October 27, 2020

Be A Goldfish

Fictional football coach, Ted Lasso, said “be a goldfish” to an athlete he was coaching. It’s great advice. In this post, I share why.

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I was watching Ted Lasso last night.

If you haven’t seen it, it’s about an American Football coach, Ted Lasso, who gets hired by an English Premier Football Club and moves to England to coach their team.

A line in the episode caught my attention. “Be a goldfish”.

The coach said this to one of his players, Sam, after a teammate scored on him, and taunted him, in a training exercise they were playing.

“You know what the happiest animal on earth is?” Ted asked. “It’s a goldfish. You know why? It’s got a 10-second memory. Be a goldfish, Sam”.

It’s easy to get upset and let emotions influence your behaviour, but that is a losing strategy.

You can’t control how people act, or what they think of you. Getting upset and wasting energy on such things, not only impacts your state, it can negatively impact your performance.

The next time you find yourself getting worked up about things outside of your control, be a goldfish. Forget about it, and focus on the things over which you have control, and that can make you a better athlete and person.

Cut Race Times, Not Corners.

Racing at your potential and enjoying training is easy when you’re following the right programme.

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Ben Pulham

Ben Pulham is the founder of Coached, a personalised training programme that helps runners & triathletes optimise, track and enjoy their training.