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I watched as our 4×100 meter relay team fought for the Championship Title at our Conference meet my senior year in track and field. They were defending champions of the title, ranked first in the Nation for DIII, and it was two weeks before the National Championships.

They ran smooth, efficient, and mastered their handoffs. Maya, the anchor, powered down the home stretch far from the rest. I watched as she missed a step, losing speed and momentum, and fell to the ground.

“Oh no, I think she pulled her hamstring again! Two weeks until Nationals, what are you going to do?” I gasped to Coach.

“Well, we need someone fast, strong, and experienced,” Coach said.

“Definitely, who are you thinking about putting in?” I asked while considering teammates who would be up for the challenge.

“I was thinking you,” Coach said looking straight at me.

——–

Throughout college, I was fortunate to have accumulated numerous All-Americans, school records, and 5 National Championship titles. I’ve seen other teams who had great skill, speed, and technique but fall short of experiencing the success that I was able to have. What makes the difference though?

Trust.

One simple word, but a word that makes a tremendous difference between winning and losing. The 5 National Championship titles, school records, and All-Americans I accumulated was not because of my speed and skill alone. It was because I trusted and was trusted by others to perform at my greatest abilities. All of the National Championship titles were earned from relays. The first 4 were from the 4×400 meter relay and our success was from having a group of athletes who wholeheartedly and 100% trusted each person’s leg to do what needed to be done. We ran together regularly and constantly expressed our trust in one another, which dissipated any doubts that we had going into each race.

I remember when my teammate Maya pulled her hamstring at the Conference meet in the final leg of the 4×100 meter relay. Coach turned to me and told me I had to step up and be the one to fill her spot. Obviously, I had thousands of reasons why I would be terrible for this position run through my mind. I put the pressure on myself that if we did not win Nationals it would be all my fault. That’s a lot of pressure! Luckily I had amazing teammates since our coach not only built a team but a family and sisterhood. The 4×100 meter relay ladies supported and trusted me. They knew how scared I was and the pressure I was putting on myself that they knew it would not help to add more. Each member went out of their way to make me feel like a member of their relay. Even Maya, who was now injured, supported me and affirmed my place on the relay. That was huge for me! They all assured me that they knew I could do it, I just needed to believe in myself.

Our new relay qualified for Nationals, even with a botched handoff that I was accepting, and my relay members still had trust in me. They knew I was overthinking the handoff, which led to the poor exchange. I knew they were right and had to stop overthinking things. Coach chose me for a reason and I needed to accept that and run the leg I knew that I could for myself, my coach, Maya, and the rest of my team.

We all experience self-doubt and our minds like to tell us we can’t do certain things that we strive to do. It is ten times easier to force out the doubts when you have your teammates and your coach trusting you. What I told myself before the National Championship race was, “You have all of your teammates and your coaches trusting you and your abilities. What reason do you have to not believe them and trust yourself?”

I have to admit, waiting on that track for my relay member to handoff to me was one of the most nerve-wracking experiences in my life! I had to put everything that I felt was on the line out of my head. I had to focus on what was important NOW. That’s the only way winning happens. We need to focus on What’s Important Now. (Did you catch that acronym?)

Being able to focus on the present and know that no matter what happens my teammates and coach have my back I was able to receive the baton in a good spot and run my leg. We finished in first that day, which led to my 5th National Championship Title. There is absolutely no way I would have been able to assist in winning that award without my teammates trusting me.

If you are a coach or an athlete and you want to create a winning team, you MUST develop trust. Obviously, you also need to have a certain level of physical skill, speed, and ability, but a team with all those qualities plus trust will perform even greater.

One great activity to develop trust is to take the time to affirm each other. Go around the room and have each relay member, including the coach, affirm each leg or position on the team/relay. Remember; an affirmation is NOT a compliment. An affirmation is emotional support and encouragement to let the person know that you trust them and their abilities. Each time I have led this activity it had amazing results. It brings the team closer and builds a family that supports one another through thick and thin. It also builds the individuals trust and confidence in themselves.

Without my teammates trust in myself, themselves, and our team I would not be the 5x National Champion that I am today. It all comes down to trust. Thank you shout out to my relay members, coaches, and family/friends for always trusting me!

Sorry about all of the pictures in this post, there were too many great memories for me to choose from!

“The actions of confidence come first, the feelings of confidence come later.”

I recently finished reading The Confidence Gap. If you have not yet read it, I highly recommend you get on that! It was definitely one of the most eye-opening books that are out there regarding confidence.

The book focuses on the mind and how our minds work. I recently read a study that shared that we have over 50,000 thoughts a day and around 70% of those thoughts are believed to be negative. How, in a world where we have so many negative thoughts, can we become successful? It’s amazing to read these statistics and see people still killing it and crushing their goals, regardless of what their mind is telling them.

