I was living in Durham and one day, when my car was out of action, I went to Newcastle on the train. On the way back I was late and rushed into the station just as my train left. I had an hour to wait until the next one, but rather than be annoyed, I decided to make the most of it. My running was finished for the day, so I went to the pub. I like pubs and I like beer; I always have done and I expect I always will. There are some grand, old pubs near the station and within a couple of minutes I was ordering a pint of real ale.
I really enjoy the great flavour and variety of traditional beer. Some people complain that you sometimes get a pint that is poor quality, but I don’t worry about that because sometimes you get one that is tremendous. I find that keg beers and lagers are always the same wherever you go. They are reliable but average. They can never soar to the heights that real ale can reach at its peak. As I sat down at a small table in the corner, my first sip confirmed that I had just bought a masterpiece in a glass.
One of the places I had been to in Newcastle was a bookshop. I had bought a couple of novels, a notepad, and a copy of the Concise Oxford Dictionary. I pulled the notepad and a pen out of my bag and laid them on the table. I felt like I needed to make a plan. I had committed myself to running when I walked away from my father’s business, but I didn’t seem to know how I was going to fulfil whatever potential I had. All I had done was burn my bridges, and I felt unsure about how to make progress. I needed to do something different, but I didn’t know what.
I picked up my pen and wrote, ‘What do I want?’ at the top of the page. I started to make a list of things like ‘improve my times’ and ‘win more races’, but I soon realised that I had been trying to do those things for the past ten years.
I needed to look at things differently, and I remembered an article I had read about a company that wanted to recruit a new employee. They advertised the job in various newspapers. They gave a full description of the work involved and offered a salary of £60,000. They got no response; nobody applied. They were surprised, but decided to re-advertise the job a few weeks later. They ran exactly the same advert in the same newspapers, but changed the salary to £25,000. This time they got dozens of replies. The article went on to talk about the self-image that everybody has, and how it is shaped and reinforced by all the experiences in our lives. This self-image affects everything we do. It determines the way we dress, where we live, the car we drive, the friends we have, the job we do and the salary we earn. The people applying for the job had never imagined they were worth £60,000, but could see themselves earning £25,000. It is very difficult to cross the boundaries of the map we all have tucked away in our heads, because our subconscious minds always want to guide us to somewhere familiar and safe. Our accumulated experience tells us who and what we are, and our minds make us act in a way that fits our own particular comfort zone.
I tried to imagine how somebody could do a job for £25,000 but couldn’t do it for more than twice as much. But then I thought about what it would be like for very shy people, who are asked to give a presentation to a big audience. They would start to sweat, breathe harder and their pulse would quicken and they might feel nauseous. These are strong physical reactions caused by the prospect of leaving the comfort zone.
For years I had assumed that my failure to run better was down to a combination of injuries and not training hard enough; but I started to wonder if it was my own self-image that was holding me back. If making a presentation could create such a strong physical reaction, then surely the prospect of winning a big race could cause a reaction that was strong enough to make sure I didn’t win. Perhaps ‘running quite well but not winning’ was exactly what my subconscious self-image thought I should be doing.
This idea came as a shock, but I quickly realised that it was probably true. I used to be the boy in glasses at the bottom of the class who couldn’t kick a ball and came last in a handicap race. I had to retake my A levels to get into the polytechnic. Perhaps I had turned down my father’s business because I didn’t think I was worthy of it. Why would my self-image involve great achievements? Apart from a couple of decent races, I had never done anything to suggest I was going to be better than average.
I consoled myself with a mouthful of beer, and kept the delicious flavour in my mouth while I wondered what to do. Eventually I decided to swallow it and I began to smile. Whenever I have a problem, I always feel better about it when I know what’s happening. In the same way that I felt better in hospital when I realised I was having a life-threatening anaphylactic shock, I now felt better because there was a plausible reason for my level of performance. In hospital I hadn’t worried too much about how my body was going to survive the trauma it was going through, and now I wasn’t worrying too much about how I was going to change 28 years of uninspiring, accumulated experience. I was simply happy that I was going to try to do it.
