Mental Fitness Mondays: Rise to Challenge
The Eye of the Tiger, channelling your inner Rocky
September 2014 and I’m sat in a meeting with a charity I’m a coach for. The manager mentions that "a few of us are going to run the 2015 London Marathon as a fund-raiser. We have two places left, would any of you coaches like to take one?”
In this Mental Fitness Mondays post I'm going to talk about the component of ‘rising to a challenge’. What I mean is the drive and energy it takes to ‘rise’. In the next component we’ll look at goal achievement, which looks at the steps you take to make sure the challenge or goal happens.
The word ‘challenge’ is an interesting one, because it can mean a negative thing, like dealing with insurance companies after a bump in a car. It can also be an exciting adventure, where we step up so we can grow.
The Courage to Rise
Sometimes we can all struggle with rising to challenges, including me. This could be because we think that we're not capable enough, or maybe we just don’t have the time or the resources to make it happen. What I notice as a coach is that a big thing that stops us is a lack of belief in ourselves. When you don't believe you can rise to a challenge you might end up feeling stressed, overwhelmed, or just opt out completely. Confession time: I had a plan for writing regular blog posts for two years before I actually had the courage to rise up and just do it!
You’re worth it, but is it?
But it’s not just self-belief that we need, it’s also inner drive and determination. These are the bits you can work on. We humans are incredible, we can (and do) rise to all sorts of challenges.
Of course, before you take on a challenge the first step is to decide whether it’s worth it. I’d love to encourage you to go for the slightly scary things that matter, but I’m not suggesting you to rise to every challenge that comes your way! It’s important to be discerning about how you spend your time, but do step out of your comfort zone. I work a lot with unions and I’m constantly wowed by their teams doing all sorts of things that are out of their comfort zone, like media interviews and running large campaigns.
Growth Mindset rules!
When you face challenges, it's great to think about how they're helping you to grow. Psychologist Carol Dweck has published some fantastic research on growth-mindset (see her book, Mindset, 2006). In simple terms, a ‘growth’ mindset is a belief that we can grow from challenge; this is different to a ‘fixed’ mindset that sees challenge as something to avoid as much as we can. Evidence from across the ages tells us that life isn’t designed to be easy. By choosing to embrace challenges and value the learning and growth they give us, we become better.
My marathon
At the end of that meeting in 2014, I’d decided that I was going to put myself forward for one of those places in the marathon. I didn't see it as a negative, but it certainly felt like a challenge! Training for it, and running it was a very tough, but magical experience, with me finishing in a fairly respectable 4 and a bit hours!
A coaching question for you: What’s a challenge that you’ve risen up to and how did it feel to do that?