The book dives into how our minds are brilliant at giving us reasons why we can’t do what really matters to us. Here are four reasons why our minds do this:

1. Obstacles: our minds point out the obstacles and difficulties that lie ahead.
2. Self-judgment: our minds find all of the reasons why we are not up to the task.
3. Comparison: our minds compare us to others who have it easier, who are more talented, or
simply do it better.
4. Predictions: our minds predict failure, rejection, and other unfavorable outcomes.

Simply put; whatever we are working towards or want to do, our minds will always give us thousands of reasons to NOT do something, point out our weaknesses, compare you to others in a negative way, and tell you there’s no point in trying. While I read this book I constantly was agreeing with what the book was saying about my mind and what it tells me.

“Yes, my mind does do that! It always is telling me how I will fail, how terrible I will be, and that there will be other people who will do it so much better than me, so why try?”

Nod your head if you’re agreeing in the same way!

If you still are not sure what I’m saying, try this exercise that’s in the book.

1. Write or think of a goal for yourself that is out of your comfort zone.
2. Close your eyes and focus on all of the things your mind is telling you about this goal.
3. Notice all of the reasons it provides you to NOT do it.

See? Our mind kicks in right away to provide reasons to get back into our comfort zone!

Why are our minds so against us? The book shares that the reason why our minds naturally provide all of the reasons to avoid expanding out of our comfort zones is that of evolution. We have a tendency to see the negative first because we had to in order to survive millions of years ago. In the earlier years there was danger everywhere and if you reached out of your comfort zone you would probably die. Our brains naturally view the negatives as a way to PROTECT ourselves from danger to stay alive. Those imminent dangers are not as apparent as they were millions of years ago and our minds have a challenging time viewing real fear from perceived fear. Whether we are anxious because we have a huge performance coming up or whether there is a grizzly bear about to attack us, our physiological responses are the same. The fight or flight response still kicks in and our minds start to race to tell us to run away, hide, protect yourself from any fear, and stay in your comfort zone. Before if we didn’t listen to our minds we would probably be killed by a bear, today though if we choose to not listen to our minds we will grow, learn, and challenge ourselves to become better.

How do we choose to not listen?

The book tells you to ask yourself, “If I let this thought dictate my actions, will it help me lead the life that I want?”

I love this question! I’ve been asking myself this often whenever my mind tries to take control of my actions and it has helped me reframe how I perceive the thoughts that my mind generates.

This past month I have been teaching Strong by Zumba (a high-intensity class) at a yoga studio in my town at 5 am once a week (yes 5 am, and I am NOT a morning person naturally). As soon as I was offered this time slot my mind started to go to town.

“You’re not a morning person, you can’t teach that early. What are you thinking? You barely get up to work out at other 5 am classes, how could you possibly get up to teach one? You know you’re going to sleep in and miss your class. You’ll let so many people down if you sleep in and miss it. You’ll be so tired throughout the day at work if you do this. You’re going to mess up your workout routine. What will the people think of you if you mess up while teaching? They won’t think you know what you’re doing and won’t come back. This is going to be a disaster.”

Every time my mind attempted to get me to back down I addressed it with the question I asked earlier, “If I let this thought dictate my actions, will it help me lead the life that I want?” I know I wanted to teach this class at this yoga studio, so what if it’s early? I started to name off the benefits of teaching early.

“This will get you into an earlier morning routine so that you can become a morning person. You will be more productive in your mornings before work. You’ll have more time to get ready. This way you can spend a morning with your boyfriend before he heads off to work. This will make getting up early to workout at other classes at 5 am not seem so difficult. This will open up your evenings if you teach in the morning instead. This is a great opportunity, take it!”

This made me feel much more confident and ready to take on this challenge. I knew that if I listened to my negative mind I would not be able to live the way I want.

I try to remember that my thoughts are just thoughts. They are simply words put into my mind. They are not the truth and we do not need to believe them. We might not have control over what our mind is saying but we DO have control over how we respond. Make a choice today to not provide your thoughts with the power to control your actions and behaviors.

Choose to act confidently, regardless of how you actually feel and what your mind is telling you. Focus on what it is that you want and go for it. The actions of confidence come first, the feelings of confidence come later.

Keep that eye of the storm mentality!

The look you get when all of your hard work has paid off and you finally meet your goal!

For some reason, certain posts on social media receive greater traffic than others.
Why is this? Something to ponder at another time and day…

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Since this post received a lot of traction on social media I thought I would expand on the topic of goal-setting, asking questions, and going after it.

Since 7th grade, I was running the 400-meter dash and coming up short of the school record. Fast forward 6 years and I was finally able to crush that goal. I discussed in detail more about this experience in my earlier blogs.

