The Portable Personal Trainer by Eric Harr

Author:Eric Harr
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780767909457
Publisher: Harmony/Rodale
Published: 2001-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

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ACTION ITEM

When tempted to buy another fitness product or buy into another nutrition fad, turn yourself instead to smarter exercise and better nutrition. This will produce far better (and less expensive) results, every time. Empower yourself, not the fitness industry.

45. Turn Fear into Confidence

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A hero is no braver than an ordinary man, but he is braver five minutes longer.

—RALPH WALDO EMERSON, WRITER (1803–1882)

Emerson was right on the money. When you look at the world’s best athletes before competitions, it looks as if their steely confidence runs to the core. Not entirely true. Many of these people are hiding fear, anxiety, and enormous stress. They’ve simply mastered these emotions and learned to channel them into positive action (tip #25). You can learn to transform your fear into confidence as well. It’s all based on your physiology.

While fear can undermine almost everything we do, confidence can empower us to do almost anything. There are precise, simple techniques champion athletes use to transform their fear immediately into a winning confidence—that is what separates them from the field. Two of the simplest, most powerful techniques are “anchoring” and “acting.”

Anchoring is an effective skill that you can learn quite easily. It involves reconnecting to past successes. You literally relive the experience in rich detail: how determined and strong you were, how confident you felt. As you anchor yourself to those feelings of successful past events, your body begins to take on a new confidence in the present. The fastest way to resurrect those feelings is to refer to your success journal (tip #7).

Acting is the other technique top athletes use to transform fear into confidence. As I mentioned, at the start of many races top athletes don’t always feel ready or confident, but the best ones can summon positive emotions on command. You can, too, and this can be a powerful ally in any stressful situation. Late in races, when pain reaches a crescendo, the best athletes look the most composed. Their secret is simple: They fake it. They act as if they feel fantastic, and they start believing it. Studies have shown that when people pretend to feel a certain way, beginning with something as small as a smile, it elicits profound physical changes throughout the body. In a very physical sense, motion determines emotion, which illustrates the enormous potential of a strong mind-body connection.

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