Training My Mind - A Recap of Summer of Reading
As a coach, a lot of the education that I focus on is focused on physiology, periodization, training structure, nutrition and strength training. One that that I have been missing both in my coaching and in my personal life is education on the mind. Things like decision making, perspective, moving forward, leadership and habit formation are all important things that bring together a successful training cycle. This can be seen as important on an individual coaching level or at a team level and what I like about these books is that you can apply these mentalities and strategies to any part of your life; I've just adapted them to coaching, training and teaching in my case.
I have been reading/listening to four books this summer that are all written by different perspectives. The authors are all very different people but their strategies and methods tied together seamlessly to get a few different points across. This was initiated by a particularly rough year in my teaching. Everything about my job was stressing me out and I wasted so much energy into trying to control things that were out of my control or by forcing things that weren't ready to happen. I had my normal frustration with students (that's to be expected when you work with teenagers) but then I had frustration with the adults I was working with.
Now, I know that I have a different personality type and mindset from a lot of people. I think most dedicated runners can easily agree that they don't always fit into the rest of the world. People don't understand why you would rather skip out on drinks after work so you can go home, get a good night's sleep and prepare for you 16 mile long run the next morning. People don't understand how running is a scheduled time in your day and that you don't plan other things in that time if possible. People also don't understand how you have the time or motivation to run 6 days a week and that you must either have found a way to stop the clock from moving forward or posses some super-human will-power trait. I can tell you, neither of those things are true. But with all of this I felt a need to understand my brain and the brain's of others as well as how to better communicate with people to increase my happiness and to stop worrying so much about what other people did or said. The books are unrelated however reading them together was the perfect combination I needed to hear this summer. Key concepts were woven throughout these books that I will touch on below.
David Meltzer, "Game Time Decision Making"
A book about making decisions from an entrepreneurial perspective and increasing the quality of your life. David Meltzer goes through strategies you can use to help guide your decisions, especially within a business. He focuses on things such as surrounding yourself with the right people, finding mentors, and approaching all decisions with a perspective of gratitude, accountability, empathy and communication. There is a big focus on where you are placing your energy and how we need to place our faith into the process and not necessarily an ending. He has a very servant leadership type of attitude and walks you through the process of how you can too. I have about 5 pages of notes of strategies and quotes that he shares that are from this book that I plan to implement within my coaching. Even this is a book focused on an entrepreneurial perspective it can be applied to so many different things.
Rachel Hollis, "Girl, Stop Apologizing"
Rachel Hollis gives her perspective on ways to focus on yourself and build a happier more fulfilling life. She breaks down barriers and urges you to take care of yourself, eat healthy, ask for help, move your body and to not be afraid to go for it. She gives strategies you can use to take steps to where you want to be. Not just things like "write down your goal and stick it to a mirror" but useful strategies you can use and small steps you can take to get going in the right direction.
Gretchen Rubin, "Better Than Before"
This one hit the nail on the head for me. Gretchen has identified four different tendencies that we can group ourselves by based on how we uphold our inner and outer expectations. She summarizes ways that people are different and how in order to have success and develop habits we need to identify how we operate. By recognizing our tendencies we can set ourselves up for success and take the approach that we as individuals need and not necessarily what someone else tells us. What I love most is how she identified her tendency and how she knows that she operates differently from others therefore she can't expect others to take the same approach as she would. I think this is especially important for communicating with others!
Sarah Knight, "Calm the F*ck Down"
This book is not for those who are offended by profanity. Sarah Knight takes a humorous but effective approach to identifying things that are holding you back and strategies you can take to move on with your life. This is the one audio book I have instead of a paperback. Sarah fills my car with her strategies of making a list of your worries, quantifying their likelihood, quantify their time urgency and then making a list of "realistic ideal outcomes" or "RIO's" in order to deal with them. She recognizes how we are all sick of people telling us, "everything is going to be okay" and takes a realistic no BS approach to dealing with it. This speaks to me as I am a straightforward kind of gal. There are worksheets and journals that she accompanies with the book so you can put these strategies into action.
So what common things did I see in these four books?
Gratitude Journal
Three out of the four mentioned this specifically. One alluded to it but did not state specifically. To keep us grounded and in the right mind each author said to write down x number of things each night that we are grateful for. This helps us focus on ourselves and we can look back and be grateful for what we have rather than what we don't have. I notice that when I set my mind to doing this I tend to take a more grateful approach to my day. Instead of focusing on negative things or what other people are doing I shift my focus to look for things I can be grateful for. This makes for a much more positive day as I keep on looking for the positives instead of the negatives. When I do this exercise I write down 10 items. I've heard of writing down 25 things or to keep writing until you can't think of any more but I think regardless of how many you write down your mindset will start to shift.
