Focused on Success or Failure?

Are you focused on success or failure?  

About 10 minutes prior to writing this short article I answered 3 different questions via email that all pretty much went the same way.  “What do I do if I can’t do XYZ??”  “What happens when I start to stall on XYZ?”   “Do I go down in weight if XYZ happens?”

I’m not saying these are illegitimate questions.

As a lifter you do kinda need to know how to respond and adjust programming when and if things start to go south with your training.  However, when I design a program for someone and these types of questions are the FIRST questions out of the chute, it sends off some alarm bells for me.

It has been my experience over the last 15 years that trainees who are primarily focused on failure will find it.  In other words, when a trainee’s first focus is “what happens when I fail…..” it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.  They will intentionally or unintentionally sabotage their own progress with premature failures, stalls, or even injury.

I’ve used this analogy before but it fits.  It’s like the quarterback who approaches the line of scrimmage thinking “Don’t Throw an Interception! Don’t Throw an Interception!”  He’s going to throw an interception.

Instead, I want you to focus on all the possible ways you can SUCCEED at your next workout.  Notice I didn’t say “focus on all the ways you can succeed for the next 6 months.”  Just focus on success at the next workout.  Review your training log.  Go to bed early.  Eat.  Recover.  And think positively and aggressively.  Visualize yourself blasting that 405 squat out of the hole with so much force the plates rattle at the top.  Think positively about success rather than planning for all the possible things that might go wrong.

If you keep visualizing yourself getting stapled to the ground with that 405 squat it’s likely to become a reality.

Believe that you can achieve your planned workout for the day and your chances of success go up.