Starting a new season is exciting and offers new chances. It´s up to the athlete what to do with those.
When I was an athlete, I hated the question: “What are you doing in Summer?” Well, to perform in Winter, I had to prepare in summer, spring, and fall. So when I talk about starting a season, I mean the whole season, training and competing.
I think it is great to get every year a new start. Of course, no one starts from scratch again, but everyone is getting a new chance, even starting at different levels. The ones who had a great season have the chance to work for another great competition season and the ones who are not very excited about the past season get the opportunity to prepare for a better one.
It is never the case that an athlete can not work on something, even when the past season was incredible. The nice part about coming from an astonishing season is the excitement about working on some discovered potential, making this new season even better. And if there is really nothing to improve, which I think will never be the case, it is still inspiring to know what needs to be done to succeed again.
When last season was not the best, it is nice to leave it behind, take the learnings, and implement them in the plan for the new season. I find it very exciting and motivating to work on my potential. Of course it needs at least an idea of addressing those gaps during this new training season. In this case, it is important NOT to do the exact same thing again because it is proven that it doesn´t work.
It can be hard to trust something new, something never done or experienced before personally, but it needs to be considered to make changes when the outcome is not the expected one. It sounds simple, but it is not as easy. I´ve seen athletes who carried over the exact same system and ideas into the new season but expected another outcome. I would not call it a mistake when done the first time, but it is a mistake when done the second or even the third time. There is a need for a different input to have a different outcome. I would not say I repeated mistakes a lot, but I wish I sometimes would have had the courage for some more significant changes.
It mostly doesn´t need to be a totally new approach. Depending on the situation, even little adjustments may already lead to more success. It is also possible that there is nothing wrong with the concept, just how the athlete implements and executes it.
The new chance of a new season offers a lot of opportunities. To be aware of those chances and how it would be possible to use them makes not just this first training session very exciting but carries through the whole training and into competition season.
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