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your second wind in life

How to Get Your Second Wind in Life!

your second wind in life

How to Get Your Second Wind In Life

Early in my running days, I was training for one of my marathons, I HAD to get my run in late one evening. 

It was dark, I was tired. I wanted to rest, but I went anyway. 

I’m so thankful I did!

I ran 5 miles and I actually experienced the runner’s high.  It’s like jumping out of an airplane, it’s tough to describe.

I moved so quickly, so effortlessly, and so fast. I was overcome with so many feel-good emotions that I almost cried. It was the best feeling in the world and one I can still remember today!

After 15 years of running, I’ve had great runs of course, but hitting the runner’s high is special, like an eclipse, it happens only ever so often.

I’ve experienced the greatest phenomenon twice. Just twice thrice in my life! It happened recently!

On the other shoe, almost every run I currently do, I rely on my 2nd wind. 

In the first 800 meters or mile, I am slow, heavy, and my breathing is labored! I actually start to wonder, what’s the matter?

Before you get your second wind in life, there’s a little bit of panic, anxiety, stress, and discomfort.

Soon though, our next burst kicks in.

In everyday life, we RARELY operate in the space where EVERYTHING just flows perfectly and doves fly around when we enter the room and the trumpets roar!

Nah, it’s a struggle.

We are training, preparing, and focusing on the details on our craft. We are advised to EMBRACE THE SUCK!

However, the suck is the farthest thing from a peak experience!

Here are 4 ways to get your second wind in life.

1. Know Your Why-

If we are running and we start to walk, then walking becomes easier later on. 

If quitting is an option, then we take it. Quitting then becomes easier later on. We must know our own why! If we know our why, then we can come up with any how. It begins each day with a check-in with ourselves.

What’s your goal? What’s your purpose? Who are you connecting with? 

2. Don’t Stop- 

My wife was going to break 2 hrs for a 1/2 marathon.

I was running with her, pacing. It was going to be close! On the very last slight up-hill, 300 yards from the finish, SHE STOPPED! I screamed at her to get going! She finished in 1:59:52.

No matter how bad something hurts in our life, there is an endpoint.

Remember, Every workout ENDS!

The pain period we are going through will stop! Hard times do not come to stay, they come to pass!

Even slow walkers arrive!

But, IF you STOP, then all bets are off. How often does someone start college, take a semester or year break, THEN come back? RARE!

You have to keep moving to get your second wind! When all else fails- PUKE & RALLY!

3. Find Your Rhythm-

Everything has a rhythm!

Life has momentum!

In the courtroom, the best defense is to “object.” It gets the other lawyer off their rhythm! Tennis players go back to their towel, Baseball hitters step in & out of the box. All intended to get you off of your rhythm.

Find your rhythm, breath, get back to your routine. Breath, get back to your routine. Breath, reset, re-focus, get back to your routine. Oh yes, and breathe.

4. Patience- 

We want our second wind in life NOW. And sometimes we get it….

But, we just don’t know when it will come. We can’t know. All that is certain is that if we go through the motions, if we check-out, if we start looking for the exit, then, our next wind won’t happen!

I had an athlete once tell me, “I can’t wait to be patient.”

I get it.

Patience is a higher-order skill and one in which we do not practice today. I can guarantee you that your second chance in life is coming if you just hang on long enough.

4 ways to find your second wind in life 
1. Know Your Why
2. Don’t Stop
3. Find Your Rhythm 
4. Patience. 

 

dr rob bell speakerDr. Rob Bell is a Sport Psychology Coach. DRB & associates coach executives and professional athletes. Some clients have included three different winners on the PGA Tour, Indy Eleven, University of Notre Dame, Marriott, and Walgreens. 

 

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All Champions ADJUST Find A Way

champions adjust

All Champions ADJUST Find A Way

In the fall of 2008, a 47-year-old businessman, divorced father of four, went to his crack dealer.

He was on a fourteen-day binge and was so bad off that his dealer actually refused to sell him any more until he got some sleep. It was this man’s low point, a rock-bottom hinge moment. 

After one final party binge about a year later, Michael Lindell quit alcohol and drugs. A success story in itself, but more impressive is that he grew a business empire from a drawing he sketched on his kitchen table.

One early morning after a night of pitiful sleep, he drew a sketch of a pillow with all sizes of foam that could be adjusted however a person would desire. He told his daughter “I’m going to create the worlds best pillow.” That evening MyPillow was created.

The journey for Lindell was not smooth, as his business since 2011 oscillated from extreme growth and successful infomercials to hemorrhaging money.

At one point, he owed $30,000 to a fabric manufacturer with only a few days to pay or MyPillow would be forced to shut down. It was only after a chance meeting with an individual that was he able to get a meeting with investors and get the $30,000 loan with no collateral.

He paid the manufacturer with just hours to spare.

MyPillow has become one of the top five telebrand products and has sold more than 26 million pillows with a workforce over 1,500 people. Michael Lindell’s dream is to become a $1 billion dollar company.

It’s not about the setback; it’s about the comeback!

A boat is off course 99% of the time.

The way that a sailboat finds its destination is by tacking. A series of zigzagging maneuvers by a sailboat adjusting the sail back and forth to use the wind. Adjusting is how sailboats reach their final destination.

That’s how champions adjust. They just keep moving, making minor changes and course corrections along the journey.

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That’s how champions adjust. They just keep moving, making minor changes and course corrections along the journey.

One of the amazing things is that once Michael Lindell, now a Christian, shed his demons, he remained devoted to his own style and vision. His own infomercials and personality became a huge part of MyPillow appeal.

