Defeating Performance Anxiety, One Revolution at a Time
Start, Tour de Palm Springs, 2015
Last weekend, I rode in the annual Tour de Palm Springs around the Coachella Valley. I joined several thousand people who challenged the high-80s heat, distance, and themselves.
I’ve been cycling my entire life. In my young-adult-no-kids-and-few-obligations years, a 50-mile ride was routine. But last weekend felt anything but routine. Lately I haven’t been riding as much as I’d like, so the lack of miles in my legs meant 50 miles was a stretch. I was quite anxious as the ride approached, and far from confident that I could ride that far.
Preparation limits anxiety
Despite my anxiety (and lack of fitness), I managed to complete the ride. It was even fun, and I’m proud of the accomplishment. I also was reminded how to manage anxiety when approaching a big, scary venture. First: Preparation reduces anxiety, and a lack of preparation creates anxiety. When I committed to the ride many months ago, I created a careful training plan, which I proceeded to ignore, leaving me with insufficient fitness. Had I been disciplined enough to stick with it, I would have lined up at the start line feeling confident rather than anxious.
So does planning
Second: My biggest challenge was that lack of confidence. My anxiety kept telling me that I couldn’t ride 50 miles, so I had to develop a strategy to keep my anxiety in check and keep my legs moving. My solution: ignore the overwhelming overall goal and instead break the ride into a series of shorter targets. There were three rest stops scattered roughly 10 miles apart around the course, so I told myself I just had to get to the next one. Four short rides (including the final leg to the finish), each of a distance I knew I could do, felt much more do-able than one long ride. Result: more confidence, less anxiety.
Third: I wouldn’t have finished had I been riding alone. I rode with a partner, which meant I was accountable to someone else. He wanted to finish, so I’d be letting him down if I quit. I had added incentive to challenge my anxiety, not allow it to “win,” and complete the ride.
In other words, discipline creates confidence, which counters anxiety. Confidence is strengthened by breaking large goals into smaller, attainable targets. And accountability helps keep us on track.
Of course, a little sweat helps, too.
After the ride