I picked up my pen and wrote ‘change my mind’. Realising what this usually meant I wrote, ‘I am not going to change my mind about this; I am going to alter my mind’. The question, of course, was how? As I was wondering where on earth to start the process of changing my subconscious self-image, the man at the next table was joined by a younger man.
‘Hello Thomas,’ said the older man, ‘Where’s Paul?’
‘He’s at the bar getting some drinks,’ said Thomas.
‘So, how are you?’
‘Not bad,’ replied Thomas.
‘What did you think of my proposal?’
‘Yeah, not bad. I think it’ll be a lot of work, and there is no guarantee, but it might succeed.’
A third man came to the table with some drinks, and the older man greeted him.
‘Hello Paul. How are you?’
‘Fantastic,’ said Paul. ‘I loved your proposal. If we do the work for it, it could really succeed.’
I had no idea what they were talking about, but I felt sure that Paul was going to do a better job than Thomas. I stopped listening, and thought about my reaction. They had only said a few words, but from those words I had concluded that one was going to be more successful than the other. I was intrigued. I knew nothing about their talents, experience or ability, but from the words they used, I could tell a lot about their attitude. Thomas wasn’t looking forward to all the work involved, especially as there was no guarantee of success, whereas Paul didn’t seem worried about the work because it might bring success. I realised how similar this was to a running career. There was no guarantee of success after years and years of training, but the work had to be done to provide the chance of success.
I was suddenly struck by an interesting thought. I had intuitively decided that Paul would do a better job than Thomas after hearing them both speak for a few seconds. I had gone some way to explaining it when I analysed it, but my opinion had been formed instantly. I started to wonder if my own subconscious mind was intuitively expecting a lack of success for me because of my attitude. To most people my attitude would have seemed good; I trained twice a day come rain or shine; I had come back many times from serious injuries, and I had even given up the opportunity of my father’s business to pursue my sport. But I was starting to realise that although I had an attitude that made me diligent in my training, it wasn’t the same thing as having an attitude that would make me successful in my running. It was a very small word that made me realise the difference.
Thomas was probably very diligent in his work, but when asked how he was, had replied, ‘not bad’. I realised that whenever I was asked how I was, or how my running was going, I also said ‘not bad’. I took my new dictionary out of its bag and opened it at the back. There were 1,358 pages of word definitions. I flicked my thumb across all the pages until I got to aardvark, and wondered how many thousands of words had just flashed before my eyes. I had bought the dictionary because I like to learn new words, and I sometimes need to cheat in crosswords, but mostly because I enjoy language. English is a wonderfully diverse and expressive language. When used effectively, it can be incredibly descriptive, moving, uplifting, poetic, inspirational and eloquent. Yet despite all this, when asked how my running was going, the word I chose to use was ‘bad’. I qualified it by putting ‘not’ in front of it, but out of all the thousands of possible words, I was selecting ‘bad’ to describe my favourite activity.
I tried to justify myself by thinking how everybody tends to say ‘not bad’ and it’s just a custom and doesn’t really mean very much. I stopped because I suddenly knew how wrong my attitude was. I wanted to be a successful runner, and to be successful I had to be a lot better than average. Most people are average, and I had to be different to most people if I was going to be better. Doing or saying something because most people did it wasn’t going to help me to be better than them. I needed to do, say and think things in a better and different way.
Paul had answered the question about how he was in a better way than anybody I had heard before. He had said ‘fantastic’. His attitude to his work was good, and he felt fantastic about himself. I really liked the sound of this. I felt as if I was starting to grasp the need for an attitude of success, above and beyond an attitude of mere diligence. I picked up my pen, and under the heading of ‘What do I want’, I wrote, ‘I want to feel fantastic. I want to feel absolutely fantastic’.
I took a few sips of my drink, and started to relish the idea of developing a new successful attitude. I liked the idea that I had to be different to most people, if I was going to become better than average. I really liked the idea that it didn’t mean I had to train harder than everybody else, because it was dawning on me that I needed to think differently to everybody else, and by thinking differently, I could develop an attitude of success.
