Self-awareness will become more apparent and it can have an important
influence on performance. You will become more self-aware and your
self-critical nature will become more pronounced as training progresses. You
will no longer be just doing, but noticing more of what you are doing and what
you are not doing. You can be improving, but it may seem like the opposite. A
break allows you to return with a better awareness of the improvement you thought
you were not making. Also, you will be very much aware of the specific problems
you may have and particularly what needs to be worked on.
Can you identify your stressful times or those things that bother you?
These are distractions you must deal with so that you can then get on with your
training. It's important. It's life. Deal with the root of a problem and it
will disappear. Deal with a symptom and the problem will remain to come back
someday. Keep life simple. It can be. If you try to juggle too many things at
once you will ultimately fail. Make a problem difficult and it will become so.
Thoughts can be invasive, but only if you talk to yourself and attempt to deal
with them. Let the thoughts come and go and try not to examine them. Don't try
to suppress them either. This gives them a solidity they don't deserve and
concentrates the mind on them. That's what you don't want to do.
Have you ever read something or been in the company of someone who has
said something that didnŐt seem particularly significant at the time, but which
later has altered your perception? Sometimes you know an answer or think you do
without knowing why. It's curious, but how can you be sure it is the right
answer? Maybe it's just a long standing thought and not necessarily even your
own! When you then logically think that argument through, you may arrive at a completely
different answer to the one you originally used to think. It may be that later
in life your attitudes have changed or you later know something you didn't know
earlier and you never changed your automatic response. Always be prepared to
change the way you used to do this or think that. You will in many cases find
you still agree with the original belief, but if you donŐt then be brave and
change your opinion. Sometimes it needs courage to question your own beliefs.