In all areas of life, champions adjust find a way.

Mental Toughness isn’t needed when things are going great. It is needed most when bad outcomes are happening, we are stressed and things are going wrong. How do we respond and adjust?

Build Mental Toughness

Dr. Rob Bell is a Sport Psychology Coach. His company DRB & associates is based in Indianapolis.  Some clients have included: University of Notre Dame, Marriott, and Walgreens. Check out all the books on Mental Toughness- 

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3 Ways to Build Mental Toughness for Golfers

3 Ways to Build Mental Toughness for Golfers

Preparation is key to success, period.

When we look at those who aren’t achieving the success that they want, we look back to their consistency of play and preparation. 

We need to work on the correct things and practice the correct way! Besides, The resiliency of golfers is DIRECTLY connected with the short game!

If you’d like 10 ways to instantly improve your mental game of golf, then check our our complimentary e-book.

If we three-putt, miss a putt inside of five feet, or do not get up and down, then, it can sap out all of the momentum we’ve built up.

mental toughness for golfers

These 3 drills will test and improve focus, emotional sobriety, resiliency, re-focusing and competitiveness.

Partners will help a ton with these competitive drills.  Wow think of the feeling you’ll have after you’ve drained 100 3-footers in a row.

That’s how you build mental toughness for golfers- Doing the things that you don’t want to do. 

And if you’d like to see just how good professional golfers really are, then check this article out. 

 

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End practice early to build mental toughness?

build mental toughness

End Practice Early to Build Mental Toughness?

There are not many secrets to success. There is also no short-cut. 

However, one secret that I think holds true is the ability of one more. When we are tired and fatigued, the key is to be able to endure just one more.

One more rep, writing one more page, one more sales phone call.

Just one more is how we build mental toughness. 

Often, it is effective. Yet, there is a prerequisite to implementing this strategy and that is we first must have the passion and will to do “one more.”

As parents, we all have announced this just “one more” technique. We push, just a little bit, (some unfortunately, a lot) for our son or daughter to give more effort.

Add up the number of practices and seasons of just one more and that is a lot of externally driven motivation in the form of nagging, or strong-arming our son or daughter into practice.

Remember, It’s tough to be driven when you’re being driven. 

Here’s what to do instead:

-Click Here to Watch BONUS Video-

Hall of Fame tennis coach Jeff Smith, used a different technique to help build the passion in his son Bryan Smith, also a Hall of Fame tennis coach. 

He would end practice early to build mental toughness.

Here’s the technique

He would first tell Bryan how long they were going to hit tennis balls on the court, say 45 minutes. So, after 20 or 25 minutes, he would then end practice early.

Bryan, having fun, didn’t want to end early.

Instead, He would ask his dad to continue… Voila, the seed of passion and internal motivation was slowly built without the nagging, pleading, or coercion of one more.

Want to have a great athlete, check out our book- Don’t Should On Your Kids: Build Their Mental Toughness 

 

dr rob bell speakerDr. Rob Bell is a Sport Psychology Coach. DRB & associates coach executives and professional athletes. Some clients have included three different winners on the PGA Tour, Indy Eleven, University of Notre Dame, Marriott, and Walgreens. 


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Why I Am Doing an Ironman

Stay in touch with The PAIN to Build Mental Toughness

 

build mental toughness.

“The Hangover,” distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures.

Stay with the PAIN to Build Mental Toughness

  • I once fell off an 80-foot cliff and lay at the bottom until the EMS unit craned me out. I had a broken wrist, my head was gashed open, and my lower back was in an extreme amount of pain. I had to take a daily regiment of Hydrocodone and still could only make it through half the day.
  • At another low point, I was in a car accident and struck the windshield so hard that it broke my jaw and my collarbone. They had to wire my jaw and 8 weeks later removed the wires from my mouth. It felt like razor blades slicing through my gums.
  • As a sophomore in high school, I was the starting second baseman and made an error to lose a game. I felt like such a loser that my head was in my hands the entire bus ride home. I ended up losing my starting position.
  • As a caddy, I even dropped a golf ball during a professional event and cost my player two shots during the tournament!

These four instances surfaced as either physical or mental pain. However, no physical pain is without mental pain. In all of these, I had messed up, and although the physical pain soon passed, what remained were the beliefs and feelings about myself.

The residue of not feeling good enough weighed more heavily than any trophy and that does not build mental toughness. 

If you have broken a bone or failed, then you understand how bad it hurt at the moment.

However, the most interesting part about pain is that it fades… that pain becomes generalized. One cannot go back and recreate just how bad or painful it precisely was, we just remember that it hurt. That is why they say, “time heals…”

Now, time does not heal completely. Pain leaves scars. But, we have a choice in how we move forward; we can choose either the pain of discipline or the pain of regret.

Hold onto that pain to help your mental toughness.

Yes, we must move on, but try to never forget that pain completely.

Addicts, we call this remembering our rock bottom! In order to build mental toughness means being able to stay in touch with the pain and still not be consumed by it.  Pain can help us with our gratitude, because we realize we are no longer in that state. It also assists with our focus and motivation. We are now driven toward another goal and way of being.

Click here to subscribe to my Friday Mental Toughness newsletter..

 
dr rob bell

Dr. Rob Bell is a Sport Psychology Coach. His company DRB & Associates is based in Indianapolis.  Some clients have included: Indy Eleven, University of Notre Dame, Marriott, and Walgreens. Check out all the books.   

Please check out the podcast 15 Minutes of Mental Toughness as we interview expert athletes and coaches about Mental Strength and their Hinge Moment.

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