I was recently listening to a Mind Muscle Project Podcast with Khan Porter and it made me think about ‘The Process’ for myself and competitive athletes.
For a lot of people, myself included, Khan is a fan favourite. He is a larrikin, always smiling and laughing, down to earth, a great athlete and just seems to enjoy every moment that he’s competing.
It’s a blast to watch.
Khan has been a mainstay at the games over the past several years but after missing in 2017, we all wondered what exactly happened.
In this interview, Khan explains that, along with an ankle injury, he had fallen out of love with ‘The Process’.
The grind of the seasons had worn him down, he no longer enjoyed what he was doing day to day and he was fighting his own mental health battles.
He had basically planned to retire from competition after missing in 2017 and after a short stint overseas, he returned back home with plans just to run his gym.
If you would like his full recap and just a generally good chat about life, competition and mental health, then I would suggest having a listen to the episode but long story short he came back after his overseas trip, started working out in his gym (mostly general classes) again and hanging out with some of the competitive athletes to share his knowledge. He was writing all of his own and his gyms programming, throwing down with the competition group pressure free and just started having fun with his training again.
No coach
No pressure
No expectations
All of a sudden, he started to enjoy working out again and guess what happened?
He started to find himself in the best shape that he had ever been in.
He was getting up every day and actually having a great time.
He had found his way to fall back in love with ‘The Process’.
Fast forward a few months and Khan had a great CrossFit Open (first stage of qualifying for the games) and found himself going back to the Pacific Regionals (second stage of qualifying). At the time of this interview it was a week or so out from the regionals and Khan stated that he was happy however the weekend was going to play out as this last year of training had been the best time of his life and the results of the weekend weren’t going to define his season. No matter what, this season was a great success for Khan.
He would go on to finish 3rd (He had previously won the Pacific regionals but said that he was at one of his worst points of his competitive career mentally at that time so it didn’t mean much to him) and you can see the jubilation in his demeanor when he knew he had made it back to the Games. I can only imagine that this 3rd place means a lot more to him then the unhappy 1st he had experienced a few years before.
This whole story made me realise that buying in to the enjoyment of ‘The Process’ is key for success. Not the type of enjoyment like faking happiness every day with a smile on our faces and saying that everything is fine, but generally being content with where we are daily will lead to greater success. Focusing too hard on placings, opinions of others or comparisons to other athletes will eventually lead to pain at some stage. We have to be mindful not to grind ourselves into the ground with no reprieve and expect success to be anything other than unfulfilling.
We have to make sure that no matter what happens pre, during or post season that we are defined by our journey and our character and not a perceived destination.
” Focus on the process, not the outcome, and you will enjoy great success.”
Dr. Julie Amato
Actionable Takeaway:
As an athlete, spend 1 min before every training session and remind yourself of something that you are grateful for. Keep it training related, keep it short but let it sink in. This will help you to always enjoy and be in appreciation of ‘The Process’ no matter how tough it seems to get.
Examples:
“I am grateful to be in a position to train for my sport today.”
“I am grateful that I get to compete.”
“I am genuinely happy to be able to train everyday with my mates.”
These are just a few but you get the idea.
Enjoy the Process!
Dice
Side note: If you do follow CrossFit then you would have seen that a lot of top athletes that were expected to make the Games this year didn’t and the mindset of these athletes has been great to see. For most of them it has been quite similar. A few days of disappointment, a process of gratitude, acceptance that this outcome doesn’t define them and a promise of getting straight back to work to put themselves in the best position possible to be there next year. You can find some of their messages below ⇓
#Repost @christianvluc with @get_repost ・・・ The beautiful thing about sport is that it is very black and white, the results don’t lie. Does coming up short of my goal hurt? Of course, it hurts a lot. That’s good though if it didn’t hurt I would not belong on the competition floor. You need that sick feeling in your gut to make you the best and remind you day after day what needs to be done. The only thing that changes walking away from the weekend is that I will not be in Wisconsin in August. Other than that the goal remains the same, to be the best, the train doesn’t stop here. No brakes. #crossfitgames #crossfit
#Repost @tmayer18 with @get_repost ・・・ Faced with adversity everyone has choices. I choose to look towards the future, not dwell on the past. I choose to look to improve upon what I have built and not what I have failed at building. This will be a great year of growth, full of difficult challenges and choices but I choose to never give up! … Thank you @macrostax for helping me make smart decisions as I focus forward. #mustbethemacros #macrostax 📸 @crossfitgames
#Repost @garretmfisher with @get_repost ・・・ This past weekend was a tough one for me. It was a weekend filled with many highs and lows and in the end it didn’t turn out the way I was hoping for. However, I’m a firm believer everything happens for a reason and I’m going to take this experience and use it as a launch pad into the summer. Thank you to my family, friends, sponsors and fans for all the support throughout the year…it means the world to me. Love you all! 🌺
Inspired Lion 
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