Conditioning is Not Only for Increasing Physical Endurance
When an athlete hears the word conditioning, they automatically think about physical endurance. In essence, conditioning is just a shorthand way of describing the process of pushing one’s body to the point of complete fatigue and then pushing as far past that point as one can withstand.
While this description of conditioning is accurate, it’s not complete. Conditioning is more than a physical process and can also produce more than just physical benefits. In fact, conditioning is 100% mental.
You can see this when an athlete shows they are fully conditioned in practice yet still faces extreme fatigue in a competition. The difference between practice and competition is an athlete’s mindset. In practice when there is no pressure, conditioning is easy but in a competition the pressure causes the athlete fatigue. In this case, the athlete is physically in shape but still needs mental conditioning.
Correspondingly, just like you condition yourself physically, you must condition yourself to overcome anxiety, boredom, fear, self-doubt, pessimism, procrastination, and pressure among other things. In other words, conditioning facilitates the process of improving your mindset. Moreover, this process starts with a progression.
A Progressive Process to Facilitate Conditioning
You can’t change your mindset overnight just like you can’t go from a couch potato to running a marathon overnight. Change requires a progressive process, and this is exactly what conditioning facilitates.
A progressive process is a process that starts where you are currently, and then gradually layers on small improvements to progress towards where you want to be. So, if you want to condition physical endurance, then you must do things that cause fatigue to the point of exhaustion. Once you know your point of exhaustion, next time you push yourself past that point.
This same process applies when you condition yourself to overcome anxiety, boredom, fear, self-doubt, pessimism, procrastination, and pressure. For example, if you can only study for 15 minutes without getting bored, then the next step is to work towards 16 minutes. From there the progression may just be to add 1 minute each time you study. The key is to continually increase your tolerance without decreasing the quality of your study sessions. If the quality decreases, then decrease the time and don’t increase the time unless the quality remains high.
In short, conditioning is the process of making yourself better both physically and mentally. It’s convincing yourself you can do more by showing yourself you can do more a little bit at a time. Unquestionably, conditioning applies to all areas in our lives, not just in sports and endurance.