MTB, Take Care of Your Biggest Limiter Today
All the skills coaching, drill doing, fitness coaching and workout smashing in the world will not allow us to reach our goals until we overcome this issue. Whether you are self-taught and relatively new to riding or a veteran with skills coaching experience and years on your mountain bike this might be holding you back.
The number one issue holding you back from reaching your potential is in your mind! I cringe when I hear my students say these limiting beliefs out loud: “I stink at climbing!”, “I suck at descending but I’m good at …”, “I’m just not a natural”, but often we are not even aware of these beliefs, they are in our subconscious. The interesting thing is that many times these limiting beliefs have no basis in reality.
When your subconscious says, “I am not good enough” that is a self-limiting belief. Sometimes the beliefs actually start out positive, “I can do that well but I will never be as good as ….” but in the end, they set a limit to your achievement/performance.
They are often caused by failing at something (as you may or may not know I believe that, “failure is a natural and necessary part of the learning process” quote from Dan Millman). For instance, a former limiting belief I had was that I could not do a trackstand. One day a friend and I each tried to trackstand and I ended up falling over. For years after this when asked if I could trackstand I would reply, “no, I can not trackstand” and for years I couldn’t trackstand.
Was this limitation real? Of course not, looking back on that day I fell over trying to trackstand I realized I did a trackstand for five, possibly ten seconds before I feel over but I guess my goal was an hour or so, so in my mind, I failed. One day I decided I would try using baby steps (working my way from one-second trackstands to 20-30 second trackstands) and in less than an hour, I was doing ten-second trackstands consistently.
Don’t let self-limiting beliefs keep you from riding at your best! I don’t, even at 51!
From discussing limiting beliefs with my students it seems like society is often to blame. A parent, a teacher, an older sibling, a teammate, anyone whose opinion you respected may have had set something that is holding you back. In my case, when I was seven or eight I came home crying because I didn’t make the baseball team and my mom, trying to comfort me said, “honey, you’re just not a natural athlete but you are so much smarter than those boys. You’re IQ is ….”. Not exactly what a seven-year-old wants to hear!
At the US Snowboarding Championships in 1992, I remember looking over at my competitor in the dual slalom quarterfinals and thinking, “holy cow, look at the size of his legs! He is a natural athlete, what am I doing here, I am not a natural like him.” Not exactly the best thing to be thinking right before a race! I actually ended up barely beating him but, I got eliminated in the next round. Can you imagine how much better I would have raced if I had thought, “wow, look at the overdeveloped legs on that guy, too bad he doesn’t have my skill, I am going to smoke him!” With a more positive belief, I just might have one the competition!
How to do you stop this often subconscious self-defeating cycle? Step one is to identify the belief, “I am a good rider but will never be great” or the most misguided one I heard the other day, “I only weigh 140 so I don’t have the muscle mass to climb like the bigger guys”, what, most great climbers are short, thin riders!
Once you have identified the belief check to find the source of the belief and see if it is real. Where did the belief come from? Does it make sense? Is there proof that the belief is true? Once you have these questions answered you can create a strategy to rid yourself of the belief. If the belief was caused by a past failure tell yourself, the past doesn’t equal the future and correctly practice doing the skill/section of trail that you felt you couldn’t do.
If it has no basis in reality (your friend said, “wow you suck at descending” 10 years ago) tell yourself, “that guy was a jerk! besides, that was ten years ago. Now I understand body position and vision better, my bike is way better and I have the skill to descend much better”. Often you will find that once you identify a self-limiting belief you laugh, realizing that it is preposterous and you move past it.
A simple cure is to correct yourself when you have that limiting thought. When I student says, “I’m pretty good at climbing but I suck at descending” I always say, “You said your Darn good at climbing and getting better at descending with practice? I thought that’s what you said.” The truth is, if you are practicing, you are getting better!
Don’t let fiction, fantasy, someone else’s opinion or conjecture hold you back. Attack these self-limiting beliefs and achieve your best in 2018!
Please share any stories about your limiting beliefs. How have you overcome them? Feel free to share this article with anyone you feel may benefit from it!
I relaxed, saw the line I wanted to take, found my balance and went through the section very controlled – it was great!
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