This sounded great; if thinking differently was going to make me a better runner, I could do it sitting in the pub. I smiled to myself and took another drink as I figured I was making myself a better runner right now. A few moments later, I realised that I still hadn’t answered the all important question. How was I going to change the attitude I’d had for the last ten years?
I looked around the pub at everybody talking. I looked at my dictionary, and then at my notepad. I saw the word fantastic, and realised what I had to do. It was simple, but probably not easy. I had to change my vocabulary. I realised that if I changed my vocabulary, I would change the thoughts in my head. When I changed my thoughts, I would change my actions. When I changed my actions, I would get different results.
That seemed quite logical to me, but when I missed all the steps out and wrote down ‘improve my vocabulary = run faster’ I thought it sounded crazy. But then I remembered that I had already decided to think differently to most people, so I wrote ‘think differently’ as a heading above it, and suddenly it became a legitimate idea.
Having crazy concepts was fine, as long as I could turn them into something practical. Nearly every runner I knew talked about training hard, and how much harder they were going to train to get better. I had often felt this attitude was a problem for them and already had some ideas about it. I began to wonder how I could take a different approach, and a stream of thoughts came into my head.
If I thought I had to train hard, it followed that I would have to train harder and harder to get better. This was true up to a point, but if I went on training harder, I would become too tired, stale and probably injured. It was true that my performance would improve with more training until I reached the optimum level, and beyond that point, more training would make me worse.
If I thought in terms of training hard, I was in danger of never being satisfied. Even if I had done some excellent training I could always tell myself I could have done more, or I could have run quicker. What I really needed was to train to my optimum level; to do enough but not more. Enough for a top runner is a huge amount of physical work, but if I thought in terms of optimum training, I was sure I would be happy and satisfied with what I had done. The problem with this was the word itself. People like to say ‘I train hard’ because they can put so much feeling and emotion into it, but you just can’t say ‘I train optimally’ with passion in your voice. The concept was right, but the word was no help. I just couldn’t feel excited about training optimally. I needed a different word.
I started to think about all the group track sessions I had done when somebody had run the last one or two efforts faster than the others. If we were doing, say, 10 times 400 metres in 66 seconds, there would be someone running the last one or two in 64, because they wanted to prove to themselves that they could do more or go faster. I figured there were two main problems with this. First, they were given a set of instructions or a target, which they decided to change at the last minute. Surely this teaches the subconscious mind that whatever you set out to do isn’t good enough, and that your intentions are unreliable. Secondly, they are left feeling dissatisfied, because having run 64 for the last repetition, they then wonder if they could have run 63 if they had tried harder. The whole concept of training harder can make you feel like you should have done more, no matter how much you have done.
I compared this with running all 10 repetitions in the required 66 seconds. I would have achieved exactly what I set out to do, and could feel satisfied with a job well done. My subconscious would learn that when I complete the task I set myself, it feels good. If I could have run faster at the end, I could look forward to doing a better training session next time.
I knew I had to think about optimal training, and avoid the concept of hard training, but what was I going to call it? Suddenly, I realised that getting ten out of ten wasn’t optimal, it was perfect. That was the word I needed, and from now on I would try to do ‘perfect’ training. Every time I achieved what I set out to do, I was going to call it perfect. If I did my 10 repetitions in 66 and the guy training with me left me behind on the last two, that’s great, because my training was perfect, but his was hard.
I imagined that every time I told myself my training was perfect, my subconscious mind would store it. Eventually it would become used to being perfect. Every time the other guy said his training was hard, his subconscious would store it and learn to expect running to be hard. When it came to the big race, the really big one, he would be thinking, ‘this race is going to be really hard; I will have to run harder than ever.’ His subconscious would know that running hard was never good enough, and to make reality fit with this self-created image, it would make sure that he ran a race that just wasn’t quite good enough.
But if I could get this right, when I thought about the big race I would say to myself, ‘this is a huge test for me, it will be very difficult, in fact, to do well I will have to run the perfect race.’ To this my subconscious mind would respond, ‘the perfect race? No problem, I do that all the time.’
