How to Develop a Healthy Mental Attitude When You Run

By Danny Dreyer • ChiRun­ning

In ChiRun­ning, we uti­lize the prin­ci­ple of non-identification to help you in achiev­ing your run­ning goals, whether you are try­ing to start on a run­ning pro­gram, improve your tech­nique, or PR your 10K. Bot­tom line, non-identification requires that you get a grip on your ego. Ego is such a loaded word. Really, it’s not a bad thing. It’s a good healthy part of your psy­che. How­ever, when the ego runs the show, things can go out of whack. Non-identification doesn’t ask you to drop your ego. It just asks you to keep it in bal­ance with other aspects of your self, and espe­cially with what your body has to say.

When the ego makes the choices with­out being bal­anced with the input of your body and being, your work­outs and goals are prob­a­bly out of bal­ance as well. The ego is a two-sided coin. It can either inflate or deflate your sense of self. When inflated, it may demand that you run a 10K in 50 min­utes when your body is really ready for a 56-minute run. This is a recipe for injury.

When deflated, your ego might give in to the nag­ging ache in your knee rather than try­ing just a lit­tle bit more to learn to lean and there­fore not strike with your heels. When your ego is deflated, you give up too easily.

Non-identification is the art of mak­ing healthy deci­sions and of see­ing your­self from a bal­anced place with­out judg­ing your­self. If you are defin­ing your self-worth by how well a run goes–either neg­a­tively or with an inflated sense of pride–then you are iden­ti­fy­ing with how you run. When you are non-identified, you eval­u­ate your run, but not your self worth. You notice what you did well, what you need to improve upon and enjoy the process of learn­ing and improv­ing your run­ning technique.

It doesn’t mean you don’t feel good about your accom­plish­ments. As a mat­ter of fact, when you are non-identified you may feel your accom­plish­ments more deeply, more qui­etly and more pro­foundly. You may take more delight in the smaller things in your life. It also means that you don’t judge your­self too harshly when things don’t go the way you want. The voices of “I’m not good enough, fast enough or strong enough” will never help you accom­plish anything.

Non-identification also means see­ing the big pic­ture of your­self. You are aware of your strengths, your chal­lenges and your long-term goals. This knowl­edge helps keep you on track and keeps you from get­ting side­lined by the many lures of the ego.

To get to a place of non-identification, prac­tice the Five Mind­ful Steps (from Chi­Walk­ing). First, think of the issue about which you need to make a choice, then:

1. Get Aligned — Stand up straight. Feel your spine. Feel your pos­ture straight from your head to your feet (or tail­bone if you are sit­ting). This will give you some sta­bil­ity and a stronger sense of self and focus. Get aligned with your big pic­ture goal. Does this choice fit in with that goal? Get aligned with sup­port­ing your goal in the best way possible.
2. Engage Your Core — You want to lis­ten to “the mind” of your body. To do so, focus your mind on your gut. Lit­er­ally feel the area just below your navel and in toward your spine. Then, engage that part of your body on a phys­i­cal level for at least 20 sec­onds or more. Now, ask the ques­tion regard­ing the choice you have to make. Can you notice how the answer has a dif­fer­ent feel­ing than when you just engage your mind?
3. Cre­ate Bal­ance — Find the bal­ance in your body phys­i­cally by mov­ing from foot to foot until you are bal­anced on both feet. Then move your torso until you find bal­ance in your body. Now, allow your mind to explore your var­i­ous choices. Try them on and look at them from var­i­ous per­spec­tives. Feel what each choice feels like.
4. Make a Choice — From this place of align­ment, core engage­ment and deep bal­ance, you will be able to see your­self and make a choice from a non-identified, but healthy per­spec­tive. Your mind and ego will have had their input, but your body will have been included in the process.
5. Move For­ward — Once you have made a choice. It is always good to take steps to move in your cho­sen direc­tion. It will help instate the choice into your mind and body.

A few other ways to prac­tice non-identification:

• Lighten up. Learn to laugh at your­self. If you can laugh at your mis­takes, you are most likely in a non-identified place where you are not truly judg­ing your­self, and you’re not tak­ing your­self too seri­ously. Life is short. Lighten up and learn to enjoy “what is” to stay healthy.
• Ask oth­ers. Get other people’s opin­ions of what you should do and just lis­ten to their ideas. You don’t have to fol­low their advice, but be open to other perspectives.
• Run for fun. If you’re too seri­ous about your run­ning, event, or goals you will have a ten­dency to get over iden­ti­fied. Make sure you really do run at least one fun run a week and keep it that way–just for pure enjoyment.
• Keep a log. Writ­ing down the results of our work­outs and runs can help you get per­spec­tive and solve any chal­lenges you are facing.

Great run­ning form doesn’t just come from good tech­nique (although it’s a great place to start). It comes from hav­ing a healthy men­tal atti­tude. When you prac­tice non-identification you might not just become a bet­ter run­ner, you might become a bet­ter per­son as well.