2014: A New Start

Bom Dia,

I hope fortune favors you all in 2014!

I was able to have a brief visit in Seattle for the holidays. It was great to see family, friends, and also my first Seahawks game. I am so grateful for my family and the time I was able to spend with them. It's always a bit of a strange feeling when you return home after a long absence. You feel like you sink into the rhythm of how things are supposed to operate, and if you don't try to incorporate that "Seattle flow" into your schedule, everything will feel like its working against you. Therefore, it proved to be a difficult task waking up and trying to continue the workout plan from the OTC. But "rest assured", I understood that it's only beneficial for your mind and "energy" to experience  the holiday happenings, so it was nice to take the time needed to have fun with friends and family.

2013 was quite a year. I realized that the many experiences, dreams, doubts, challenges, and obstacles that occurred helped manifest into an incredibly powerful realization and credence in my mind.... "that if you believe in something entirely, (that you orient every action and every thought in the direction of this dream with an obsessive ritualistic concentration) it will happen". As was the case for making the USA world championships team.

Interestingly enough, my purpose,  my year's direction, and my efforts were only focused on making the team. It seemed like I found myself in a state of obliviousness, when I was in Europe honing my final skills for the last decathlon of 2013. It struck me that my energy and focus had begun to steep in a cup of euphoric accomplishment in relishing the spot  that I earned on the team, rather than a reinvigorated energy and focus on the days ahead for one of the biggest competitions of my life.

Good thing I caught this mishap early on ;)... with 2014...Now the focus is on victory. The focus is on medals. The focus needs to be on "why shouldn't I win?" rather than "I can make the team and maybe... if i'm lucky... I could get a medal". See, I was blundering through the last remaining months of college. I was distracted with exams, and small victories of sorts like "Pac 12" and "NCAA" titles. I was caught up in the idea of... "if I can get through this college season with some respectable success and passable marks, maybe I could have enough energy left to make it on the world team". The thirst was partial. "Life" is a great distractor. :)

But for the past few months I've been training and developing a strong mindset. Building muscle brain endurance, experiencing brain fatigue, and using quick explosive thinking. Your mind is the most important component of your athletic body. I've been learning positive self-talk, analyzing why and how my brain starts to work against my own body. Understanding that fear needn't be an unequivocal form of paralysis, but rather a completely negligible factor. Positive imaging and self-talk for an athlete has the potential to substitute for some of the most strenuous and laboriously intensive practice sessions.

Since I'm still in a building cycle with my knee, I can only believe that positivity and "time" are going to get me to where I need to be. That the Universe is sending me subtle clues and small lessons to prepare me for an enlightened mindset and a power of which I will have to use with great responsibility (call me Peter Parker).

What in the world am I talking about?
I'm talking about a whole new way to look at competition (at least for me). I'm looking forward to competition as a challenge. Each event. I'm looking at competition as something that I can approach with the innocent simplicity of a child's mind (sometimes we get too smart for our own good). One where I just think about the event and what I'm about to do. To celebrate a successful attempt and be present minded. "Forshadowing" shouldn't be in a Decathlete's vocabulary... unless you are on a roll and know that you will do work in every event you attempt. That every factor, every apparent "miscue" or debacle... or any annoying uncontrollable element that your find yourself in (I hate pickles so I won't use that word here), that it's all apart of the competition and is necessary for my success...

So here goes the challenge... it should be a fun one! Bueno, allí lo tienes. that's what my 2014 resolution will look like from a competition standpoint.

Another resolution is to read more books and to start refreshing my Brazilian Portuguese!

Comida, Amor, Dinero and Take care,

Jeremy