Athletics & Average Advice: How to be a mindful superstar

Dealing with frustration

It's very easy to become frustrated, especially when the work you put in doesn't equal the result you were hoping to get out of it. We've all had our frustrations with people, sports, and life in general. It's easy to give up, but harder to keep pushing and persevering. How we deal with our frustrations is key to getting back on track and coming back harder than ever. Sure, your feelings are going to be a little hurt when things don't go your way, and that's common. It's all about bouncing back from the failure and how you go about dealing with it. Yes, people are going to talk, but that's when you block out the opinions of others and keep moving forward. Freshman year had its frustrations, but my senior year of college really made me reflect and look at myself in the mirror. That year was probably one of the most frustrating times I've ever gone through. I know for a fact that I never want to experience anything like that again and I pray that it doesn't happen to anyone either. Looking back at my freshman year, the end of that school year came with plenty of frustrations. After recording personal bests at the beginning of April, my body slowly and surely began to break down and fail me. The following meet after having PR's I ran much slower. I understand that it's common to not run another PR in back to back weeks, but I was hoping to execute and run fast again the following week. The frustration continued into the next week as well. The time in the 200m dash was much slower than the previous week. It was a time I hadn't ran in almost three years. I was frustrated, but I didn't show it. I expressed it with one of my older teammates and she understood where I was coming from. One way I've learned to deal with my frustration's now is by praying. Depending on your religion or your beliefs, this is one of the most powerful things you can do to deal with your problems. I can't speak for everybody, but that's something I do now. I allow God to take on my problems and talk with him when human intervention isn't enough. When you pray, it feels like a burden is lifted off your shoulders. Sometimes, you have to give your problems to God and keep moving forward. I didn't allow Him to carry my burdens and frustrations and it had me angry at the world and people for a while. You live and you learn. And you learn to deal with life's problems and frustrations. The following week after my subpar performance, we ended up going up to Pennsylvania for the Penn Relays meet. No individual events for most people this weekend and I could focus on helping my team perform. Most track and field fans are familiar with the Penn Relay Carnival as its one of the oldest meets in existence. It is also one of those meets where people go to have fun and you meet other people from other countries. The Jamaicans make the meet one of the most memorable meets because of their vibrant energy and hospitality. My team and I ended up running the 4x200m relay and the 4x400m relay. Prior to the 4x200, a guy from another team was running his mouth and said to me "I'm going to dust you. How'd your team even get into this event?" My teammates heard what he said, and I looked at them and said, "I got this. We'll handle it on the track." True to my word, I started the 4x200m relay and caught him within the first 40 meters of the race. Once I handed the baton off to my teammate, we were officially in first and the rest of my team took care of their legs as well. We won our heat and were invited to the Championship of America 4x200m relay final that was happening that Saturday. That section of Penn Relays is the section that gets televised and it would be my first time running on live television. I was excited and it helped to ease a bit of the frustration that I had experiencing for the past couple of weeks. We were going against the best teams in the country and I was at ease for the first time in a couple of weeks. I felt like I was back on the right track physically and mentally. Despite getting dead last in the Championship of America 4x200, it was a good weekend and I'm glad I got to experience the Penn Relays once. We didn't go back for the rest of my collegiate career because it interfered with final exams; however, we always ended up traveling to a meet that final week in April anyway despite final exams happening. After Penn Relays a couple of weeks passed and it was time for our Conference Championship meet. Training had been going well and was fairly productive and one thing my coach emphasized to me was to "run without thinking." That statement frustrated me for days on end. I had an idea of what it meant, but I didn't know how to do it. Running without thinking is easier said than done I thought to myself. Most people know that our best performances in sports generally come when we don't do a lot of thinking. We just react and let our skill take over. We go into a state of "flow." I learned in a sports psychology class that whenever we let things happen and just execute, we enter a state of "flow." This state that we enter can be described as autonomous. Track is an individual sport, but you are a part of a team at the end of the day. If you can't focus on you, your performance will suffer. I've had one too many races where I know I should've been the victor, but I let my mind take over instead of just executing my race plan. I would run someone else's race and not my own. Getting back to my story, my coach would always emphasize, "run without thinking." My training partner (I only had one training partner that year due to being the only true short sprinter recruited in the class of 2014 for my school), was pretty good at not thinking when he ran. He's very easy going and usually let's a lot of life problems bounce off him. In his words, he's a "free spirit." When it came to track, I was a big perfectionist. I love running so much that sometimes I forget to have fun and live in the moment. One thing I learned when dealing with my frustration is stop treating everything (especially track) like a business. I'm the type of individual that takes pride in everything that I do, whether it be in sports, in school, or at work. When I get focused, it's very hard to stop me from doing what needs to be done. When things don't go my way, I tend to be very hard on myself and get frustrated. I've learned over the years that not everything needs to be treated like a business unless it's necessary. From a track standpoint, I had to remember that track at the end of the day is a sport. A sport that is fun and something I ended up receiving a scholarship to go to college for. You cannot mix business with pleasure. At times, you can, but nine times out of ten the two don't mix well. Learning to not treat things like a business all the time can really help with dealing with little frustration problems. I'm still learning that skill to this day, but I know once I master it, the payouts will accrue dividends.