What Is Success?

2022, you have been a year. You have been a year to reflect upon, cherish and, like every year, move forward from with its gifts and adventures. It's always a fulfilling time of year for me as a Coach - having lengthy and creative conversations with athletes around their race plans, goals, and ambitions while also taking stock of how this past year has grown us as a team and what we will do with those new learnings. This process is important, and shouldn’t be rushed, but also comes with a large amount of education for many athletes. The natural tendency for most athletes is try to always level up with faster times, a qualification, or raising bars. These measurable goals are useful, but I never see them as the defining measure of development and success. The journey of an endurance athlete seeking performance goes well beyond being faster, stronger and results. A broad perspective is always required to appropriately reflect on improvements and a measuring of success. Not every athlete realizes linear gains, in fact most don't. More importantly, context matters and influences content 100% of the time.

So I ask you, as we wrap this year and ramp to a new year, What Is Success? How do you nurture yourself across the board to ensure your performance goals are held in perspective with the greater context of life? How do you manage goal setting that satisfies where you are at in your athletic, personal and maybe corporate career without becoming overly obsessed? I invite you to begin answering these questions over the next few weeks.

Also, remind yourself that exercise is random. Training has purpose and intention. Even training sessions that are soulful and free flowing have purpose. But random bicep curls and half-ass intervals are random and lead to apathy and intermittent behaviour.

Be the version of yourself you most enjoy. Optimize the days you can train while also ensuring you have the space to celebrate and freshen up for the New Year.