There is no shortage of unhealthy habits, even for endurance athletes. I certainly have my fair share of habits that do not serve me well – like binging on my kids snacks, procrastinating on pool time (SO cold!) or wasting time on social media. It’s safe to say we can typically recognize bad habits pretty quickly (it took me like .02 seconds to think of those), but there may be some other sneaky little bad habits that bring us down – and we may not even realize it!

As the ultimate goal-setters, athletes tend to think of “what can I do more” rather than “what should I do less.” Perhaps the key to goal setting is found not in the things we should do, but instead in the things we should stop doing. Here’s a list of 21 habits that may be holding you back.

1. Negative self-talk 
2. The idea that productivity is more important than sleep! 
3. Under-fueling workouts in order to lose weight 
4. Feeling guilt about what you did or did not do during the Covid years
5. Perfectionism; not allowing for flexibility in your training plan
6. Skipping your warm-up
7. Giving energy to people that bring you down 
8. The idea that strength training will make you bulky 
9. Waiting for the “right” moment to get started
10. Skipping rest days
11. Neglecting proper nutrition to fuel workouts and recovery
12. Social media accounts that make you feel bad about yourself
13. Training through sickness or injury, basically not listening to your body
14. The pressure you put on your body to look a certain way
15. Grinding to the point of exhaustion and burnout
16. Being “guilted” into doing things you don’t want to do
17. Stressing about things you can’t control (weather, a flat tire, covid cancellations, etc)
18. Believing that your worth is linked to your pace or athletic ability
19. Unrealistic expectations to be like others – aka Strava Stress! 
20. Excuses. It’s become painfully easy to make excuses these last few years 

Most of these things affect our mental game. If you’ve read some of my other blog posts, you’ll recall that resiliency and mental toughness are things we need to train and develop!  So, now that you get where I’m going with this, what else can we add to the list?