Reaction
Each author takes a different approach to this but still narrows it down to this; think calmly, then react. Our reaction to stuff is so important in how we interact with others and the affect it has on ourselves. Meltzer talks about energy. Don't waste your energy in the negative, put it in the positive because that's where it's useful and that's where you start to build yourself. Knight talks about how to realistically approach the situation - what can you actually do about it? If nothing, move on. If something, then put your emotions aside and take action (she calls this "emotional puppy crating"😂). Hollis is more about the approach in that life is not always going to go exactly how you want but what you decide to do with it and how you decide to react will determine your relationships and your happiness. Rubin takes a different approach in more about identifying based on your tendencies how you will react in certain situations and what you can do to set yourself up for success. Either way, between all of these I have been trying to focus my reactions into remaining calm, identify my options and either take a minute to "chill" or take action for the situation. Freaking out, getting angry and worrying about a situation is just going to make it worse and I'm just going to lose energy in the negatives. I put this specifically into action when I drove 2 hours to a race to camp the night before and forgot my tent poles because Chad and I did not properly put them back after our trip to the Boundary Waters. Frustrating? Yes. Inconvenient? Yes. Fixable? Yes, I am now the owner of a brand new 2-person Coleman tent.
Forgiveness
We have all screwed up in the past. We have made bad decisions, we have hurt other people and we've made fools of ourselves. We cannot let the past dictate our future. Again, the energy we waste by worrying about what we have done is useless. BUT we can learn and become stronger from our past. We can forgive ourselves and move on. Each book has some way of saying, "your not perfect, forgive yourself and get over it." And while everyone knows not to live in the past it's always nice about hearing how other people feel they have screwed up their past, made mistakes but have allowed themselves to move on. Meltzer even describes how he gives an award to someone in his business called "the Dummy Tax" and he has everyone share a mistake they made and the cost to the company. By owning up to it he gives out an award to the mistake that others can learn the most from. What a great idea, truly creating an environment where it is okay to make a mistake and how not only you but others can learn from it.
Self Sabotage
How often are you doing it? Are you in a constant cycle of doing a bad habit because it makes you feel better but then feeling guilty after because you know it's a bad habit? Rubin touches on that and recognizes how we continually run these cycles on ourselves. Meltzer refers to the book, "The Monster at the End of this Book: Starring Lovable Furry Old Grover." Grover is freaking himself out throughout the whole book because there is a monster at the end only to find out that the monster is just himself and worked himself up for nothing. Meltzer recognizes that we need to keep our emotions level otherwise we just create our own fears and anxieties getting worked up. Knight channels her advice into reminding you of the level of control that you have. Stop focusing on what you can't control. Or, if you can control it do something about it and then move on. Lastly Hollis points out even little things we do make a big difference for our overall appearance. Take care of yourself, work out, get a hair cut and maybe people will listen to you if you can show your confidence in yourself. Sounds superficial but yes, it's true. If you can't radiate some sort of self-confidence then how are you going to get other people to listen to you and take you seriously?
All of these themes might be pretty obvious but being reminded of them is something we all could use once in a while. We can focus our energy and our surroundings into things that lift us, we can take a grateful approach to each day, we can forgive ourselves and (adults are so bad at this) we can stop doing the things that keep hurting us. I'm taking these strategies as tools I can use in coaching at all different levels and I'm taking these strategies to better myself as a teacher, coach, spouse, daughter, sister and friend.
Got any book recommendations? Let me know!
Need some help reaching your goals and getting to your full potential? coach.n.fischer@gmail.com
I have been reading/listening to four books this summer that are all written by different perspectives. The authors are all very different people but their strategies and methods tied together seamlessly to get a few different points across. This was initiated by a particularly rough year in my teaching. Everything about my job was stressing me out and I wasted so much energy into trying to control things that were out of my control or by forcing things that weren't ready to happen. I had my normal frustration with students (that's to be expected when you work with teenagers) but then I had frustration with the adults I was working with.
David Meltzer, "Game Time Decision Making"
A book about making decisions from an entrepreneurial perspective and increasing the quality of your life. David Meltzer goes through strategies you can use to help guide your decisions, especially within a business. He focuses on things such as surrounding yourself with the right people, finding mentors, and approaching all decisions with a perspective of gratitude, accountability, empathy and communication. There is a big focus on where you are placing your energy and how we need to place our faith into the process and not necessarily an ending. He has a very servant leadership type of attitude and walks you through the process of how you can too. I have about 5 pages of notes of strategies and quotes that he shares that are from this book that I plan to implement within my coaching. Even this is a book focused on an entrepreneurial perspective it can be applied to so many different things.
Rachel Hollis, "Girl, Stop Apologizing"
Rachel Hollis gives her perspective on ways to focus on yourself and build a happier more fulfilling life. She breaks down barriers and urges you to take care of yourself, eat healthy, ask for help, move your body and to not be afraid to go for it. She gives strategies you can use to take steps to where you want to be. Not just things like "write down your goal and stick it to a mirror" but useful strategies you can use and small steps you can take to get going in the right direction.
Gretchen Rubin, "Better Than Before"
This one hit the nail on the head for me. Gretchen has identified four different tendencies that we can group ourselves by based on how we uphold our inner and outer expectations. She summarizes ways that people are different and how in order to have success and develop habits we need to identify how we operate. By recognizing our tendencies we can set ourselves up for success and take the approach that we as individuals need and not necessarily what someone else tells us. What I love most is how she identified her tendency and how she knows that she operates differently from others therefore she can't expect others to take the same approach as she would. I think this is especially important for communicating with others!