What goal are you working towards though? WRITE IT DOWN!

Goals are much more likely to be achieved if they are written down. Research has even supported this. It doesn’t take much time so what’s stopping you? Grab a pen and paper and jot it down.

Like I said earlier, it took me 6 years to accomplish my goal. The timing of how long it takes to meet your goal doesn’t matter though. Don’t put pressure and stress out about the timeline. Instead, focus on these questions that I had to ask myself to make my goal a reality.

Regarding your goal, ask yourself:

1. What do I need to start doing?
2. What do I need to stop doing?
3. What do I need to continue doing?

For me I had to:

1. Start lifting since I avoided it up until my senior year.
2. Stop doubting my abilities.
3. Continue to push hard at practice and seek out feedback from coaches.

———

If you want to achieve your goals we have to face these harsh realities.

There are things we know we SHOULD do, but we refuse to do them. Why is that? Because humans are great at avoiding the hard things. Our mind and body naturally want to avoid any discomfort, extra work, effort, and possibly scary thing out there. It’s instinctual. We need to ignore our minds and bodies and do it anyways. Push out of your comfort zone and start doing things that may scare you, but will push you towards your goal.

There are also things that we KNOW we shouldn’t do and KNOW will not get us towards our goal, but we do them anyway. STOP THEM NOW! There is no better time than the present. Make a commitment right here, right now, to stop doing whatever is preventing you from your goals. Don’t let your weaknesses cloud your judgment and stray you away from what’s important.

Lastly, we need to give ourselves some credit. You are working hard towards your goals and are making positive choices for your future. What are they? What are the things/choices you are currently doing/making that are directing you towards your goal that you want to commit to CONTINUE doing? Yes, there will always be things we can start doing or need to stop doing, but there are things that we are doing well. Point out the positives because you, my mentally strong friend, have the eye of the storm mentality and are a hard worker! You deserve to give yourself some praise for your efforts.

Justin Su’a has a great podcast called Increase Your Impact, which is FREE (yes I said free) on your podcast app on your iPhone, which is how I listen to it. He goes into more detail about these 3 questions to ask yourself. Check out more about his podcast here!

Keep pushing towards your goals so that you too can experience the elated feeling of achieving something that you worked hard for!

Share what your goals are and your answers to the 3 questions in the comments! The best way to make a change and move forward with our goals is to share with others and have them hold us accountable!

Keep that eye of the storm mentality!

– Jenna

Before you read this I want you to take out your to-do list RIGHT NOW!

Come on… I know you have one.

If you are currently reading this blog post that you, like myself, are similar to so many other athletes, coaches, and entrepreneurs. You my friend, are a go getter!

You have so many things to do everyday that you can’t remember it all. You have to write it down and are constantly updating and checking your to-do list.

Am I right?

At times our to-do list can be exhausting and cause anxious thoughts, feelings, and emotions. Several times I stay up late trying to complete my to-do list which ends up having negative consequences. I lose sleep, can’t turn my mind off when I try to sleep, am tired the next day, and my stress levels increase. Why is it that we let this little sheet of paper control our lives?

I recently was working with a softball player and she was stressed to the max. Her issue wasn’t just her sport though. This is the case with many athletes. Yes, their sport induces stress at times but it’s adding in going to school, assignments, work, eating, sleeping, and finding “me” time that adds more stress. This certain athlete had tryouts coming up, which is stressful in itself, along with tons of assignments, tests, and wanting to participate in a march.

How in the world with all of this going on is she going to focus on being her best at tryouts?!

The answer? BREAK IT DOWN.

I had her write down everything she HAD to do that was causing her stress. We planned out each day for the next week specifically starting when she woke up to when she went to bed. We added in times to eat, ideas for what to eat so she didn’t waste time thinking about that when to fit in homework, prioritize homework, and adding in showering and some TV time.

This is exactly what I want you to do. Break it down into chunks. Now I want you to look at only ONE THING AT A TIME. Instead of looking at the whole list of items, which is overwhelming, ask yourself, “What do I need to do right now?”

That’s all I want you to worry about. One thing at a time. After our plan, my athlete only had to worry about going to bed after we met. In the morning her only concern was waking up, then getting food in her stomach, then packing up her softball equipment, then she can worry about tryouts. She was to not think about tryouts while eating or getting ready. She also was to not think about school and the upcoming assignments during any time except for the time she scheduled for it. After writing this out she felt much more relaxed and confident in knowing that she had a plan and the time to meet her demanding tasks.

If we can focus our minds on one task it will get done sooner and with less stress. Also, once you complete one of your tasks I want you to cross it off. Feel the success and satisfaction of completing an item on your list. No matter how little it may be take pride in that accomplishment.

