July 17, 2025 • 46 mins
We’re diving into one of the biggest struggles I hear from so many handlers and competitors: “I know I should work out — so why is it so hard to actually stick with it?”
If you’ve ever felt frustrated by that tug-of-war in your head — you want to get stronger and faster for your dog, but your follow-through fizzles out — you are going to love this conversation.
In this episode, I’m joined by Heather Sumlin, an amazing mental management coach who works with athletes, handlers, and everyday people to break through the mental roadblocks that get in the way of consistent training. Together, we unpack:
✨ Why connecting to your deeper “why” really matters — and how to reframe boring mobility drills into something that feels motivating and meaningful.
✨ How perfectionism and all-or-nothing thinking sneak in — and simple reframes you can use when life is busy so you still get a win instead of skipping your workout altogether.
✨ The shift from “I should work out” to “This is who I am.” We explore how seeing yourself as an athlete for your dog changes your commitment, your mindset, and your results.
✨ What to do when your inner critic shows up. [Guest’s Name] shares powerful tips for handling the voice that says, “You’re too old,” or “You’ll never be as fast as them.”
✨ Protecting your energy and avoiding burnout. We talk about how to stop pouring from an empty cup so you can stay strong for your dog — and yourself.
✨ The power of environment and tiny habits. Learn how to build workout cues right into your day, so you don’t have to rely on willpower.
✨ How to bounce back after you fall off track. Because missing a week (or a month!) doesn’t mean you’ve failed — and we’ll help you see how to reset and keep going.
Whether you’re an experienced competitor or just starting your fitness journey, you’ll come away from this episode with fresh mindset tools, practical ideas, and inspiration to help you keep showing up for yourself — and your dog — for the long haul.
🎧 Listen now and let us know what lands for you — we’d love to hear what helps!
You can find Heather’s amazing work, resources, and coaching on her Website at HeatherSumlin.com ,her Patreon bit.ly/4l190BH and her inspiring Podcast — https://bit.ly/4eUcHrk!
For more tools, workouts, and ways to work with me, head to caninehandlerfitness.com And don’t forget to share this one with a friend who might need a little mental boost, too. You’ve got this!
Ready to move better, feel stronger, and run your dog with more speed and control?
Jump into these free handler-specific stretches designed to boost your mobility, prevent injury, and elevate your performance—click here to get started now: https://liz-joyce-fitnes.kit.com/75a61bb61a
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hey dog sport handlers, welcome to the canine Handler Fitness
podcast. I'm your host Liz Joyce, your go
to expert for all things dog sport fitness.
Whether you're running, agility,doing protection work, tackling,
search and rescue, handling it tough tugger or just looking for
a lifetime that ventures with your dog.
Remember you are fat the ticket and I'm here to help you stay
(00:23):
strong, mobile and injury free. Join me as I breakdown the
unique commands handler fitness,speed, strain.
Everything you eat comes warm atyour best, both in and out.
Bring Let's stay strong, stay inthe game and do what we love.
Let's buy the Hey friends, and welcome back to the canine
(00:48):
handler fitness podcast. I am Liz Joyce and today we're
digging into a sticking point for many and something that I
hear all the time, which sounds a lot like I know I should work
out. So why is it so hard to actually
stick with it? If you ever felt frustrated by
that mental tug of war, you are in for a treat.
(01:10):
I've grown as someone truly special.
Heather Sondland is an incredible mental management
coach who helps athletes, competitors, and everyday
handlers understand what's really happening in our heads
when we struggle to commit and follow through.
Heather, I'm so thrilled that you're here.
And before we dive into all the gold you were about to share,
(01:32):
could you start by telling us a little bit about you, what you
do, who you love working with, and what lights you up about
this work? I started mental coaching in
about 2006. I was working for my father's
Symphony, mental management systems.
He is an Olympic champion. Before he became the world's
(01:53):
best in a sport, though, he was struggling mentally to be able
to range the level of success that he desired in his sport.
My dad's an Olympic rifle shooter and he was competing
with the current world champion who was his teammate.
They were preparing for the Olympic Games 1972.
My dad was capable of competing not only alongside the world
(02:15):
champion, but beating him in practice.
And so he thought, hey, if no one on the planet can beat this
guy and I can beat him in practice, I have a chance of
winning the Olympic gold medal my first time.
Now, that's not what sherbet because my father trained
technically. He had the best coaches, the
best equipment and all of the things that what he didn't have
was mental control in an environment that required.
(02:38):
So when you're competing at the Olympic Games, it is the most
pressure filled situation an athlete will ever be in.
