Best ways to Engage in the Process
The process! What is it?
Everything you do day to day within your training pushes you towards your goals, however small a step it may seem that is the process. How do you know what to do? That’s the best thing about training, you simply don’t know. There is only experimenting and exploring different things all the time. Research, explore, try and try again, the way your body adapts and evolves with the training and the amount of time it takes varies from person to person.
That means there is no one way, just lots of different ways that are all put together over weeks, months and years that all add up to help you improve and make progress.
The principles are the same for everyone, the difference is what makes you tick and keeps you motivated may be different from one person to the next. What we do know is that the body adapts when it is rested. So including pre planned recovery days into the process is essential, physically and mentally. If you are hammering it in training everyday the likelihood is that you will find yourself fatigued and at a higher risk of getting injured, also you are more likely to give up!
The simplest of things make the biggest impression!
By creating structure and following a routine that provides stability and an ever changing landscape of things to work on, you are setting yourself up for success. Keeping everything you do simple and the way you do it uncomplicated you will feel more motivated to keep doing.
From my experience of Coaching people, I have found that those who are most successful with achieving their goals, are those who engage fully in the process.
What does that mean?
Being engaged is about respecting what you are doing, listening to those who provide the instruction and following up with your own actions. These things are key! I don’t expect all my Athletes to stand on ceremony when I enter a room, what I ask for is respect. This one behaviour is the single most important thing within the process.
The best way to show respect? Listening.
I am fortunate to be able work worth so many incredibly humble individuals young and old, we learn from each other and while they respect me as their Coach I also respect them as Athletes. Everyone’s opinion is valid and while there might have a difference in opinions, by listening and taking on board everyones ideas I’m respecting those who I meet day to day. No-one gets anywhere if there is no challenge, we will all fail to improve and succeed if everything stays the same or is one way. I challenge you and I love it when I’m challenged in return by my Athletes.
Coaching is a two way conversation, just because I ask you to do something doesn’t make it right, as I said above the process is about experimenting. So challenging me by asking questions about what and why we are doing something is all part of engaging in the process. Sometimes I might have a specific answer and sometimes it’s just that I want to try something new that may or may not work, but at least we are all on the same page, understanding what and why we are doing things. By travelling down every avenue during training we learn, discover what works best for you and we can always say we have tried even if we fail.
Learning from you is also so important to my work, I’m not Yoda! I’m an ever evolving human being who is passionate, loves to learn and loves to listen to other peoples knowledge and experiences, none of us have to agree with other peoples opinions and experiences, but by listening we are showing respect.
Engaging in the process requires a helping hand, whether it’s a Coach, Friends or Family having people around you that provide a positive influence will keep you on the right track to be successful with your goals. Keeping you motivated, providing feedback and challenging you to move further away from the status quo, because if you always do what you’ve always done. You will always get what you’ve always got!
What are the best ways to engage in the process? Here are my top 5 things to help keep you in the game
Keep your Structure, Routine and Actions Simple
Take people with you on your Journey
Respect everything and everyone involved, Listen & Learn
Challenge the process and those creating the path
Keep things fun, varied and ever changing
Rome was not built in a day, but they were laying bricks every hour!
It is much more important to focus on the process than it is to worry about the outcome. All the unglamorous things you do behind the scenes are all the things that are necessary to being successful. Start small, focus on improving 1% each day. You can simply put in an extra rep or include an extra 10 minutes of rest.
You don’t have to build everything you want today, but you do have to find a way to lay another brick!
Thanks for reading!
Paddy
A mountain of opportunity
I love supporting anyone who comes through the door and asks for my help, because there is always a mountain of opportunity ahead of us. When they come with a specific purpose for wanting to be Coached by me it makes the process even more exciting, whilst being a little scary, because they are putting there dreams and aspirations in my hands!
Angie has been training with me for 4 years doing a range of different sessions, groups, running development, one to ones and has been a great supporter of my approach. So when she asked for some extra one to one sessions to help her prepare for her latest big challenge there was no hesitation to find the time in my diary to fit.
Walking can often be taken for granted, it’s just putting one foot in front of the other. Increase the difficulty by adding in altitude, rough terrain and some climbing, the challenge is all of a sudden more complex. You also begin to respect it a lot more!
Angie was taking on a lifetime ambition of hiking to Everest Base Camp and then onto The Cho Lo Pass. She would require more than just physical strength, she would require confidence and mental fortitude to help her to succeed on her journey through the Himalayas!
We got to work and 6 months later she was ready physically and mentally to take on one of her biggest challenges! I am super proud of what Angie achieved, below is her story of training and her Adventure in the Himalayas!
