It's all in the set-up!

I was reading the comments on one of my favorite Facebook pages and a follower asked

"How do you ever really feel peace when you try and try and try again and continue to FAIL! It is hard to feel at peace with your body when you look in the mirror and hate what you see  If only there were more sources that make you feel ok in your skin! I love the concept of the new jean commercial that states the size as "amazing" or "sassy"..."   

I'm not usually one to respond to followers on someone else's page, but this time I did. I said,

"Set goals that aren't subjective.  When you run a mile, you've run a mile.  When you run it faster than you did last time that's a personal record.  Set goals that allow you to build success upon success so you focus on the successes rather than the failures. It's all in the set-up."

Can you see the difference between my comment and the one I was responding to?

This past year I've attended a variety of Olympic Lifting coaching trainings and I've learned very valuable coaching perspectives from all of them, perhaps the most valuable takeaway for me;  it's all in the set-up!  

If you are comparing yourself to advertisements you aren't going to look as airbrushed or styled, or fit.  Even the actors/models/athletes/politicians themselves don't in real life.

If you start comparing yourself to yourself and start looking at non-subjective goals, it's going to start adding up.

Confidence will grow and it will get easier to keep looking for success.

Here are some more little tidbits I've picked up in relation to coaching the Olympic Lifts, can you see why this SO speaks to the psychotherapist in me...? ;)

• Learn the skills to observe and analyze and you can deepen pathways to provide more ease, efficiency and effectivity.
• The greater the technique, and skill, the more movement we can make under stress (i..e.,weight on the barbell/life).  Both strength and technique are buildable.
• Look for weakness not as an end, but with the end in mind.
• Learn to see pathways towards success and isolate how to get there.
• Look at the process; where and why you are there.
• Understand where do you want to go and how to get there and then they craft a program to get there; maintain focus and observation allowing for shifts to programing as needed.
• The learning and refinement of skill and strength creates a new pathway and a successful pattern.   Success built upon success and allows for greater growth.

I like to think that this is a role I take on with my clients.  Not necessiarily in relation to coaching athletes on Olympic Lifts, but certainly that I take the process of breaking down skills strengths and patterns into successful training pathways and apply that methodology to other pathways in life as well; building success upon success in the form of mental training and coaching.

How do you shape your paradigm so you see opportunities for success rather than failure?