Don’t Lower Your Goals - Expand Your Toolkit

One of the hardest parts of chasing ultra dreams is staying committed when it feels like your chances are slipping away—especially when you’re not running the way you used to.

Maybe you’ve had a few tough setbacks. You’ve had some unexpected DNFs and dropped out of races you fully expected to finish. Despite your hard training, you keep falling short of your goals. Every time you set a slightly ambitious goal, you miss it.

So, you double down—more miles, more speed work, more hills, more cross-training. But nothing shifts.

Eventually, doubt creeps in and you start thinking the problem isn’t your training—it’s your goals. You tell yourself, “I went too big. I need to aim smaller.”

Lowering your goals seems practical at first. Picking safer, more manageable races gives you a sense of relief. But there’s a cost: shrinking your goals limits opportunities, squashes your ambition, and dulls your joy.

Here’s the truth: your goals aren’t the problem—your approach is.

Your big goal isn’t a problem, it’s a challenge waiting to be solved. If your current strategy isn’t working, it doesn’t mean your goal is out of reach. It means it’s time to rethink the way you pursue it.

It’s time to strengthen your mindset, because physical strength alone won’t get you there.

Relying on physical training means you’re leaving half your potential on the table. The total amount of strength required for an ultra is physical strength + mental strength. If you’re only focused on your body, you're only giving it part of what you've got.

Mental strength affects performance as much as physical strength. It makes your body work its best and fills in gaps where your body fall short. It does more than support your race – it elevates it to a new level. So if you don’t yet have the right mental tools, that’s where the opportunity lies.

Building those tools is the way to hit those big goals without adding mileage. As a mindset coach for ultrarunners, I help my clients develop essential tools like:

- Master Negative Thoughts: Manage the mental critic and stop the sabotage that creeps in mid-race.

- Plan and Execute with Precision: Prepare for every aspect of race day and know exactly how to hit your goal.

- Stay Focused and Tune Out Distractions: Keep your attention where it matters most.

- Solve Problems Like a Pro: Adapt quickly when things don’t go as planned.

- Handle Pain with Confidence: Push through discomfort without losing momentum.

- Bounce Back from Lows: Recognize slumps and recover quickly.

- Build Emotional Resilience: Develop the confidence to handle failures and tackle bigger challenges.

Instead of shrinking your goals to fit your current mindset, grow your mental toolkit to match the size of your dreams. That’s where your untapped potential lies. You’ll:

- Stop doubting yourself and start believing in your potential.

- Approach races with confidence, knowing you have the tools to succeed.

- Take on bigger challenges—and finish them.

There’s more strength within you than you realize. When your mind and body work together, the goals that once felt unreachable become inevitable.

This is what I do with my clients: equip them to become the mentally strong, unstoppable versions of themselves—the ones who achieve what once seemed impossible.

Your goals aren’t too big. You just haven’t given it everything you’ve got—yet. Let’s change that.