What Does it Mean to Enjoy the Process?
When an athlete is feeling anxiety, it’s likely someone will tell them to enjoy the process. The idea that the cure to anxiety is this simple is as cliché as it comes. Consequently, as with all clichés, the response when an athlete hears this is often a head shake and an eye roll.
It’s not that advice to enjoy the process is bad advice. Indeed, learning how to enjoy the process is one of the best ways to apply one’s mental skills. However, telling an athlete to enjoy the process without telling them how to enjoy the process is useless advice.
How to Enjoy the Process
With this in mind, here is a practical way to think about enjoying the process that makes it less of a cliché and more tangible. Athletes love nothing more than reaching their goals. In fact, athlete’s often have anxiety and stop enjoying the process when they overthink all the things that are outside of their control in pursuit of a goal they want really bad. Simply stated, goals are what fuel an athlete’s motivation and their anxiety.
Consequently, goals are a blessing and a curse. But it doesn’t have to be this way. To eliminate this catch 22 all one must do is keep the blessing and eliminate the curse. Not being in control is the curse, motivation is the blessing.
Therefore, to enjoy the process athletes must get their goal motivation from something they do control, the process. So, to enjoy the process, the process must become the goal. When the process is the goal, then achieving the goal is 100% within the athlete’s control.
By having complete control of a goal’s achievement, athletes can also control their anxiety. Furthermore, when the process is the goal, you can regularly measure progress by the ability to stay on track following the process. This ability to measure progress provides athletes with a tremendous amount of motivation, which in turn makes the process even more enjoyable.
Unquestionably, the biggest mistake athlete’s make when pursuing a goal is focusing too much on the outcome goals and not enough on process goals. Eliminate this mistake, and athletes will find that their ability to enjoy the process will increase tenfold.