Don’t worry about the small stuff – go big in the triathlon because sweating it out is part of the program

Run these nine tactics through your mind-shrinking ray gun machine to turn self-perpetuating big-worry issues into nothing more than little things not worth sweating about:

1. Chorus of bending over to let things invade you. Withdrawal. Regroup. Increase. Move on. Never give up.

2. Recognize that frustrations are the negative side of your more positive passions. Anything in between is little.

3. Acknowledge familiarity with major disappointments and remember what you did before to get out of them.

4. Refocus on your desired big prize. Recognize that there are intermediate milestones, mostly small things, that you must achieve before the big prize is possible.

5. Stay true to behaviors that align with your guiding principles: small things that come naturally to you. Thinking outside of social norms to gain an advantage creates anxieties. Great Stuff: If something feels wrong, it probably is.

6. Reconnect with your training and race plans to perform with purpose.

7. Commit to a new zeal to overcome big setbacks.

8. Start moving forward while putting disappointments behind you.

9. Recognize that it’s acceptable to sweat for the big races. Smile. Get ahead on your journey to success.

“The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” FDR in his first inaugural address.

A friend convinced me to go big and long in triathoning. At my first Ironman triathlon in Provo, Utah, I pulled out two sets of white tags with words in black ink to guide us through the race. On every tag but one there was a single word: “Eat,” “Drink,” “Breathe,” “Relax,” “Laugh,” and the other tag referenced our race day goal.

We affixed the labels to each of our bike’s aero bars to serve as reminders for tomorrow’s race. Single words were tactics to follow to get great results. Our motivational goal was for each one to qualify for Kona. I expected the race to be the most challenging sporting event of my life.

I didn’t sleep well the night before the race. Lying in bed thinking about tomorrow’s race with the main spectacle in my imagination being me swimming a steady, efficient bike, followed by a fast run to finish and earn Ironman status. But during commercial breaks I experienced atychiphobia, more commonly known as fear of failure.

Many athletes never think that something bad will happen to them in a race. Bad things will only happen to others. Sometimes we tend to think that we are indestructible. For other athletes, they imagine and experience some competition phobias. They are not things that will kill or maim us, but they will definitely hold us back from a well-earned performance that we trained hard, smart and diligently for in a race. Some people become so obsessed with possible bad results that they don’t accept the positive aspects of being prepared for a race. They visualize catastrophes instead of successes. They go to extremes to think of disastrous outcomes, to the point of exaggerating the worst potential outcomes in terms of all-or-nothing outcomes rather than satisfying achievements.

These negative thoughts include flat tires and not being able to fix them quickly, being crashed by others and taking us out of the race, or other equipment failures such as broken chains, bent derailleurs, or a broken pedal. In Provo, what I feared the most was not being able to finish an Ironman distance triathlon, since my natural comfort zone was an 800-meter run in a track meet.

Digressing a bit, as a freshman in college, I gave a speech on phobias using Lucy from the Peanuts comic strip as inspiration. This is what you might want to know: fear of water, aquaphobia, of bicycles, cyclophobia, of running, there is no word for “fear of running”, however, potamophobia is the fear of running water. There are no words for the fear of competition, but there are many symptoms:

• inability to sleep

• stomach breads

• overactive intestines

• nauseating

• shaking / shaking

• sweat excessively

• dizziness

• hyperventilation

• dry mouth

• freezing

• lose control over emotions

• affraid to die

• anxiety attacks

• incoherent speaking

• incoherence in thought

He did not suffer from fear of sleep (somniphobia) or fear of not sleeping. No, she suffered from (and this is just a bit of an understatement) anxiety, self-inflation, and overinflation.

At 4:30 am I thought: “I choose to be a competitor instead of a spectator today. I am committed to this race. The day is for racing, all day. This is what I will do today.” Much better to be in the race instead of reading the results at home 625 miles away.

I boarded a bus on the Brigham Young University campus at 5 am for the ride to the start of the race and the T1 transition area at Utah Lake. On the bus I was wondering if at the end of the day I would come back as an Ironman. With companions here and here in fear, my stomach was upset. Although this was not a war, I did my own battle and related that this is how soldiers must feel before going into battle: the uncertainty of achieving the objective of the day, the uncertainty of returning intact or maimed, or even alive. To cope, I was reminded of a passage in Tom Wolfe’s The Right Stuff where he wrote about the original Mercury astronaut, Gus Grissom, when he was flying combat missions in North Korea. When stationed in South Korea, pilots who had not been shot by the North Koreans had to stand on the bus between the barracks and their fighter jets. Gus made sure he earned the right to sit on the bus for the next trip. The “main thing was not to be left behind.”

I chose to earn the right to be called an Ironman by focusing on being a competitor rather than a spectator. While I didn’t have to stand tall, I didn’t want to fall behind the peer group I chose to belong to waiting for a bona fide grade. The race turned out to be a small thing compared to the combat.

Write a list of everything that caused you concern in the last 12 months. Write next to each how much worry time you spent on each event. Now, with the luxury of seeing how the events turned out, classify each one as a small stuff item or a big stuff item. Your pile of small things will be much bigger than your pile of big things. Learn to categorize before future events. Be willing to lean higher for small ranking and think big for success.

When did you experience your “ah ha” moment of knowing the difference between the little things and the big things? What did you change to focus on the big things and not worry about the little things?