comes up on race day.

You relax and run your best without that fear. You get to race this race you trained so hard for, in peace.

Pick one what-if right now. Answer it. Start there.