Skip to main content

Embrace sport scariness


Sports are awesome because they resemble life. 

In both life and in sport, there are rules, ethic codes, regulations and laws.
In both life and sport, the things that come easy are often most enjoyable and fun but when there's a struggle, it's easy to lose motivation and to lose confidence.
In both life and sport, we need to work hard, stay committed and remain focused. We also need a bit of luck.
And in both life and in sport, we need a "team" to help us succeed.

And in life and sport, both can be extremely awesome and a little bit scary.

Despite how scary sport can be, people from around the world, of all different fitness levels and backgrounds embrace the scariness of sport because it resembles life. Many people recognize that life is extremely hard so why not do something fun with your body that scares you?

I've always believed that one of the best things about sport is having countless opportunities to embrace scary situations and then work to overcome them. Kinda like stretching a comfort zone. But with sport scariness, it's all about placing yourself into a situation that gives you a little fear and doing what was once very uncomfortable. Through this process, an athlete can gain strength, confidence and courage by each experience that is scary.  

This is why I love a group training camp. Later today, we will have 16 athletes from all over the US joining us for an amazing 4.5 day camp experience that will require each of them to work through scary but fun situations in swim/bike/run. For some athletes, this may not sound like fun but for our campers, they signed up for this camp in order to improve. Every camper will learn that he/she is capable of handling discomfort in the face of a scary situation. Once the camper learns that he/she has the ability to handle the scary situation, it will no longer be something that is feared but instead, the athlete will gain confidence that he/she can conquer it the next time.

If you find that you are constantly pushing away the things that scare you, this strategy may provide you with temporary comfort but it's only short term. The long term result will be more fear anytime you are asked to do something that scares you. 

We look forward to helping our campers face their fears, stretch their comfort zone and show each athlete that they have strengths that they never knew existed.