And my father could handle everything but the pressure.
And so he came home with a silver medal because he was so
technically skilled, but he wasn't mentally in control
enough to snag the gold. So he came home feeling
(03:00):
frustrated and irritated at being the world's best loser, is
what he would say because he gotso close to winning.
But it didn't happen. So he started interviewing
Olympic champions to find out what they were doing differently
about the mental game, created mental management based on his
own research. And then he dominated by
applying the mental management system that he created to his
(03:20):
own game. So in 1974, he became world
champion. He won.
Let's see, he competed at the World Championships.
He brought home 15 medals, 8 of them were gold.
Became the number one ranked shooter in the world.
He was literally the Michael Phelps of rifle shooting at the
time. In 1976 he won the gold medal in
(03:42):
his sport, 78. He repeated as world champion
and the company Mental Management was formed in 1977.
When people were wondering, whatare you doing differently?
You went from being very inconsistent in your sport to
being super consistent. What did you do?
So Mental Management was born and my father was teaching it
(04:03):
for a very long time before I came on board working for him.
I started working for my father's company because his
system transformed my mindset inthe workplace.
I don't think I paid a lot of attention to what he was doing.
When I was growing up, I didn't really care about rifle
shooting. I didn't want to shoot anything
at all, so I never really walkedon the range where he was.
(04:26):
He was literally teaching peoplefrom across the globe how to
shoot and how to control their mind.
I wasn't listening to all of that, and so my brothers were
really being mentored by him, but I was off doing other
things. I was competing in pageantry and
my mom was helping me and things.
I wanted to be a singer. I thought it's going to be
famous, all the things, but I didn't really pay attention to
(04:47):
how mental management was going to transform my life.
And I read with Wang in mind at a time when I needed it the
most, working in the corporate world.
The book actually transformed the way that I viewed my
environment, which really changed my life.
So when I was at a place where Icould change careers, I chose to
(05:08):
work for my father's company andI worked for him for about 19
years. And then I started my company of
Solid Solutions 2 1/2 years ago and I'm teaching the same thing.
I'm just working for myself and I'm mainly focusing on helping
women transform the way that they view their environment and
taking the mental management principles and applying it to
their own lives as well as theircompetitive environments too.
(05:31):
It's been so much fun. Oh, I can imagine.
Well, I'm looking forward to hearing how you're going to help
all of these listeners work through challenges that they
have, putting the why into practice so they can continue
seeing results and excel in their sports.
Talking about the why, I want toask you about motivation and the
(05:55):
why. I get so many people saying
things to me that sounds like I lost my motivation or I was
motivated, then I lost it. And I'd love to hear from you.
How do you help people work through it when they lose steam
after a few weeks of working outand at that late the time, it's
(06:18):
not enough time for them to havehabits that really stick.
And how do you help someone prioritize their fitness so that
they can see the goals that theywant out of the process?
I think the first thing that we have to look at is motivation is
very temporary. I mean, usually I'm motivated.
Why am I motivated? You know, I'm motivated because
(06:39):
I want results. But then once things get hard
and difficult, then I'm no longer motivated.
Yes. And now I'm seeing all the
things I don't like about this goal that I set for myself.
One thing that we can talk aboutreal quickly is goals have 3
phases. So you set this wonderful goal.
I want to transform my fitness, transform my life.
For whatever reason, the first phase of a goal is attraction.
(07:00):
Super excited about this goal. I might think about everything I
like about this goal. This goal is fun.
This goal is awesome. I'm going to do all the things
Liz told me to do so I can get where I want to go.
Woo Hoo. But then we hit distraction.
Distraction, the second phase ofa goal, and that's where we're
thinking about all things we don't like.
All the things that we think areawful.
Oh my gosh, I have to get up early to add this workout in.
(07:22):
Are you kidding me? I like to sleep.
I'm not seeing any results yet. Therefore, I'm really
disenchanted with this goal. This takes me away from the
thing that I really like to do, which is eat the thing that
maybe I shouldn't be eating right now in order to get my
goal. Whatever it is, it's distracting
you from being able to see the benefits of the goal.
So the third phase is traction. You want to be able to gain
(07:44):
traction. So that's where your why fits
in, right? We want to focus on why did we
set this goal in the 1st place and what is it that we need to
change about ourselves in order to arrange the goal that we have
set. We don't have it because it's
not like us yet. And so we have to figure out
what do I need to change in order to make this new habit or
attitude like me? You ever see people skip the
(08:06):
distraction stuff? Do you ever see people go from
attraction to attraction all in one go?