Sarah Knight, "Calm the F*ck Down"
This book is not for those who are offended by profanity. Sarah Knight takes a humorous but effective approach to identifying things that are holding you back and strategies you can take to move on with your life. This is the one audio book I have instead of a paperback. Sarah fills my car with her strategies of making a list of your worries, quantifying their likelihood, quantify their time urgency and then making a list of "realistic ideal outcomes" or "RIO's" in order to deal with them. She recognizes how we are all sick of people telling us, "everything is going to be okay" and takes a realistic no BS approach to dealing with it. This speaks to me as I am a straightforward kind of gal. There are worksheets and journals that she accompanies with the book so you can put these strategies into action.
So what common things did I see in these four books?
Gratitude Journal
Three out of the four mentioned this specifically. One alluded to it but did not state specifically. To keep us grounded and in the right mind each author said to write down x number of things each night that we are grateful for. This helps us focus on ourselves and we can look back and be grateful for what we have rather than what we don't have. I notice that when I set my mind to doing this I tend to take a more grateful approach to my day. Instead of focusing on negative things or what other people are doing I shift my focus to look for things I can be grateful for. This makes for a much more positive day as I keep on looking for the positives instead of the negatives. When I do this exercise I write down 10 items. I've heard of writing down 25 things or to keep writing until you can't think of any more but I think regardless of how many you write down your mindset will start to shift.
Reaction
Each author takes a different approach to this but still narrows it down to this; think calmly, then react. Our reaction to stuff is so important in how we interact with others and the affect it has on ourselves. Meltzer talks about energy. Don't waste your energy in the negative, put it in the positive because that's where it's useful and that's where you start to build yourself. Knight talks about how to realistically approach the situation - what can you actually do about it? If nothing, move on. If something, then put your emotions aside and take action (she calls this "emotional puppy crating"😂). Hollis is more about the approach in that life is not always going to go exactly how you want but what you decide to do with it and how you decide to react will determine your relationships and your happiness. Rubin takes a different approach in more about identifying based on your tendencies how you will react in certain situations and what you can do to set yourself up for success. Either way, between all of these I have been trying to focus my reactions into remaining calm, identify my options and either take a minute to "chill" or take action for the situation. Freaking out, getting angry and worrying about a situation is just going to make it worse and I'm just going to lose energy in the negatives. I put this specifically into action when I drove 2 hours to a race to camp the night before and forgot my tent poles because Chad and I did not properly put them back after our trip to the Boundary Waters. Frustrating? Yes. Inconvenient? Yes. Fixable? Yes, I am now the owner of a brand new 2-person Coleman tent.
Forgiveness
We have all screwed up in the past. We have made bad decisions, we have hurt other people and we've made fools of ourselves. We cannot let the past dictate our future. Again, the energy we waste by worrying about what we have done is useless. BUT we can learn and become stronger from our past. We can forgive ourselves and move on. Each book has some way of saying, "your not perfect, forgive yourself and get over it." And while everyone knows not to live in the past it's always nice about hearing how other people feel they have screwed up their past, made mistakes but have allowed themselves to move on. Meltzer even describes how he gives an award to someone in his business called "the Dummy Tax" and he has everyone share a mistake they made and the cost to the company. By owning up to it he gives out an award to the mistake that others can learn the most from. What a great idea, truly creating an environment where it is okay to make a mistake and how not only you but others can learn from it.
Self Sabotage
How often are you doing it? Are you in a constant cycle of doing a bad habit because it makes you feel better but then feeling guilty after because you know it's a bad habit? Rubin touches on that and recognizes how we continually run these cycles on ourselves. Meltzer refers to the book, "The Monster at the End of this Book: Starring Lovable Furry Old Grover." Grover is freaking himself out throughout the whole book because there is a monster at the end only to find out that the monster is just himself and worked himself up for nothing. Meltzer recognizes that we need to keep our emotions level otherwise we just create our own fears and anxieties getting worked up. Knight channels her advice into reminding you of the level of control that you have. Stop focusing on what you can't control. Or, if you can control it do something about it and then move on. Lastly Hollis points out even little things we do make a big difference for our overall appearance. Take care of yourself, work out, get a hair cut and maybe people will listen to you if you can show your confidence in yourself. Sounds superficial but yes, it's true. If you can't radiate some sort of self-confidence then how are you going to get other people to listen to you and take you seriously?
All of these themes might be pretty obvious but being reminded of them is something we all could use once in a while. We can focus our energy and our surroundings into things that lift us, we can take a grateful approach to each day, we can forgive ourselves and (adults are so bad at this) we can stop doing the things that keep hurting us. I'm taking these strategies as tools I can use in coaching at all different levels and I'm taking these strategies to better myself as a teacher, coach, spouse, daughter, sister and friend.
Got any book recommendations? Let me know!
Need some help reaching your goals and getting to your full potential? coach.n.fischer@gmail.com
www.runwithcoachfischer.com
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