Ascent with Tom Foxley

Today on the Limitless Athlete Podcast, you’ll be listening to a conversation between CrossFit Athlete Alison Scudds, and myself.

Alison is another brilliant example of an athlete who on one hand has all the mindset advantages handed down to her - supportive environment, parents who taught her to push hard whilst being kind to herself, supportive yet encouraging community - yet has chosen to work on her mentality because she’s seen that nature isn’t comprehensive. Nurture matters too.

The central theme of this conversation is how to learn the ability to drop expectations and focus on the effort we put in.

Most of us have been wrongly taught to solely value the outcome of our actions, and not the actions themselves, nor the character skills displayed in undertaking them.

Yet it’s those character skills that made the outcome possible.

If we exclusively focus on the outcome, we can do everything right along the way and not get the reward. This feels like a failure, when in fact, you did everything in your control.

What this does is breed discontent with yourself or the world.

Or, you could achieve precisely what you set out to achieve but with a God-awful plan. The nature of positive reinforcement means you will keep repeating this plan to no success.

In a world that says never take your eyes off the prize, it takes courage to say “hey, no. I’m focusing on the process”.

It feels strange that by taking our focus off the outcome, and valuing the effort we put in more highly, we get to have the cake and eat it too.

We are happier, more content, and more motivated, and we’re more likely to achieve the goal we originally set out in pursuit of.

In the words of William Irvine, my goal is mettle, not medals.

Alongside all this, Alison and I also discuss

• Putting the fun back into training, despite it being tough

• Leaning into your strengths as an athlete instead of being like everyone else

• The basic tools athletes can use to optimise their mental state

• And preparing effectively for competition

Alongside this episode, we’ll also be releasing a partner episode, The Debrief, where Mindset Rx’d Head Coach Rachel and myself help you apply the lessons within this podcast to your training and wider life. We’ll also be pulling out the key ideas you may have missed, and discussing how you can use this conversation, and the wisdom within it, to train your mindset and become a limitless athlete.

Today, Coach Rachel and Coach Tom pull out the key extracts from Justin LoFranco's appearance on The Limitless Athlete Podcast.

Most of our time is spent on how to break through our barriers and find new levels of performance in doing so.

Today on the Limitless Athlete Podcast, you’ll be listening to a conversation between founder of the Morning Chalk Up, Justin LoFranco AKA J-Lo, and myself.

The biggest lesson I think the average person can learn from this is how Justin goes out of his way to expose himself to challenge, rather than insulating himself from difficulty.

One certainty of life is that you are going to encounter challenge and strife. Your path through life will be littered with trials and obstacles. That’s one of the guarantees of life, along with tax and death.

This is especially evident in training, but also in our relationships, our careers, and every other area of life.

Look around you, and you’ll notice that difficulty is everywhere. You’ll also notice how some people thrive under it, and others crumble. What’s more, it’s relative: what challenges you and I will be at two different levels.

What prepares us for hardship is hardship itself. When you do difficult things, you get better at doing difficult things. What was once beyond you, is now within your capabilities.

This is not because these tasks become any easier, it’s because you prove to yourself that you are ever more capable.

You and I should not be waiting for challenge to explode into our lives from the unknown, but should be biting off as much as we can chew at any given opportunity.

The path to growth, and to a better life, runs through hardship, not around it.

Alongside hardship, Justin and I also discuss

• How you become identified with being a CrossFitter

• Delaying gratification for the bigger reward in the long run

• Summiting the US’ highest mountain

• Dealing with fear

• And the benefits of solitude

You’re listening to The Debrief where myself and Rachel Binette, our Head Coach, will discuss the key lessons and insights gleaned from the Limitless Athlete Podcast interview with Zack George.

Today's Topics:

• How to use visualisation in to help your mindset training
  

You can listen to this show in isolation, as a kind of distillation of the major points of the interview with George, or you can listen to the interview and follow it up by listening to this podcast. Your choice!

Today on the Limitless Athlete Podcast, you’ll be listening to a conversation between fittest man in the UK, Zack George, and Tom Foxley

Zack has an incredible journey of not only physical change, but mindset growth too. As you’ll hear, Zack was overweight as a child, subsisting on a diet comprised mainly of junk food.

However, Zack chose the route of growth and challenge in his journey from overweight kid, to one of the best CrossFit athletes in the world.

Along the way, Zack’s identity shifted in a deliberately chosen fashion. He discarded the unconfident beliefs which made him feel distant from his childhood and chose to leap into the unknown.

As you’ll find out this was far from the easiest path possible, but what helped guide Zack’s journey was his consistent use of future casting - in particular, visualisation.

We have to keep our objectives at the forefront of our mind if we’re ever going to achieve them. If we don’t, our old comfortable beliefs will take over.

One way of doing this is to refer to your goal as frequently as possible, to visualise yourself achieving it, and to feel those emotions of success along the way.

Alongside visualisation, Zack and I also discuss

• The value of goal boards in goal setting

• The role of body image in mindset

• The role shame plays in creating our identity and our behaviours

• And the value of your environment

In today's episode, Coaches Tom and Rachel discuss the Limitless Athlete Podcast with Sean Woodland and pull out the ways you can apply this to your own training and life.

In particular, they discuss:

• Gratitude and how to create more of it

Today on the Limitless Athlete Podcast, I’m interviewing voice of The CrossFit Games and the Talking Elite Fitness Podcast, Sean Woodland.

Sean, through his work at The Games, has a unique insight into the best athletes in the world. He has a perspective that few of us will ever see - especially with his experience.

Some of the things he sees which usually goes unnoticed, are the moments between events, where the vulnerabilities of athletes are often on display.

What Sean pulls out time and time again, is that all athletes struggle with mentality. At least initially anyway.

What differentiates those who reach their potential from those who don’t, is that the successful athletes have developed techniques for dealing with mindset challenges.

Because athletes have developed strategies for maintaining clarity, when the unknown hits, or when catastrophe strikes and other athletes stumble and falter, those with a trained mindset will actually thrive in the same conditions.

You need to train your mentality to reach your potential.

Sean and I also discuss...

• The way to finding your unique path in the world

In today's episode, Coaches Tom and Rachel discuss the Limitless Athlete Podcast with Carl Paoli and pull out the ways you can apply this to your own training and life.

In particular, they discuss:

• The role of authenticity in being an athlete

Today on the Limitless Athlete Podcast, Carl Paoli discusses how you can drop the mindset which is limiting you. This mindset is wrapped up in your identity, and Carl shares how we can peel that back to reveal our best self.

We also discuss:

• Why great performances aren’t forced

In today's episode, Coaches Tom and Rachel discuss the Limitless Athlete Podcast with Matt Fitzgerald and pull out the ways you can apply this to your own training and life.

Topics include:

• The role of identity in training

For more mindset training resources, visit www.mindsetrxd.com or www.instagram.com/mindsetrxd