I hope it inspires you on your own challenges.
Paddy
I've been fortunate enough to hike all over the world for the last 40+ years, driven by my deep, abiding love of mountains. Obviously, like many other mountain seekers, Everest has been calling my name for some time!
I wanted to climb Everest itself but the financial costs and time, with no guarantees that the weather conditions, or indeed your own physiological reaction to high altitude, will allow the climb to happen meant that my husband and I had to compromise.
The Cho La Pass ticked all the right boxes for our first foray into climbing at 5,000m+ altitude. Higher than Everest Base Camp, the trek takes you up and over one of the steep passes in the region. In addition, it would mean we could then go up to the beautiful Gokyo Lakes, the highest lakes in the world, and descend down a less well-trodden trail.
Alas, as the old saying goes, “The best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men, gang aft a-gley” and Covid well and truly scuppered our plans! It was devastating. I’m in my sixties and I knew time wasn’t on my side. On top of this, I succumbed to the Covid virus in September 2020. Although virtually symptomless at the time, it left me experiencing abnormal heart rhythms and spikes for nearly 9 months. Things weren’t looking good. However, nothing could deter me from my dream, and, in hindsight, it became a positive in that it made me get very serious about training and preparing for many days of high aerobic activity at low oxygen levels.
Enter Paddy. He had got me back into running successfully in 2019 and I had complete faith that his knowledge and experience could get me back to optimum mountain fitness for 2022. Even more importantly, his infectious positivity and faith in me restored my own belief that I could do this! I continued his HIIT and strength training classes alongside maintaining aerobic capacity with regular running but, in addition, we added one to one sessions focusing on improving all aspects of my muscular strength. While also incrementally increasing my balance, endurance, flexibility, mobility, recovery and importantly my confidence. His various, new-styled approach & classes were perfect for bringing my all-round fitness back to my pre-Covid days. This 62-year old grandmother was restored and raring to go. Family thought I was mad to even be contemplating it, but Paddy never doubted for a second that I could do it.
Twelve weeks prior to leaving for Nepal, the one to one strength training really went up a notch or two. Paddy constantly reminds his athletes that consistency is key to success and, in complete agreement with him; I made sure I never missed a session. It paid off big time. Throughout our Trek, I felt strong and resilient, which allowed me to thoroughly enjoy every minute of it. I experienced no high altitude symptoms and, at times, our guide even had to make me slow down (and stop walking ahead with the Sherpas, lol). The trip turned into more than I could have ever hoped for. It is such a beautiful and amazing place, you cannot come away from it without feeling it has changed you forever. I plan to continue working with Paddy because I plan to continue doing what I love – climbing those mountains!
I hope my story inspires you to take on your own Adventures.
Angie
Summat happened. Now we Accelerate!
Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine being where I am as a Coach or an Athlete, when I sat down this time last year to plan out 2022!
I’m 41 years of age! Yet in 2022 I felt for the first time in my life real freedom to express myself.
I’ve been given the opportunity to learn, train and work with amazing people, that this time last year I had either never met or had not spent a great deal of time with to really get to know.
I don’t believe in being lucky, I believe in making things happen by making choices and taking action on the things you want to accomplish. The thing is the choices I’ve made and actions I have taken in 2022 have led me on a path that I wasn’t sure I would be capable of following!
Everything around me seemed like it was having a negative influence on my life. I was low on confidence, didn’t believe in my ability as a Coach or an Athlete, I had begun to think that I was getting too old to be doing what I do, maybe I was also not cool enough or charismatic enough to pull off what I was trying to do and be! People kept dropping me as there Coach and Trainer, I was being left out of things and was being made to feel like I wasn’t good enough personally and professionally.
When you get into this kind of mindset it’s easy to shrink, to retreat from the fire and get back into your box!
I was starting to do exactly that! However there was one thing that was keeping me focused personally and one person who is always pushing me forwards. Helping me to make rational decisions and do what I want to do.
In January I had embarked on training for Manchester Marathon, my focus was on achieving a 3hr marathon and training was keeping me moving forwards. By my side as always has been Carly fully supporting me as she always has done. While she decided to call time on Coaching and working alongside me she continued to be my biggest supporter and inspiration for so many reasons she helps provide purpose to my training, work and life!
My first fail of 2022 came in the shape of injury, and the subsequent marathon disappointment. A simple ankle turnover turned out to be a more serious injury that halted my ambitions. However out of the ashes in Manchester was an olive branch in the shape of personal and professional development, which has since blossomed into amazing friendships. They say the comeback is stronger than the setback. Well this has been a comeback that has lived up to that phrase in so many ways.
