Thoughts, feelings, actions and COOKIES!

This one is going to be kind of “psychology heavy” but I’m going to take some psychological concepts and strategies and apply them to real life food and training examples. The power of psychological concepts is that they can and should be applicable to pretty much everything we do.

The first thing I want to write about is something I hear most days from someone. Not always at work, but of course, given my job, I hear it in that setting. I do, however, read it online all the time! It’s the terrible statement of “I don’t feel like it”... whatever “it” is. Dialectical Behaviour Therapy teaches the concept of 3 states of mind – rational mind, emotion mind and wise mind. Rational mind is how it sounds – logic, reason, planned, science. Emotion mind is the opposite – feelings, reaction, impulsivity, the “right now”. Wise mind is the product of combining the two. Ideally, wise mind is where we want to be most of the time for most decisions. When someone says “I don’t feel like it” they are stuck in emotion mind. I had a young guy tell me this a couple weeks ago when I asked what was getting in the way of him getting to class and he replied with “I don’t feel like getting out of bed” and my response was “I didn’t FEEL like getting out of bed this morning either, but look, here I am, meeting with you”. We discussed the idea of doing what is consistent with your goals, regardless of how you “feel”. My goals are consistent with making weight and lifting as much as possible at nationals, so last night when I “felt” like eating a cookie that didn’t fit into my plan for the day, I did NOT eat the cookie. I was tired on my way to the gym and felt like I wanted to buy a coffee and sit for 3 hours and watch gymnastics and play on my phone, but I didn’t. Instead, I went to the gym. This is different than “I’m sick and need to recover”. I’m talking about “I had a long, unremarkable day at work and don’t feel like training”. I behaved in ways consistent with my goals, not my current feelings.

The other thing that comes up often is this idea that just because you have a thought, it must be true and you must do something with it. This ties closely to the idea of the above idea, but it’s a slight variation. We know in psychology, thoughts and feelings are different and they are both different than actions. If I were to say to someone “last night you were feeling tired and wanted to skip the gym... what were you thinking?” They will often say “I was thinking I’m tired”... no, what were you THINKING... what were the thoughts that went along with that feeling? Instead of pushing my imaginary person here, I’ll use me. When I was feeling tired, I was thinking “wow, a coffee would be nice... wow, sitting on the couch relaxing would be nice... it’s only one training day, right?” So, my thoughts were different than “feeling tired”. If I were someone who acted on my thoughts, what would I have done? I would have bought a coffee and sat on the couch, rationalizing away that it’s “only one” training day. I often use the example with clients “I am a banana!” (Thanks Acceptance and Commitment Therapy) and they look at me stunned and I ask them “did I become a banana?” Well, no, obviously. So, you mean, I can THINK something and it isn’t true? I can think “I’m over weight and weak, so I might as well not bother” and it doesn’t have to be the truth? An extension of this I use is that I can think “I am a banana” and not only did I not become a banana, but I have ZERO obligation to find a banana suit and dress up as my best banana. You can think something and yet, have zero obligation to act on that thought. I use this one often with thoughts of suicide and self harm (although, if you are having thoughts of suicide, please call your local help line, Kids Help Phone, 911, go to the ER or another place you are safe! This is not a replacement for the assistance you need). Last night I thought “mmm, a cookie would be good” and I had a bite and then I thought “mmm, I could totally eat that whole bag of cookies” and I walked out of the kitchen thinking “I’m not going to make weight if I eat a bag of cookies”. I had no obligation to eat that bag of cookies just because I thought about it. You can replace your thought with a more helpful thought, or you can just observe the thought and notice there is no obligation to act on it.

The point is, our thoughts, feelings and actions are connected, but ultimately we get to choose what we do. Neither our thoughts nor our feelings about a situation are an obligation to act in a certain way. Instead of skipping the gym and eating a bag of cookies, I remembered that I have bigger goals than what I want now with my emotion mind. I pulled on my rational mind, went to the gym, had a bite of a cookie and made choices that are consistent with what I choose (but those cookies ARE really good).

Things 5 pin bowling taught me about powerlifting...

This one is kind of funny, and something I've talked about a bit with people but never organized into one place. First, it's quite enjoyable to me when someone in my "lifting world" finds out that until a couple years ago I 5 pin bowled quite seriously. In fact, I was a bowler long before I ever touched a barbell... I was a bowler before I knew what a barbell was.

