A simple process to figuring out what’s holding back your performance

Open up Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook the day after a race, and you’ll see dozens of “race reports” that feature some kind of excuse:

“TWO flats on the bike torpedoed my Kona chances!”

“Not the day I was hoping for, due to choppy water and high wind on the bike.”

“Would have done better but I’ve had some injuries recently that held me back.”“GI issues forced me to slow down.”

If you’re stuck with us this far (only 78 words) then maybe you’re already running through your social media recaps, wondering if you have participated in any of the above behavior. Maybe you’re worried, but don’t be! We have good news for you:

Nobody cares.

Yes, that’s right. Nobody cares how well or how poorly you did. Your friends and acquaintances just want you to feel good about your performance and your effort, and you shouldn’t worry about what your enemies think, because…they’re your enemies. Not only do they not care about how you did, they certainly don’t want to read about it. What does your “audience” want to hear, presumably? They want to imagine themselves in your shoes, doing hard things and overcoming adversity. They want to hear that you’re happy. The reality of these excuse-laden posts? They’re focused on making only one person feel better. We think you know who that person is.

It’s you.

What if we told you there’s not only a better way to deal with the disappointment of a race gone wrong, but there’s also a way to help you avoid “bad luck” in the future. You’ll notice we put bad luck in quotes—that means we really don’t believe it is bad luck, but we’re getting ahead of ourselves. By ruthlessly examining your own role in aspects of your race that didn’t go according to plan, you can make yourself a stronger, more confident, more reliable racer at your next event. You ready? It won’t be easy or comfortable, but it will be useful. Get ready for something we call…Accountability.

Can we get this guy some salt? Please? He seems incapable of helping himself.

A Useful Compass

The world today offers us opportunities for and examples of unaccountable behavior. Ever made an excuse about a race day performance like the ones above? Ever skip a session you promised your coach you would complete? Ever cheat on your taxes? Ever fail to return a library book? These all are moments when you chose not to be accountable to your commitments. Now, we can already hear what you’re saying “It would be impossible to keep 100% of the commitments we make in life,” and you’re absolutely right. There will be small failures of accountability throughout your life, and largely that’s totally OK. But when we’re talking about something that’s important to you, something you want to do well, then remaining focused on accountability can help you see the areas where you are letting yourself down. Committing to accountability, and examining the moments in which you drop the ball, can improve your performance and increase the satisfaction you feel around racing and training. Having a regular accountability process provides a useful compass, letting you know whether it’s YOU driving the bus…or some other, less helpful aspect of your personality…

Articulate the Commitment

OK, you ready? Let’s begin. We’re gonna take this kinda easy to begin, in order to keep things a little light for your first time through. We’d like you to think of a commitment you made recently and didn’t keep. It could be small, but make sure you clearly articulate what the commitment was. We’re going to use a semi-fictional example in this case for you to follow, an athlete named Dean who recently completed Coeur d’Alene 70.3, suffering some bad quad cramps late on the bike and throughout the run. Dean finished, but didn’t have the race he had hoped for. In chatting with Dean after the race, there was one particular commitment we focused upon: the fluid he consumed on the bike. Dean’s coach had prescribed six bottles of sports drink, estimating he would complete the bike in just under three hours. Coeur d’Alene was hot this year, making hydration particularly important for athlete performance. Dean got in a little under four bottles, or only two-thirds of what he’d agreed upon with his coach. So in this example, the commitment was to consume six bottles, and Dean consumed four. We would ask him to name the commitment (say it out loud or write it down) and then ask “Did you keep that commitment?” Although it can seem like we’re shaming Dean, the goal here is to get the athlete to say out loud that they didn’t keep the commitment, so they know for certain what happened.

What was More Important and what were the Consequences?

Now that the athlete knows they didn’t keep a commitment, we ask three questions:

What did you CHOOSE to make more important? This question can get a little squirrely. We can assume that Dean didn’t WANT to get horrible quad cramps, so he may say something like “I just forgot to drink.” We say NO to that kind of tossing up of hands. EVERYTHING is a choice, especially when you are participating in an event that you CHOSE to participate in! So in this case, maybe Dean chose to make focusing on eating more important, or staying in his aero position, or maybe he chose to make not drinking more important than his commitment. The goal here is to communicate to the athlete that they made a choice—something didn’t just happen to them. Your athletes will protest, here, saying something like “I didn’t choose to get a flat tire,” but maybe they chose to not replace their tires in the weeks before the race, or maybe they didn’t replace the sealant in their tubeless set up. The message here is that the athlete is the only one responsible on race day, sadly.
What were the consequences to you? In Dean’s case, it’s obvious: cramps and impaired performance.
What were the consequences to others? This is important, but again your athletes might say “nah, no one.” Push them to think about this. Your coach, who worked hard on your training and your race plan? Your family, maybe, if you end up in medical and they don’t know where you are? Think hard about this—nothing encourages accountability like realizing you’ve messed with someone else’s experience.