You may have noticed I have been a lot quieter on socials and through my emails this year. Well there’s a reason, I’ve had nothing to say, and if I did have something to say I started to think who is actually listening or would even interested? By March my confidence was at an all time low, I was becoming more and more shy about who I was and what I was doing.
SUMMAT had to give! I made 2 choices in late March. The first was to reconnect with the Team at Accelerate in Sheffield, Carly had bought tickets for us to go to the Big Running Weekend…Both of us would have liked to have gone all weekend, but I had commitments with the Fourshires on Sunday and Carly had just begun life as a Barista at the new coffee shop & training studio in Bakewell called SUMMAT. I was able to go on the Saturday all day and Carly came over in the afternoon to enjoy a run and talk with Jo Pavey.
This weekend lit a fire within me! Maybe it was talking to a former Olympian who in her 40s has still not given up on improving. Maybe it was the inspiring talk given by Dot Kesterton who at 70 years of age still has ambitions of even greater success than she has already achieved! Or was it just that I was finally in an environment that made me feel welcome and someone who has something to offer.
The following week I picked up my injury while out with the Fourshires. It was something and nothing, but it was enough to make me properly reassess everything in my life personally and professionally. That for me was my lightbulb moment this year. I NEEDED HELP!
You don’t get help unless you ask for it, that means being brave so that’s what I did. I reached out to my now Coach Stu Hale! ‘Can you help this 40 year old former Rugby player become a better endurance Athlete? In the process can I pick your brain and maybe mentor me to help me be a better Coach for the people I work with?’
So it began!
Whilst trying to improve myself I also needed a better place to be based out of as a Coach. Along came an opportunity to bring some of my sessions to a new place in Bakewell called SUMMAT. A modest place with bags of potential to build something new from, providing focused, specific training and coaching for people and Athletes of all abilities! The bonus of this it is also a coffee shop that sells the best coffee in Bakewell and with Carly working there she makes the cakes! Win Win!
My overall progress through 2022? It’s been slow, but positive, taking small steps have been taken on my the journey. Coaching all the amazing people I have had the opportunity to work with has refreshed my outlook! Training alongside like minded people who are focussed on a goal that is about improving in order to be fitter, stronger and performing well rather than putting all their eggs in one basket and it becoming a long slog and chore to continue with.
My proudest achievement of 2022? Overcoming my own mental demons, finding my confidence and discovering that I am more capable as a Coach and an Athlete than I thought!
My biggest lesson learned in 2022? No matter who you are, always be a beginner, enter every situation with an open mind and don’t get ahead of yourself during the process.
My biggest success in 2022? Becoming a member of Team Accelerate! I’m a better Athlete and Coach because of my commitment to spending my Saturdays training with the team under the watchful, wise tutelage, of our Coach Stu and the support provided by Debs and the rest of the team at Accelerate and the APC. This friendship that I have been surrounded by from everyone within the Accelerate Community has been a huge part of my development.
My deepest appreciation in 2022? Being afforded the time to build my confidence professionally to showcase my talent and ability as a Coach at Summat. Sam has provided me with a space that I have been able to create a whole new way of approaching my life as a Coach. There’s so much to be excited about in the coming 12 months.
Everything I have done and achieved over the last year has been because I have had a team of people, Coaches and Athletes around me.
I want to thank everyone who has been a part of this incredible journey, you have come along for the ride, whether you have trained with/alongside me or have supported me in anyway during 2022. I will forever be grateful and appreciative to have had so many of you by my side and together we will lace up and continue to improve and make progress on this amazing journey!
Whatever happens we are a Team, Always!
As for 2023, the road looks a lot less bumpy! The journey will continue to be winding and I’m sure it will take me along to a few dead ends and into some rabbit holes, but that’s okay it’s all part of the process. I’m equipped, ready and feel supported to press the accelerator just a little harder to continue to IMPROVE in all aspects of my life. 2022 opened my eyes wide and so that in 2023 I can tap into some more of my potential.
Summat happened in 2022, but this is only the beginning!
As a Coach, I will continue to learn and develop every day. I will be supporting you all the way to creating purpose, consistency and belief for your own achievements. Improving one step at a time, discovering your potential and finding out what you are really capable of.
As an Athlete, I will continue to learn and develop every day, staying purposeful with my actions, while being consistent with my training. My confidence is up and I have a good feeling that this year is going to be great!
Are you with me and ready to accelerate through the gears? Discovering what you are capable of in 2023?
Lace up and let’s get to it!…
Paddy