"Don't be content with average because
Average is just as close to the bottom as it is to the top"
--Danielle Ballentine

As autumn arrives and triathlon season draws to a close, it's the perfect time for a review. Looking back at the training you put-in and the triathlons you raced, how did you do? What grade would you give yourself? Excellent? Average? Incomplete? If you received something less than an A+ now is the time, during the off-season, to determine what you need to do to make the grade for next year.

When asked, most of us would say that we aim for excellence - after all, how many people strive to be mediocre? But what is excellence? Is excellence reserved only for those who finish first? Can a triathlete be excellent and still be a middle-of-the-packer?

Many books have been written on excellence, both in the world of sport and in the world of business. And yet, there exists no one clear definition. To some extent, excellence is what you make of it. Still, three aspects of excellence seem to run true across people and disciplines.

Excellence is an Experience

Traditionally, excellence has been defined by outcome - first place finishes, medals, and rankings. This "performance excellence" is but one form of excellence. More recently, sport psychologists have begun placing equal emphasis on "personal excellence," the acquisition of personal qualities that contribute to one's optimal health and wellbeing. Although the number of people entering the sport of triathlon rapidly increases, the number of first place finishers in a race remains static. Triathlon, like most endurance sports, is essentially a battle where one is competing against oneself. So for most triathletes how they perform will be a better measure of excellence than whether or not they win.

Hopefully, at the beginning of this season you set goals. Maybe it was to complete your first Olympic-distance event. Maybe it was to better last year's time at your favorite race. Maybe it was to place in your age-group or to win a slot at Kona. Where performance excellence would have you ask whether or not you accomplished these goals, personal excellence would have you consider your experience along the way. If performance excellence is crossing the finish line, personal excellence is how your felt about yourself throughout all of the events the lead up to that moment. It is the experience of training your hardest, swimming your hardest, cycling your hardest, and running your hardest. Wolfgang Schadler, Head Coach for the US Olympic luge team describes this experience when he states,

Victory isn't defined by wins or losses. It is defined by effort. If you can truthfully say, "I did the best I could, I gave everything I had," then you're a winner.

As you look at the t-shirts and colored swim caps you collected from this year's races, as you evaluate the season, try asking yourself these questions: Did I enjoy training? Did I enjoy competing? Did I give my all this season? Did being a triathlete this season improve me as a person? The experience of personal excellence is not whether you were better than everyone else but whether you became your best.

Excellence can be Nurtured

Consider what makes one athlete excel when another physically equal athlete doesn't. Since athletic performance is 90% mental, it is safe to assume that the first athlete mentally prepares him or herself in ways the later does not. In his book, "In Pursuit of Excellence," Terry Orlick writes that, "The greatest barriers in our pursuit of excellence are psychological barriers that we impose on ourselves, sometimes unknowingly."

To experience excellence we must overcome our personal psychological barriers. First we must become aware of what these are and how they impact our performance. Then we must take action to transform ourselves. Orlick describes seven broad areas for improvement that athletes can focus on to overcome obstacles: commitment, focus, confidence, positive images, mental readiness, distraction control, and ongoing learning. While any of these would make a great mental skills workshop (and often does), here is a brief description of each one and suggestions for incorporating it into your training.

Commitment
Orlick writes that, "Excellence results from acting daily in ways that lead you to excel - step by step." Excellence requires persistence as training will always have its ups and downs. Those who are committed to excellence persevere. Susan Casey, past editor of Sports Illustrated Women, writes

In every sport there comes a moment when a spell of bitter weeping seems like a fair recess from whatever tough work is going on. It's only the steeliest among us who can fight the urge to turn negative - who instead will make contact and redouble her efforts. Call it grace under pressure. Call it grit- call it excellence.

To strengthen your commitment next season:

Work on improving every day and in every performance.

When training gets tough, see it through to the end.

Ensure that your commitment to triathlon includes a commitment to respect your personal needs as well as the needs of those who rely upon you.

Focused concentration
The demands of instantaneous and ever-changing information often make it difficult to direct our attention to solely one thing. Excellence in triathlon, as in life, requires focused concentration. Orlick defines focus as "a mind-place where nothing else in your world exists apart from being totally connected with what you are engaged in or experiencing at that moment." The state of excellence is a state of total absorption in your performance. This state of focused concentration is often referred to as "being in the zone" or in the "flow."

To improve your ability to focus next season:

Set aside time each day to practice focusing.

During your day, observe whether or not you are in the here and now; doing so will bring you back into the present.

Check throughout your workouts to see if your mind is drifting off; if so re-focus.

Confidence
Without confidence there is no excellence. Orlick writes, "Pure confidence comes from feeling grounded in who you are and what you are doing. In the presence of pure confidence, you trust your focus, and your performance blooms; in its absence, you rarely touch your full potential." Confidence is born out of experience. By focusing on our strengths, reflecting upon our successes, and physically preparing ourselves, we build confidence.

To build confidence next season:

Look for one positive thing in each workout or performance.

Keep a training log and recognize the ways in which you are progressing.

Practice positive thinking.

