Neurological Break

I experienced mild flu like symptoms on my last day in Quito and brought it home with me.  It turned into a week's worth of floating in and out of small fevers.  Nothing that totally stopped me, but enough to irritate and delay workouts.

So, I took advantage of the slower days at home by catching up on some continuing education webinars.  Learned some great stuff.

One point in particular really hit home -- While learning about sport psychology training with elite athletes, it was mentioned how important the aspect of taking a neurological break is.  You just cannot maintain a super high focus on "the macro of everything" over the course of an entire year without consequences...May be super obvious to all of you, but wow, did it ever hit home for me.

For the past few years, I've been piling on all sorts of different experiences, much outside of my comfort zone, that required a number of new skills with high (for me) levels of adaptation.  However, the diversity and sheer density of them did not allow me to get better or comfortable with any one thing long enough.  Which consequently has been highly stressful neurologically and physically.

The excitement of those projects overshadowed the after side effects.  Add to it my continued delusional belief/expectation that I would be totally prepared and strong when the time came around to go.  My not-yet-willing to concede to the concept of hard limits gets me into trouble time and time again.

Getting back to the above webinar, it takes a season or 2 of solid repetition (training/competition) to learn the psychological skills required to adapt to the level you are working on.

Applying that to regular life, I had not allowed myself that courtesy the past few years.  By continuing to amp things up, I have drained instead of built, undermining the growth I have been seeking.  And having just too many decisions to make and too many details to sort out all the time is exhausting mentally.  My brain has finally flown its white flag.

By allowing myself to get swept away in the excitement of being constantly challenged by new things, I find myself today, feeling quite burnt out, not yet done for this year and seriously considering pulling the plug on the remainder.  This isn't the first time I've been in this head space but am kinda shocked to find myself back here again...delusional, remember?

Finally coming to terms with it all has been immensely helpful, relieving and confirming.  The way next year has shaped up is already consistent with helping me heal and become better without the hyper stress that comes with too much new stuff.  Cool to know I had been moving in that direction naturally -- Albeit, out of desperation and forced honesty!