I had read various things about positive thinking, and some people said you could do anything with positive thinking. I didn’t agree with that. No matter how positive my thinking was I would never be a sprinter or high jumper, because I didn’t have the fast-twitch muscle fibres to do it. I decided that you can’t do anything with positive thinking, but you can probably do everything better than you would with negative thinking. But what I was trying to develop wasn’t positive thinking, it was specific thinking. Like using the right words, I wanted to think in a precise way that would make me more successful.
The obvious question popped into my head. What precisely did I mean by successful? I knew that I wanted to be successful, but I was shocked to realise that I had never really defined it. I thought about times, victories, medals and championships, but struggled to identify a performance that I could call a success because I didn’t know what I was capable of achieving. Everything I thought of was an unknown; it might be too ambitious, it might not. I didn’t want to define success as something I may not be able to do. I decided that success was becoming the best I could be, whatever that was. I wanted to get better and better until I couldn’t improve any more.
I wrote on my pad, ‘Success is measured by how much I fulfil the talent I was born with.’ I liked this because everybody could use the same definition of success, and therefore I felt it had to be true. I also felt as if my inadequate self image was going to like it because this definition meant that I no longer had to compare myself with other people. From now on, all I had to do was compare the new me with the old me. If I was improving, I was becoming more successful, and if I kept the process going I was … It hit me. If I kept it going until I truly fulfilled whatever talent I had, I couldn’t be more successful. Nobody could be more successful. I may not win the prizes and acclaim of someone with more talent, but I could be just as successful as them. This was the sort of thinking I was looking for. I realised that when I eventually retired from running, I would know how much I had fulfilled my talent, and that whatever level of success I reached, it was entirely down to me.
I felt good, but knew that I had to continue developing a precise plan. Reaching my ultimate success would be a journey of many stages. I had to set more goals. I had to keep asking myself ‘what do I want?’ on a short term, medium term and long term basis. My long term goal was to be the best I could be, but I was in a competitive, measured sport and I had to achieve some clearly defined steps. It would be crazy to set off on a journey without knowing the route. I picked up my pen and three times I underlined the words ‘what do I want?’
Self doubt was never too far away with me, and as soon as I had put my pen down another question popped into my head. Why? Why did I want these things? As I thought about it, I realised this wasn’t self doubt; it was to eliminate doubt. If I really wanted something I should know why I wanted it. If I couldn’t answer the question why, then perhaps I didn’t really want it. I tried to imagine running some race because my club or a coach or my family thought I should, and coming to the crunch moment when I felt as if I was flat out, but I had to find a little bit more. How much could I find if other people had put me there, compared to how I would respond if I was desperate to win for my own reasons? I felt sure that ‘why do I want it?’ was just as important as ‘what do I want?’ so I wrote it down and underlined it.
These two questions led inevitably to a third. How much do I want it? That crunch moment in a race would be altered by why I was doing it, but it could be transformed by how much I wanted it. I suddenly remembered a story I had heard many years ago. A little boy was playing in the garden, while his mother was busy inside the house. Suddenly she heard a terrible screeching noise, a thud and then silence. She looked out of the window, but the boy wasn’t there. She ran into the garden, but he wasn’t there. She ran to the street and in the middle of the road was a car with the driver sitting paralysed by shock. Under the wheels of the car, her little boy lay motionless. There was nobody else in the street, and the driver was still in shock, so she ran to the car and tried to pull the boy free, but he was trapped. Filled with fear and dread, she grabbed hold of the side of the car and with a huge effort lifted it up; she arched her back against it and with a free hand pulled the boy to safety.
I have no idea if this story is true, but I decided that I was going to believe it. I don’t know what car levitation translates into as a running performance, but I loved the idea that in very special circumstances someone could produce a feat of physical strength that would be completely beyond them in a normal situation. A mother’s desire to protect her child is a very powerful instinct, and running was never going to be a matter of life and death, but the prospect of being able to run better than ever before, by dint of my desire to do it, was thrilling.