Positive Images
The power of positive imagery is well known to athletes. Most of the world's best competitors incorporate visualization into their training routines. They use imagery to prepare themselves for practice, to learn new skills, to improve their ability to relax under pressure. Orlick writes that positive imagery, "allows you to create the conditions for success without having actually executed that performance in the real world." In doing so, positive imagery improves focus and builds confidence.

Next season, use positive images to:

Create a clear vision of your goals.

Imagine yourself racing exactly the way you would like to race.

Revisit and re-experience past successes.

Mental Readiness
For most triathletes, the majority of our time is spent becoming physically ready to meet the challenges of continuous swimming, cycling, and running. Regardless of how strong our physical condition may be when we start a race, our ability to finish is dependent upon our mental state. Orlick maintains that to be mentally ready, an athlete "must consistently enter a positive, focused state for learning, performing, or interacting." Mental readiness is dependent on the acquisition and practice of skills - goal-setting, positive self-talk, and relaxation training, to name a few.

To get yourself mentally ready for next season:

Develop an action plan for developing a positive mindset.

Obtain professional training in areas where you can use improvement.

Practice getting mentally ready before each and every workout.

Distraction Control
In this modern age, even those of us who are not diagnosed with attention deficit disorder suffer at times from being easily distracted. One only need experience the circus-like atmosphere that permeates the transition area of most major triathlons to recognize the importance of not getting distracted. Triathletes face distractions that are both external (getting kicked in the face during the swim leg) and internal (thinking that you can't run another step). Orlick writes that when athletes, "experience negative thoughts, lapses in concentration, setback, or dips in confidence - before, during or after a performance - the goal is to quickly regain a positive perspective or a fully connected focus." Refocusing attention on something positive or something within our control helps us re-enter our state of mental readiness.

To reduce your distractibility next season:

Practice turning negatives into positives.

Develop reminders and images that you can use to help you regain a positive perspective.

Create a "disaster plan" for dealing with distracting situations (e.g., flat tires, lost water bottles, bad tasting sports drink).

Ongoing Learning
Orlick writes, "Personal excellence results from living the lessons from your experiences." Self-reflection on past performances informs us of where we need to devote more time and effort in the pursuit of excellence. Revisiting successful workouts and races to determine what we did right provides us with the insight needed to re-create the mental state that led to these performances. The achievement of excellence is an on-going process of self-evaluation and improvement. Excellence is, as Pat Riley stated, "the gradual result of always striving to do better."

Learn from this season by:

Determining what mental conditions led to your best performances.

Determining what mental skills were missing prior to or during your worst performances.

Committing to make improvements before the next season starts.

Excellence is Rooted in Passion

Human nature being what it is, most of us will avoid what we dislike, do what we like, and excel at what we love. To be truly excellent we must find something we feel passionate about and then pursue it through activities designed to reinforce that feeling. We must discover our dream - an idea that captures us so intensely that we are willing to make great sacrifices to bring it to fruition.

Doug Newburg, a sport psychologist, proposes that excellence comes as a byproduct of engaging ourselves on a daily basis in the expression of our dream. Unlike the goals we set which are objective, our dream is entirely subjective. It represents how we want to feel when we engage in a particular activity.

Newburg uses the term resonance to describe a seamless fit between how one wants to feel each day and the world in which he or she lives. In a series of interviews with top performers he found that those who excel seek resonance. Their daily activities are designed to promote their dream, to enhance and reinforce those things about which they feel most passionate.

A client came to me with the desire to try triathlon. He explained that he had never been athletic as a child, avoiding sports almost entirely. In exploring his reasons for wanting to become a triathlete he discovered that what he really wanted was to feel like an athlete. He knew triathletes are some of the best conditioned athletes in the world and wanted to share in that feeling. After recognizing that his passion was to feel like an athlete, he was then able to organize his schedule, his workouts, his nutrition, and many other things around it; he created resonance in his life. He used the feeling of being an athlete and the desire to continually re-experience it as the force that motivated him toward excellence and across the finish-line of his first race.

Anita Sharpe, a Pulitzer Prize-winning writer, wrote an article entitled "In Search of Excellence (Apologies to Tom Peters)." In it she describes her experience of watching her son hit a home run as a first-grader as well as making a seemingly impossible, game-winning catch in outfield. She believed that her son would one day make a great ball player, even as he grew up and evidence to the contrary (not paying attention to the game, not picking up a bat or glove to practice) was presented. When her son was nine, he got a guitar. And while no one asked him to, he practiced two hours a day. Within a year he was playing on stage with a band. In reflecting upon this development, Sharpe had an epiphany.

While there is certainly no excellence without talent, it's over-the-top enthusiasm that makes the real difference. True excellence fueled by passion doesn't have to be outwardly encouraged, even in children. It doesn't require "motivation" - at least as we commonly practice it. True excellence is about finding that one thing that you do well and want to do many hours a day, even when the field is muddy or your fingers bleed.

Between now and next season, as the laps you swim decrease, the number of miles you ride lessen, and the amount of time you run shortens, give some thought to what you are passionate about, particularly with respect to triathlon. Find you dream. Then use it propel you to excellence next season.