1) Bowling taught me it's neither the small details nor the big picture. They both matter! In bowling, you have 10 frames a game. Often, you have many games. No single ball or frame will make or break the day, but if you don't take into account that every ball matters, you can end up taking each opportunity for granted. Each day in the gym matters, gotta go put the work in, but no one day will make or break a training cycle. It's about how you put all those days together just like how you put all those balls and frames together into the big picture that matters. You can't focus on one without acknowledging the other though.

2) Bowling also taught me how to save adrenaline for when it matters. I know this sounds absolutely ridiculous, but trust me when I say there can be a lot of adrenaline just like in any sport. Adrenaline wears you out. You need to learn how to save the adrenaline for when it matters so you don't get totally worn out. If you need a bunch of adrenaline every time to show up to throw your 4 games in league, you'll never survive a 20 game day without crashing, so you learn to practice without adrenaline. Same goes for lifting. Save the adrenaline for a meet, or at the very least, PRs in the gym. You should not be hitting PRs every day you train unless you are brand spanking new. If you need adrenaline surges and to be hyped up just to hit your every day squats, what happens in a meet? How much more hyped do you need? You should be able to hit that opener without a big burst of adrenaline... or you might want to reconsider your opener.

3) Bowling taught me to save my energy and effort for game time and turn it off in between so I didn't get burned out. Imagine long days, several games a day, 10 frames a game and however many balls you might throw (hopefully it's fewer rather than more). If you didn't learn how to turn it off in between, you'd crash and burn in a couple games. This relates to the adrenaline stuff. You can't stay "up" all the time. It's too exhausting! So, you need to learn how to come off the approach, finish that frame in your head, get some mental space until it's time to step up again. Develop a habit or pattern of behaviour that helps you to do this. For me, I'd slap hands, give my next teammate some encouraging words, and then I step to the very back of the group - the physical space allowed my brain to get mental space. When the player before me was up, I would make my way to the approach from the back of the group. This was closing that space, physically and psychologically. I would then start giving myself mental cues and listening to my coach's voice. Often I would nod in agreement. Often I would smile or laugh as well (the tension relief is powerful). In powerlifting this is the same. I'm sure that sometimes my laughing and joking in the staging area can feel like I'm not taking things seriously, but instead, I'm actually distancing myself mentally so as to not exhaust myself too early. Most of the time, after an attempt, I'll come off, agree on a next attempt or tell my coach to make the call and then crack a joke or talk about something else. I'm giving myself psychological distance. I can tell you, when I haven't done this, I've had a harder time, just like in bowling. If you can't give yourself the psychological break in between frames or attempts, you will crash early.

4) Now this one is important. My old bowling coach would understand if I said "ABIC" - that stands for Any Bowler in Canada. What that means is that on any day anything could happen and I could beat any bowler in Canada... but that also means that any bowler in Canada could beat me. This is a message in humility but also respecting other athletes and the sport. I could go in to any event, being considered the "favourite" to win, and still have my ass handed to me. I could go into any event, being a total underdog and win as well. I can think of instances where both of these happened and I've tried to bring this to powerlifting. It was a bit different for a long time because in powerlifting, in many instances, I'm not exactly considered a favourite to win, but of course, like anything, it depends who is there. But, the message stays the same - if I go into a meet and assume that I am going to win because "I'm stronger, better, etc" I might find out very quickly that the universe has plans in humility for me. It does not frankly matter what my bests are vs my competitors... I still have to respect the fact that I need to go out there and do the work and not take it for granted. I am a firm believer when you stop believing and respecting that there is always someone better than you, you will get your butt kicked!

5) Bowling taught me the value of competition and hard work. Dedication to a game or sport is a wonderful thing. The time you spend putting in the work that doesn't always pay off as planned, but fuels your fire anyway. I can think of a tournament where I went in after months of corner pin drills and I won, likely because I spared more corners than the girl who came in second. It ended up being a tournament of corner pin spares and my hard work paid off. I can also think of times where I practiced months on end, and showed up that day and couldn't hit the broad side of a barn! It was like I was throwing bricks. Powerlifting is the same - training can go very well and you face the reality on game day that you might have a flawless meet... or you might be throwing bricks LOL But either way, regardless of how it's going, be a competitor in spirit. Do your best in that moment and compete with integrity. If I go back to bowling, I have said I will have the phrase "play with integrity" stitched on my towel because it is that important. You may win, you may lose, but always compete!