I’m in the peak of marathon training at the moment, and it’s hard. This past weekend I hurt my foot — nothing major, I hope. And that’s been frustrating. Not just because of the interruption, but because of how quickly my mind goes to: “You messed this up.”

As if one small thing undoes weeks of consistency.

It made me realise how easily I slip into thinking: “I’m bad at this.”

For example, there was a time I thought I was bad at race nutrition. I’d forget to eat, pack too much, or pack too little or the wrong things, or I’d go by feel, or I’d just not want to take a gel when I was supposed to. It felt inconsistent and out of control.

Then my coach said something simple: approach your nutrition with the same discipline as your training. I.e., have a plan, and stick to it — regardless of how you feel in the moment.

The plan wasn’t perfect; it’s still not. I changed it often as I figured out what worked for me. I’m still experimenting and changing it. But that is actually not the point. The shift happened when I stopped relying on how I felt and started going into a run with a plan. And suddenly, I wasn’t that “bad at nutrition” anymore.

When I think about it, I do this in other areas too. These newsletters, for example. I have a reminder set on my phone for every second Friday to start writing my newsletter. The plan is simple: reflect on the past two weeks, pick something that stood out, and start. I don’t wait for inspiration.

And my training works the same way. I don’t negotiate with it daily. I trust the plan, which I have my coach to thank for, and I show up.

So maybe discipline isn’t something that you either have or don’t. Maybe it’s something much more practical.

Maybe it’s the shift from:
“I’m bad at this”
to
“As long as I can plan it, I can do it.”

And that feels like a much more useful place to start.

#Discipline #MarathonTraining #ConsistencyOverMotivation #MindsetShift #TrustTheProcess