What is the Belief that Drove the Behavior?

Now we really get down to it. The truth is is that every behavior we take in life (writing a blog, watching the Tour de France, going to dinner with a friend, to grab three examples) expresses a belief we have about ourselves or the world. In the three examples above those beliefs might be A) We believe that writing this blog may help other athletes improve their performances and enjoyment of the sport, B) watching the Tour is enjoyable, it only comes around once a year, and it’s important to me as a person to experience that enjoyment and the inclusion in a society that also enjoys the Tour, and C) that having dinner with a friend will be good for our relationship. There are beliefs that power our less than helpful behaviors, too. So what might have powered Dean’s behavior of not sticking to the plan he agreed to with his coach? The following are guesses and projections:

I didn’t believe it would actually affect me (“I felt fine at the time!”)
My racing is not important enough for me to worry about stuff like that (“I’m not a pro…I’m not trying to get to Worlds…this is all just for fun”)
I don’t believe I need anything other than water (“sports drinks are too processed!”)

Who Else Speaks Like That?

Once we’ve got a belief, we ask the athlete to say how they would describe somebody else (not them!) who held the same belief. We’d say, “OK, what words would you use to describe someone who thought that hot temperatures wouldn’t affect their performance?” After a little coaching, the athlete might say “Well, that person clearly thinks they are different, or special, or better than the other athletes around them.” Or “That athlete should value their racing and training more.” Finally, the third belief might be something like “The normal rules of physiology don’t apply to me.” The idea, here, is for the athlete to see that their belief is the thing that is powering their unaccountable behavior. Most athletes aren’t willing to face this, and they look for something else to blame the difficulty on. But you’re not “most athletes,” right? You’ve stuck around for 1500 words at this point! So we know you’re brave, so you can handle the next step.

What’s the Shadow?

Before we get into this part, we are NOT therapists. The concept of shadow is a Jungian creation, and you can find this information out there in the world, but we are not doctors and we don’t even play them on T.V. This is all for informational purposes only. OK, wild side step aside, now we want you to name that belief that is powering the behavior we don’t want. We call it a shadow because usually it’s behind you—we’re using the power of accountability to bring the shadow into the light, where we can examine it. We’re gonna ask our athlete to name the shadow, and the best way to do is to ask “What judgments would you have about someone other than you who held the belief that’s powering that behavior?” Here are some answers, given our three examples above:

Conceited/Proud/Special shadow (“The rules don’t apply to me”)
Unworthy/ashamed/not-good-enough shadow (“My pursuits don’t matter”)
Arrogant/Better-Than shadow (“Experts can’t be trusted”)

CONCLUSION

OK, the goal here is NOT to leave the athlete feeling conceited, or worthless, or arrogant. The goal here is to see that they have something normal that is driving their behavior in ways that actually doesn’t help them much. But how do we fix it? We’re not going to change a lifetime of belief with one process—the goal here is exposing the shadow. But we CAN help the athlete prove to him or herself that they CAN make commitments and stick to them. The last thing we do is ask the athlete “OK, now that you see this, what is a SMALL commitment you can make that you can follow through with so you can show yourself that you can stick to commitments?” The athlete can’t just re-voice the commitment they missed, since that commitment still stands. We always suggest something simple, like saying you’ll send your mom flowers next Wednesday for no good reason. As coach, make sure your athlete knows you will check in on them to see if they kept that commitment, too. Ideally they did, and they can start feeling as if they can make and keep commitments. If they didn’t? Well, you simply run the script all over again!

Once an athlete realizes that everything is a choice of theirs, and that only they are responsible for what happens to them on race day, we have found that athletes tend to own their performances, take better care of their equipment, and prepare as much as possible. In closing, here is a list of excuses we’ve heard and how that athlete could have taken responsibility and prepared better.

Excuse	The Accountable Answer
“My stomach shut down”	Practice your nutrition in EVERY workout
“The water was too choppy—I do better in flat water.”	GO PRACTICE IN THE OPEN WATER, and work on lifting your stroke rate
“It was too hot and I melted.”	Adjust your pace, and acclimate ahead of time
“I lost my nutrition.”	Don’t rely on “special” nutrition—train your gut to accept anything
“I got a flat tire.”	Keep your equipment in excellent working order, and practice changing flats
“Another rider crashed me out.”	It takes two to crash—how did you contribute to this situation and how will you stay out of that situation in the future?
“My aerobars/saddle slipped—stupid bolts!”	Torque your bolts before any race
“I fell apart in the final half of the run.”	Examine your pacing, Broheim.
“My race nutrition soured the night before the race.”	What? No it didn’t.
“Another athlete knocked off my goggles/swam over me/got in my way.”	Practice swimming in groups.

Want to hear this process in action? Click below and listen along!

Getting Accountable