Mind of an Athlete

By Priscilla Tallman

I’m in the middle of a battle between my mind and my body.

I’ve struggled in this department before maybe in a more traditional sense where the mind is the one I’m trying to overcome. In the past it may have been finding every excuse to stay under the warm covers instead of waking up to hit the gym, or perhaps letting the rowing machine spin out the last several seconds instead of getting in a couple of last pulls.

Situations like these are things I might consider part of my “mental game,” areas where my mind wants to quit and, therefore, so does my body.

That battle is all too common, but this current conflict is different. This time, it’s my mind that won’t let me off the hook. My body is saying “not today” but my mind is saying “get up, let’s do this.” Now, I’m not necessarily complaining, the mind is a powerful thing and, so, this works mostly to my benefit. But when I signed up for the CrossFit Open three months after tearing my meniscus and only two weeks after being cleared to full-range squat, even my own body was like “you have got to be kidding me.”

My brain? It’s all “aw, come on. You can scale it.”

It’s less mind over matter and just a full dose of only the mind matters. And it’s an interesting time for me because as my body feels less and less capable, my mind is calling in the big guns to keep me moving regardless of the excuses my body is trying to feed me, and believe me, I’ve got a few.

Honestly, I blame it on years and years of playing sports and I call it “the mind of an athlete.”

Starting in elementary school, I played competitive sports through high school, college and beyond. I learned some valuable lessons and developed character traits that are often only found in athletes, like mental fortitude, the ability to push physically when everyone else has given up, the persistence it takes to master a skill or movement and many other valuable life skills that have carried me through more than one season (literally and figuratively).

But as I grew up and lived through the ups and downs of my journey, my athlete brain was also doing some undercover work. It was developing neural pathways and creating mental memories I could cash in on down the road and all through my life. It’s these habits and memories, I believe, that won’t let me off the hook in my current season.

See, while my body may not be fully capable of doing the things I want it to do, my brain has been forming habits all my life. Teaching me that not every workout or training session is backed by my 100% undying motivation, not every practice or lifting session is enjoyable, nor do they always produce the desired results I am hoping for and despite these things my brain still tells me to show up and do the work.

What I love best is that when my brain is in charge, my body doesn’t really have a choice. So, I can continue through life (and the aging process) walking around with a list of things that are broken or failing and I can keep that list in my pocket as a reminder of what I can’t do or what I’ve lost…

…Or…

Or I can glance over at the list and say, “Wow. I enjoyed those things to their fullest and now look at all the new things I can try, play, lift and do. Look how much I have left!”

Look how much I have left.

That’s a much better approach to life, to fitness, to relationships or any other thing I hope to accomplish with my time here on earth than the alternative of giving into my excuses.

For now, I’ll thank my many years as an athlete. I’ll thank my brain for developing AND remembering the neural pathways that tell me to move my body because it’s better for me in the long run than focusing on what I can’t do. I’ll thank my brain for the ability to recognize and differentiate between soreness (keep moving), exhaustion (restore and recover) and pain (rehab).

And though I have the body and athletic prowess of a giraffe, I’ll be thankful I have the mind of an athlete.

I Cannot Even. No, Really You Can.

Written by Priscilla Tallman

I can’t.

I cannot even.

I just cannot even.

I mean. I can’t.

We’ve all heard these expressions. Goodness, we’ve all said them. Tiny little word jabs we use throughout the day to express our disbelief in someone, some thing or some event. Social media has made our ability to can or can’t such a toss away expression anymore, we’ve forgotten those two little words (and the extra ones we tag on for dramatic emphasis) are rooted deeply in our ability to accomplish something.

I mean, can you even? Can you just even?

Yeah, you can.

One of my favorite sayings from my competitive sports playing days is one I stole from my husband, and he stole from his college volleyball coach. It’s super simple. Say it with me:

“Can you?”

That’s it.

Any time a ball was out of play or shanked, his coach would yell “Can you? Can you?” In the middle of a heated game or intense practice, no one had time to answer. You either could, or you died trying. Once we get out of our 20’s or we stop playing something competitively or we stop training for a specific event or sport and begin training for life, we start making excuses about our ability. We start not being able to even – way too often these days.

I get that. I really do.

I have to scale or modify prescribed workouts on a very consistent basis. Some days my body tells me “no” all together. I have 20 years of competitive volleyball on this body and sometimes I wake up at the crack of dawn, peek at the workout and say to myself “I cannot even.” Three little words before the sun comes up that determine my ability in the gym and as a result, my ability and attitude all day.

So, I changed my husbands’ coach’s mantra a bit to fit my life. I switched the words around and took away the question mark – that left these two words: “You can.”

You can.

Imagine beginning your workout, your day with those two words. You can scale or modify the workout. You can do yoga instead if your body says “no” to the weight room. You can just walk up to the bar and lift it without telling yourself that you can’t a thousand times before you get there. You can take care of your body, your mind, your spirit and your emotions without sacrificing one for the other. You can use this phrase to encourage other women in your life without compromising your own ability.

You can.

This phrase is now officially my favorite sports (and life) phrase of all time. As a teammate, I love pushing my tennis partner to take a few more steps to get that stray tennis ball “you can, you can!” In coaching, I love encouraging young athletes to try another time when they are ready to throw in the towel “you can, you can.” When my kids tell me they can’t find anything to pack for their lunches, I say “you can, you can.”

Our days are a series of choices. Sure, there is some level of serendipity, spontaneity and even chaos to any twenty-four hour period, but we can still choose how we approach the day and how we speak to ourselves about what we are able to do. Choosing to say to ourselves “you can,” before the world has a chance to tell us otherwise is strategic and powerful.

Guess what? You can be strategic and powerful. Now what?

You can.