As I was writing ‘how much do I want it?’ on my pad, I was distracted by more people joining the group nearby. They were now a chair short at their table and to one of the newcomers, Thomas, said, ‘You could ask Einstein in the corner if he can spare that stool.’ As I happily let the guy have a seat I wasn’t using, I realised how incongruous I probably looked. I was surrounded by people talking to each other, while I sat by myself at a table with a dictionary and a notepad on it, staring at nothing for most of the time, and occasionally making a note. My immediate reaction was to be irritated by his sarcasm, but then I remembered that he was the one with the attitude I was trying to lose. I was sitting here trying to think differently to him, so I changed it round, and inside my head I pretended I was with someone (she was very beautiful as far as I remember) and, silently, I said to her, ‘See that guy over there? He compares me to Einstein. But, of course, he’s wrong. Einstein was a very clever guy, but I am pretty sure that over 10K I could have thrashed him.’ (As far as I remember, she was impressed.) I decided that thinking and doing things differently to the average person was necessary to be better than average, but it would sometimes make me stand out as different. The way to deal with this was to embrace it, have fun with it and try to enjoy it. I also decided to develop the ability to switch things round in my head, so that when I was faced with a problem I didn’t react to it, but instead I responded to it by finding something positive and useful in it.
The mention of Einstein made me remember something he once said, which was ‘imagination is more important than knowledge.’ It seemed an odd thing for such a knowledgeable man to say, but he meant that knowledge is an accumulation of what is already known; however, to discover new things you needed to imagine what they might be and how you might find them. I imagined if it was good enough for Einstein, it was good enough for me.
I was sure that it was almost impossible to achieve a performance that my mind, or self image, thought was beyond me. So perhaps I had to imagine myself as a better runner before I could become one. I wasn’t thinking about the sort of world beating fantasy that most runners have when they are running through the park. I was thinking about precise, mental rehearsal that would lead to better results. I would train my mind to accept the reality of the performances I imagined.
As I savoured another sip of my drink, I felt as if I needed one more piece to complete the jigsaw. I needed something different, something special. I needed some inspiration. I tried to imagine myself as various famous runners from the past, but that didn’t work because it didn’t fit my definition of success, which was all about my success from my talent. I needed to use my imagination more.
Perhaps I could use something from the animal kingdom? The cheetah was the fastest runner on earth. The lion was regarded as the king of the jungle, and the eagle was magnificent as it soared high up in the air. I couldn’t identify with any of these because their special qualities came naturally to them, and my self image didn’t include any innate greatness. I needed something more humble. I let my imagination wander and eventually I found what I needed at the bottom of my own garden.
This is a very humble creature indeed. It doesn’t look inspiring, it doesn’t sound inspiring, but when my imagination realised what it thinks it became truly inspiring to me. I felt sure that I now had what I needed to succeed, and on my pad I wrote ‘I am going to think like a caterpillar.’ The caterpillar spends its time surviving. It hides from birds and eats leaves, but it is one of the most ambitious creatures on the planet because all the time it is thinking, ‘one day I am going to grow beautiful wings and I am going to fly.’
If my self image could not relate to a cheetah or lion, surely it could be as ambitious as a tiny twig-like creature at the bottom of my garden. The caterpillar needs both time and the right conditions to fulfil the incredible potential that is hidden inside it. Perhaps I could be just like the caterpillar, and with my new approach I could discover potential inside me that had never yet been seen. If I could feed my self image with caterpillar thinking and get all the other conditions just right, perhaps I could fly free from my comfort zone and, one day, travel all the way to the fulfilment of my talent.
I turned the page on my notepad and wrote a summary of everything I had decided. ‘Change my vocabulary. Aim for perfection. Know what I want, why I want it, and how much I want it. Use my imagination. Try to feel fantastic, and think like a caterpillar.’ I was sure my self image would have no trouble identifying with such a lowly creature, but would it be able to transform when the time came? If I kept saying to myself ‘one day I will do this and one day I will do that’ I had to realise that eventually the day would come when I had to say ‘and today is the day’.
I finished my beer and looked at my watch. I had a decision to make. Should I have another pint of Eureka, or go for the train? This was the new me. I went for the train.