Posts Tagged ‘Psychological Aspects’
Why you should change your mind: The power of letting your Ego go and cognitive dissonance
A strange phenomenon happens on our journey towards perceived expertise: we get stuck. To figure out coaching, or well anything in life, we take the complexity that is life and break it down into a practical, and usable, one. Or as Philosopher Daniel Dennett in his book Intuition Pumps states, “Oversimplifications…cut through the hideous complexity with…
Read MoreWhy we are bad at predicting our own behavior and what that means in coaching.
I’m a science junkie. I admit it and while when I was a teenager I might have downplayed that side of me, now it’s something I wear quite openly on my sleeve. This couldn’t have been displayed more openly when at the post-USA’s Run Gum party, I was sitting at a table with coach Daniel…
Read More“People remember the last interval”-Why you should go out on a high note
Human psychology is a strange thing. We’re full of bias, fallacies, and weird quirks. Philosophers, scientists, and all around intelligent people have been trying to make sense of the world for centuries with varying degrees of success. It’s a side interest of mine because, in the end, we are coaching people, not hunks of muscle…
Read MoreThe Calm Conversation-How to deal with pain
My brother had called and texted, telling me to find a place to stay in Pennsylvania. Like any mid 20’s know it all, listening to my older brother wasn’t something that came naturally. It wasn’t even snowing at that point in the 4-hour drive from Penn State back home to the Washington DC suburbs of…
Read MoreInformation gathering-BS Detection and Big Words Syndrome
When I first got interested in learning more about coaching and the science behind it, one of my mentors, Tom Tellez, told me about the process of learning. When you are new to a particular topic, everything seems intriguing and complex. You don’t have a built in filter, as you don’t know what is right,…
Read MoreHow your perceptions influence reality
The last time I mentioned dating in my blog, I got the most hits in my blogs history thanks to my spiel about breaking up with a girl because she did crossfit. So I figured I should use that same tactic again, to attract more visitors who don’t find my scientific treatise on various studies…
Read MoreRule Breaking is Contagious- How the Brain causes social concepts to spread
We’re all familiar with the idea that germs and diseases can be contagious. It makes perfect sense that if our family or social circle has people who are sick that our chances of getting sick if we are around them increases. It doesn’t mean we automatically get sick, thanks to the strength of our immune…
Read MoreThe Psychology of mental toughness- Willpower, self-control, and decision making
In the sport of distance running, we are used to embracing the idea of mental toughness. Whether it’s embraced through your standard Steve Prefontaine quote about guts and glory, or from the recent front running, make everyone suffer tactics of marathoner Shalane Flanagan, runners take pride in their ability to hurt. We spend countless hours…
Read MoreDigging Deep- Willpower and running
In my last post I asked the question of how many times we could go to the well in training. Implied in the discussion was the idea that going to the well fatigues us in a profound way and that if we go there too often we “overtrain” or “burnout” and don’t bounce back like…
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