If you can break your tasks up into chunks it will not seem as stressful and busy. This way you can also add in tasks that you might be holding back on starting because it seems too taxing. I experienced this often with my consulting company, The Mental Clutch. It seemed my to-do list was never-ending.

I wanted to design a website, start blogging and create an email list. These were huge and daunting tasks to me. It’s almost one year later and I have completed all three. Do not let time dictate your to-do list unless it has a deadline in reality. As long as it gets done, that’s all that matters.

One of the reasons I waited so long to blog and create my email list was because I wanted it to be perfect. I worried about what content to put into it, how readers will perceive it, and let my worst critic, my mind, get to me. Getting it done though is better than waiting for perfection.

I finally decided to break it into chunks and day by day I would add ideas for blogs, start writing, and just publish them, even when I thought they could be better. For my email list, I focused more on getting the email out there instead of spending so much time on adding just the right content. Getting it done is better than waiting for perfection. How come? Because perfection will never come! If I waited for that I still to this day will not have any blogs or an email list.

We, as a society, are so focused on the final product that we take longer to finish the stuff we are working on. Whether that’s writing a blog, posting something on social media, working on a project, creating a presentation, etc. JUST GET ER DONE!

What if we just buckled down and focused on getting it done instead of worrying about it being perfect. There may always be a typo, misspelled word, or other types of errors. There may always be something we could have done better or explained more clearly. But this is how we learn to make the NEXT presentation, blog, project, or post even better.

Instead of waiting for it to be perfect (which probably will never happen) just get it done so you can mark it off your to-do list and focus on the next thing.

I hope this post revved up your motivation to hit your to-do list, break it down, focus on one task at a time, and GET ER DONE!

Growing up I was the 3rd child of 6 kids. Those of you who have siblings can agree with how they are your best friends at times and your worst enemy the other times.

This is my younger sister Kayla.

Aint’ she a beaut?! She’s my inspiration for this weeks post!

Here’s the thing though; growing up we always tended to tease her and let her be the butt of our jokes. If you have siblings you might have a “scapegoat” sibling as well in your family. As we got older though I didn’t know how this could affect her.

After learning more about mindset and how powerful it is I started to think about my siblings. Could all of that teasing alter her mindset negatively and have her start to believe what we told her? Did I take part in potentially destroying her confidence?

We all have had negative things said about us and we have to agree that it hurts. Whoever said, “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me,” was a COMPLETE liar who was never bullied or teased.

Words hurt.

How can we combat this so it doesn’t affect our confidence, self-esteem, self-worth, and our success? Well, we need to STOMP OUT THOSE ANTS!

Have you ever had ants in your kitchen before? I bet you normally don’t find just one. There are usually a whole line stampeding through your countertop. Am I right? It’s gross and we need to fight these annoyances before they multiply further.

In graduate school, my mentor, Cindra Kamphoff, told me that we all have ants in our minds as well. We all experience Automatic Negative Thoughts. In order to not let it affect us, we need to take control and FIGHT BACK! We need to stomp out those ants in our mind, just like we do in our kitchen. Exterminate them by using POSITIVE self-talk to overcome them.

“Talk to yourself, don’t listen.”

You have a choice here. You don’t have to listen to what the ants are telling you. Instead try this exercise to get rid of the ants before they continue to multiply:

——–

1. Catch them:

Catch the negative thoughts you are having. We need to NOTICE when ants are entering and taking over our minds. Once you notice and are self-aware of where your thoughts are you can move onto the next step.

2. Address them:

Look at the ant in the face and tell it to go away! Address whatever it is telling you and find ways to fight back. For example; if the ants are telling you that you can’t do it talk back to it by saying, “Yes I can do it with continuous effort and focus. I will show you!”

3. Release them:

Release the ant and make it focus on something else. Once you have addressed you need to let it go. Let the ant crawl away out of your mind the same way that it entered.

4. End them:

Now it is time to EXTERMINATE the ant. It has now left your mind and you need to tell yourself a positive affirmation. Replace it with purposeful positive affirmations such as, “You are beautiful,” “You’ve got this!”

My sister Kayla has been putting this plan into place and has been stomping out her ants. Remember that these ants are AUTOMATIC so they will come out of nowhere at times and instead of becoming upset and frustrated we need to TAKE CONTROL and kick them back out.

This past week Kayla saw the movie, “I Feel Pretty,” and posted the picture above with great positive self-talk statements to start her day feeling powerful, beautiful, and confident! Here was her caption,

“So many days we struggle with what we see in the mirror, but today I looked at that mirror and told myself that I am beautiful, I am intelligent, I am strong, I am worthy and guess what? Today I feel pretty. ?”

What are you telling yourself? May we all learn from Kayla and remember, “talk to yourself, don’t listen to the ANTS!”