{"id":23574,"date":"2026-05-19T07:00:05","date_gmt":"2026-05-19T07:00:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.drjimtaylor.com\/4.0\/?p=23574"},"modified":"2026-05-19T15:24:06","modified_gmt":"2026-05-19T15:24:06","slug":"i-practice-what-i-preach-but-not-always","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.drjimtaylor.com\/4.0\/i-practice-what-i-preach-but-not-always\/","title":{"rendered":"I Practice What I Preach (But It’s Not Easy Sometimes)"},"content":{"rendered":"

In most universes, my time last week at the 2026 USAT Multisport National Championships in South Haven, Michigan, would be considered a success.<\/p>\n

I won my sixth national championship since returning to triathlon in 2022. I\"\" also\u00a0finished third twice and fourth once against some exceptionally strong competitors. Objectively, those are results I should feel proud of.<\/p>\n

But I\u2019ve never defined success exclusively by results. Yes, one of the primary reasons I race triathlons is to compete. I\u2019m not \"\"interested in simply participating. I want to test myself against the best athletes in my age group and see where I stand. At the same time, I also know that performance and fulfillment aren\u2019t always the same thing.<\/p>\n

And mentally, this year\u2019s Nationals was a struggle.\u00a0In fact, during the week, I found myself asking uncomfortable questions: Why am I even doing this? Do I still want to compete in triathlon? Is all of this stress worth it?<\/p>\n

One of the challenges of being a mental performance coach is that I\u2019m expected to\"\" practice what I preach. But there\u2019s a big difference between helping others become mentally strong and managing your own mindset in the middle of emotional discomfort.<\/p>\n

Before I\u2019m a mental coach, I\u2019m a person. I\u2019m also a deeply committed athlete whose identity has been shaped significantly by sport and competition for most of my life. That means I\u2019m just as vulnerable to the mental challenges of sport as any athlete I work with.<\/p>\n

Maybe the only advantage I have is awareness. I usually recognize when my mindset \"\"has drifted into a dark or unhealthy place. I know the tools. I have the strategies. But knowing what to do and actually being able to do it are not always the same thing.<\/p>\n

So what was happening?<\/p>\n

I had fallen victim to two of the biggest mental traps I warn athletes about all the time.\u00a0First, I became too focused on outcomes rather than the experience of racing\"\" itself.\u00a0Second, I created expectations about how I thought I should perform.<\/p>\n

Last year at Multisport Nationals, I swept all three of my races. I beat two very strong competitors who had previously beaten me regularly. I entered those races with relatively modest expectations. Honestly, I was hoping to maybe win one race and maybe get on the podium in another, so the trifecta far \"\"exceeded what I thought was possible. And it changed how I saw myself as a triathlete. On the positive side, it showed me that I was far more capable than I thought I was. On the not-so-positive side, those affirming experiences raised the bar for me, for good or for bad, and led me to where I was last week; definitely not the \u201cgood place.\u201d<\/p>\n

This year was different. One of my strongest competitors and a close friend was unable to race in 2025 because of injury. Somewhere in my thinking, I quietly\"\" assumed I would stay on top of all three of my main competitors. I couldn\u2019t get the idea of another \u201csweep\u201d out of my head.<\/p>\n

The problem was that those expectations weren\u2019t grounded in reality. They were based more on ego, memory, and hope than on objective information.<\/p>\n

But this is what happens in sport. Success changes us. Once athletes achieve a certain level, it becomes very difficult not to expect more success in the future. Expectations \"\"can quietly shift from \u201cI hope to do well\u201d to \u201cI expect to do well.\u201d That shift in expectations can become dangerous mentally because I wasn\u2019t focused on what I needed to do to achieve my goals. And it felt like I had put on an emotional weight vest; I just felt weighed down. It just made me feel bad.<\/p>\n

The result was that, during the long downtime between races, my self-talk became \"\"increasingly negative. I spent far too much time alone in my hotel room thinking, worrying, and anticipating disappointment. At times, my thoughts bordered on dread.<\/p>\n

Ironically, this kind of negativity can actually serve a psychological purpose. If we lower our expectations emotionally, we believe we\u2019re protecting ourselves from future disappointment. It\u2019s a defense mechanism. If I expect less, losing won\u2019t hurt as much. Of course, it rarely works that way.<\/p>\n

What was interesting is that my mental discomfort before the races didn\u2019t seem to\"\" impact my performances once the competitions actually started. Every time I arrived at the race venue, something shifted. The apprehension turned into excitement. By the time I reached the start line, I was fully engaged and ready to compete.<\/p>\n

Then, once the race began, I remembered exactly why I still love triathlon. I still love testing myself physically and mentally. I love competing. I love pushing into the pain cave and discovering what I still have inside me. There\u2019s also something deeply satisfying about giving a maximal effort, regardless of the outcome. I actually found myself smiling while on the bike and telling myself\u2014reminding myself\u2014why I race triathlons: Because they\u2019re fun! Ironically, the races themselves were the easiest part of the week mentally. The struggle happened before the starting horn.<\/p>\n

Looking back, Multisport Nationals reminded me of several important lessons that apply not only to me, but to athletes at every level.<\/p>\n

An excessive focus on outcomes almost always pulls us away from what actually produces our best performances. Unrealistic expectations create pressure that drains enjoyment and increases fear. And when our self-worth becomes too attached to results, sport starts feeling heavy instead of meaningful.<\/p>\n

The healthiest and most sustainable mindset is one grounded in the process: effort, growth, challenge, improvement, and enjoyment. That doesn\u2019t mean results don\u2019t matter. Of course they matter. Athletes are competitive by nature. We care about outcomes because competing matters deeply to us. But outcomes can\u2019t be the sole measure of success.<\/p>\n

At some point during Nationals, I stopped asking myself, \u201cWhat if I don\u2019t win?\u201d and started reconnecting with a much better question: \u201cWhy do I race in the first place?\u201d The answer had nothing to do with podiums. Okay, maybe a little. Okay, maybe more than a little. But it\u2019s not the bottom-line reason I do triathlons.<\/p>\n

It has everything to do with the joy of competing, pushing my limits, and discovering what I\u2019m capable of. That\u2019s the mindset I encourage athletes to pursue. And, apparently, it\u2019s one I still need to keep practicing myself.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In most universes, my time last week at the 2026 USAT Multisport National Championships in South Haven, Michigan, would be considered a success. I won my sixth national championship since returning to triathlon in 2022. I also\u00a0finished third twice and fourth once against some exceptionally strong competitors. Objectively, those are results I should feel proud […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":23575,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1557],"tags":[1458,1878,60,1459,1460,1039],"class_list":["post-23574","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-triathlon","tag-bike","tag-mental-performance","tag-psychology-2","tag-run","tag-swim","tag-triathlon"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.drjimtaylor.com\/4.0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23574","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.drjimtaylor.com\/4.0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.drjimtaylor.com\/4.0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.drjimtaylor.com\/4.0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.drjimtaylor.com\/4.0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23574"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.drjimtaylor.com\/4.0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23574\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23591,"href":"https:\/\/www.drjimtaylor.com\/4.0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23574\/revisions\/23591"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.drjimtaylor.com\/4.0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23575"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.drjimtaylor.com\/4.0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23574"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.drjimtaylor.com\/4.0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23574"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.drjimtaylor.com\/4.0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23574"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}