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The Right Clothes
— for better habits, mindsets, and performances
My high school soccer team always had the best-looking
uniforms. It wasn’t that we had a particularly large budget for such things; rather, it was
that my coach had a firm belief that the way our team dressed, both in practice and in
competition, had a significant impact on how we performed. His motto was simple:
“When you look good, you feel good”
Most people recognize that the way they dress — no matter
their style — sends a message to the outside world about who they are and what they’re all
about. But what isn’t as obvious, or well-understood, is how our clothing shapes the
opinions and beliefs we have about ourselves.
See, my coach didn’t care what the other team thought about
our uniforms, he cared what we thought about them. Or more accurately, he cared what we
thought about ourselves when we put them on. His motto — when you look good, you
feel good — was all about instilling confidence and belief, knowing that such
qualities were the cornerstones of high performance.
High Performance Starts with Better Habits
“We are what we repeatedly do; therefore, excellence is not
an act but a habit.” Aristotle
If Aristotle were with us today, he’d probably say something
we’ve all heard many times before — If you want to perform at a higher level, you have
to train at a higher level.
To become a better athlete, or to achieve the next goal
you’ve set for yourself, you must be consistent in your training. No one heroic workout is going
to advance your abilities in any meaningful way. So how do you become the type of athlete who
has better habits?
The Connection Between Our Clothes and Our Habits
Wearing the right clothes can be an excellent primer for
creating better habits. For one, your clothes are highly visual and always right in front of
you. That influence is abundant and inescapable — so whatever message you happen to be
sending to yourself with your clothes, remember that you’re getting a constant dose of it
all day long.
Second, clothes serve as a form of self-expression and are
linked to our identities. They are the costumes of real life. In the same way that a good,
convincing costume helps an actor get into character, we can use our own clothes to prime
ourselves to think and feel like the athlete’s we wish to become. We can literally shape our
identities with the clothes we choose to wear.
James Clear, a renowned expert on habits, explains that
forming better habits is largely
about changing one’s sense of identity. When we change our
beliefs about who we are, we naturally find it easier to change our behavior in a way
that aligns with those beliefs. For example, if someone in the habit of staying up late can
learn to identify with a statement like — I’m the type of person who goes to bed at 10pm — it
will be much easier to change the habit of staying up late. On the other hand, if that
same person identifies with a statement like — I’m such a night owl. I hardly ever fall
asleep before midnight — then it will be difficult to make any lasting changes to bedtime.
Granted, retooling your athletic wardrobe is not going to
turn you into Rocky Balboa overnight. There is always hard work to be done in building
better habits and bettering one’s performances. But important insights can be gained
from understanding how your clothes impact your sense of self and your duly taken
actions.
According to one study from the Journal of SocialPsychological and Personality Science, participants scored much higher in creative and
organizational tasks when wearing formal attire opposed to casual attire. The participants wearing
formal attire also reported feeling more confident and focused during these tests, indicating
their clothes had a significant impact on both their belief in their ability to perform well
and their actual performance.
The Right Clothes — Not Necessarily the Most Popular Clothes
The right clothes for you, the ones that make you feel like
the athlete you’d ideally like to be, day-in and day-out, aren’t necessarily going to be the
most fashionable or luxurious options. They certainly might be — but wearing a set of
clothes merely because they’re popular isn’t going to make you feel the way you want to
feel. So forget about how your outfit appears to others, and think about how it is
impacting your self-image instead.
At the same time, don’t just assume that all of the
well-worn clothes in your closet are working against you. Any older garments that you have a
positive association with can be extremely valuable. If the tattered and frayed race t-shirt
you got six years ago reminds you of the time that, in the face of persistent pain, you
charged the last 5k of your half-marathon without ever slowing down — then that old t-shirt is the one
for you. Just be careful that the “classics” in your closet aren’t holding you back. While
some older clothes have the power to lift you up in ways no others can, some have the
potential to lead you back around to a former, worn-out state of mind.
Clothes are an Investment
The most common objection to investing further into one’s
wardrobe is — I already have plenty of workout clothes. I really shouldn’t be buying any
more.
I get it. You probably feel like you have too many clothes
in general. Most people do. Plus many of those clothes are probably perfectly adequate in
terms of function.
But in the same way that you invest your time and energy
into your sport or activity, it's equally as valid to invest your money into a mindfully
constructed wardrobe.
Ask yourself this — How are my clothes affecting the way I
see myself as an athlete?
Along with keeping you warm, dry, and protected from the
sun, shouldn’t your clothes be helping you feel strong, confident, and determined, too?
How to Get Started
First, give the following questions a generous ponder:
What’s the image of my ideal athletic self?
What habits do I need to form in order to become the athlete
I ultimately want to be?
Then come up with 3-4 descriptive words that capture the
essence of your answers. As a professional decathlete and pole vault coach, I spend
about 4-5 hours each day training, coaching, and writing workouts. To do all of it
well (or even decently), I must be able to think in both a long-term and short-term way.
When it’s time to train, I have to narrow my focus and be
completely in the moment. When it’s time to write workouts, I have to envision a long-term
plan and act strategically. One of my biggest day-to-day challenges is letting go of the
long-term, strategic thinking when it’s time to be in the moment of a workout. With that in mind,
I’ve landed on the following descriptors that, for me, embody the type of mentally agile
athlete-coach I want to be day-in and day-out:
Present
Persistent
Thorough
Objective
Your descriptors may be completely different. In fact, I’m
sure they will be! So here are some more descriptive words that many athletes, regardless
of sport or skill-level, might use:
Patient
Grateful
Joyful
Supportive
Encouraging
Healthy
Driven
Strong
Determined
Prepared
Tactful
Fearless
Trusting
Once you have a sense of how you want to feel in your
clothes, donate each of the items in your closet that fall short of getting you to that place.
Then start filling in the gaps with carefully considered pieces that will anchor your thoughts
to your chosen descriptors.
Now is the perfect time to make a change like this. It’s the
perfect time to pause and reflect on how your athletic wardrobe has been holding you back or
lifting you up for the past few months or years. It’s the perfect time to put words to the
type of athlete you ultimately like to become. And in a few weeks (God willing), when retail
stores all across the country reopen their doors and hold massive sales to jump-start
their businesses, it will be the perfect time to find some great deals on the clothes that
are going to help you work towards better habits, mindsets, and performances.
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