Nervous and prepared feels like a revving engine. Nervous and unprepared feels like a car with no brakes.
RESILIENCE
WHAT THIS MEANS
Nerves are not the problem, and they do not go away with experience. What changes is what they are attached to. With preparation behind you, the same physical charge reads as readiness, because your body is braced for something you know how to do. Without it, the charge has nowhere to go and turns into dread.
When you notice the jitters before something, ask whether they are pointing at a gap. If they are, close what you can in the time available. If they are not, treat the feeling as fuel and begin.
A QUESTION TO SIT WITH
Which of your nerves come from being underprepared?
MORE IN ADVERSITY, PRESSURE & RESILIENCE
- A plateau isn’t a wall. It’s the floor settling so the next level can hold your weight.
- Finishing in last place still gives you a time to beat. Walking off the course gives you nothing to measure.
- Take the early bus, the harder class, the cold start. Small chosen discomfort makes the unchosen kind less scary.
Free, with nothing to buy inside it.