Resistance is Part of the Recipe & Insights from Altered States

Something to ponder:

The recipe for peak performance includes resistance.

If you desire to do something to a higher level than you are currently capable – you better expect some resistance. Resistance, be that physical discomfort, mental avoidance, emotional overwhelm or spiritual doubt, is a component of every journey endeavouring to break new ground in some area of life. There’s no getting around it and therefore, if you desire furtherance in your life (for all the right reasons I hope), acceptance of this is key.

Pro Tip: Build a positive relationship with resistance, by consistently connecting with what you feel when you do get past it. In other words, the feeling you are rewarded with when overcoming something hard.

Something to practise:

“What Comes Up” Practice

In my earlier training days I realised (on some level) “stuff was coming into my head” during training sessions. That “stuff” being on a simple level, information on the exercise that could help me perform better (technical corrections) or much deeper personal insights. It was a wide ranging spectrum of inconsistent thoughts, ideas, insights, connections, memories, understandings, revelations and more. There was no rhyme or reason to what was coming up for me, but something about it felt right, pure, even therapeutic. There was also often frustration and regret when I would have these revealing moments intra training and then not be able to remember what it was afterwards. This led me to coming up with the ‘What Comes Up’ Practice.

The ‘What Comes Up’ Practice is simply the ability to record anything that comes up for you in training that you connect with as being worthwhile recording. There’s no right or wrong; if it feels important to you, jot it down. Ideally you’ll get it down the minute to finish a set or interval, etc but sometimes those moments elude one due to the extremes of the experience. If so and also if not, I like to take 5 to 10 minutes to reflect on the training session and try to remember anything that came up for me during my efforts.

I have found the best approach to this finishing reflection is to be super slow, even lazy in how I go about my warm down, especially if the session was one containing a significant emotional challenge. It might sound a little odd, but sometimes I will just sit, and be. Letting time pass through me, basking in the low, but beautiful vibration of the feeling of finishing something difficult having fought to uphold your standards and embody your values. It’s like decontracting a muscle, only the muscle is the mind. My experience is that when I give myself this 15 – 20 minutes of nothingness really, perhaps a half hearted stretch or two, it elicits a deeper reflection and therefore the capture of some valuable information that will help improve future work.

Recommended: Invest in a training notebook. Bring it to every training session you do. On the left hand page write in the training session details and document your loads, times, etc. On the right hand page, entitle it ‘What Comes Up’/ Notes and use it intra session and post session to capture insights from altered states created by pushing your body and mind.

Pro Tip: Can’t remember anything profound from your training? Start by writing down something very simple you observed during the session. This can act as an opening of a door moment for the mind, a be the first step into a corridor of other observations and eventually creating a cascade of deeper insights from your efforts.

Something to pose:

"Was there one moment in that session where I could have put an ounce more effort into my stride?”

If you do decide to bring the What Comes Up Practice into your training and preparation, I would like you to consider posing this question to yourself as you reflect on your work and efforts in the session just gone. As with life, what we believe about training ripples through all that we do. From our belief system comes our mindset, from our mindset comes our actions, from actions consistently performed over time comes remarkable successes.

The question (which should take the training as a whole entity) – “Was there one moment in that session where I could have put an ounce more effort into my stride?” and in case it’s not obvious the question could also be –

– Was there one moment in that session where I could have put an ounce more effort into a rep?”

– Was there one moment in that session where I could have put an ounce more effort into my stroke?”

– Was there one moment in that session where I could have put an ounce more effort through the pedal?”

– Was there one moment in that match where I could have put an ounce more effort into my stride?”

– Was there one moment in that race where I could have put an ounce more effort into my stride?”

– Was there one moment in that event where I could have put an ounce more effort through my body?”

This question has opened my mind time and again to the myth of perfection and the bottomlessness of my potential. I hope it has similar effects on you and your training belief system.

Remember: The quality of the questions we ask ourselves, plays a fundamental role in the quality of our lives.

‘As long as you live, keep learning how to live’

~ Seneca