Or do you find that there reallyis a process where they have to
go through the whole? The goal is super.
Fast. My dad tells this story.
When he went back to school again in like 2000, he decided
(08:27):
to go back to school to get an IT degree.
My father's ambitious and he's like, you know, if I can learn
something about IT, that is the wave of the future, maybe I can
create something that's going tomake me more profitable and help
my business, blah, blah, blah. So I'm going to go back to
school and get another degree and there was this wonderful
(08:49):
program. You just had to go on Saturdays
and as long as you already had abachelor's, you can get another
bachelor's in a year. But you had to go all day every
Saturday for like you and my dadwas an attraction.
I love this. It's a great idea.
Until he had his first exam in this class and he says, I'm
(09:10):
taking this exam and my goal, I was going to get a 4.0.
I was going to go to school to learn this time.
I went to school to get out the first time and he said, so I'm
taking this exam and there's only four question and the first
question that he didn't understand.
And all of a sudden he hit distraction like crazy.
He's like, why am I doing this? This is ridiculous.
I could be making money. This is a prime day for people
(09:32):
to bring me in to speak and to go travel and do amazing things.
Why am I doing this? What's the point?
And he's in distraction, not first too long, but for long
enough to start to doubt why he's there.
And then he's like, you know what?
I can't stay. I teach this stuff.
I can't stay in this mindset. I've got to start, just get into
(09:52):
traction. I have a test in front of me.
I have got to finish it. Second question, you understood
a new 4th question, you understood a new.
Finish the test before anybody else walks over to the
professor, puts it on his desk and says, that's the best 75
you're going to see all day. I didn't understand the first
question. Professor then looks at the test
and that's the question. He goes, oh, I teach two
(10:15):
different programming classes. That's one for a different
class. You shouldn't know the answer to
that. I'm going to drop that question
anyway to add that 100 point of the story is often times when
we're in distraction, we're focusing on all the things that
really don't matter. It causes us to lose energy, to
lose focus, to lose momentum andthat motivation to get where we
(10:35):
need to go. So what we need to do is be
disciplined to focus on the things that we can control.
He could only control the answers to the three questions
that he understood. Say, sometimes what appears to
be the case isn't the case and you cannot control it.
So you go ahead and release thatcontrol.
You do what you can and you moveforward.
(10:56):
I think that's applicable lessonfor people who have injuries
that come up that is a part of being a human or have dog
injuries that come up or otherwise maybe take them off
track. I love that story you talked a
little bit about just briefly, and I want to pick your brain
about this, about people's identity and their self belief.
(11:18):
As I noticed that handlers who really stick with their fitness
long term began to see it as a part of who they are and not
something that they should be doing to get to a goal.
How do you help people ship fromsea fitness as an uncomfortable
(11:38):
obligation to see it as a part of their identity?
So when you think about mental management, there's three mental
processes that performance is a function of.
You have your conscious mind, which is your thoughts, your
subconscious is your skills and yourself.
Image is your habits and your attitude.
If we don't have something now, it's because it's not like us to
(11:59):
have it or this goal has not been realized because something
needs to change within us in order to make it happen.
In fitness is like that, where Ihave to become someone who
chooses to go to the gym or chooses to fuel my body in a
certain way and utilize my body in a certain way in order to
become quote UN quote fit. But that's not who I've always
(12:21):
been. So how am I going to get there?
Will we have to change self in it?
Well, your self in it is just changed through imprints.
What you think about, talk about, write about, who you hang
around, what you watch, what youlisten to, what actually happens
to you, all of these things are imprints onto your self-image.
So the more you do something, the more you think about
(12:42):
something, the more it's like you to do something, the more
that self-image changes to wherethat becomes your comfort zone.
Yourself image is the upper and lower level limits of what's
like you, which essentially is your comfort zone.
I've told you in the past when we've had conversations that I
only run when I'm chased. That's my comfort song, right?
I have identified myself as someone who sits much more than
(13:05):
I move and that is not necessarily going to aid me
well, if I'm choosing to be in asport like agility where I would
need to move my body. Now for your listeners
understand, I have dogs. I don't actually compete in dog
sports. I do work with dog handlers and
so I understand that there are things that you have to change
(13:27):
about you in order to arrange the goals that you set or the
goals that you've set for your dog.
Because you have to be there equipped and capable handler to
get where you want to go. And that may mean you have to
change some things about you andthe process.
So if I was someone who hadn't worked out, let's say I'm in my
(13:48):
50s, so I've got decades of lived experience and habits and
lifestyle and belief and self identity surrounding someone who
it doesn't work out. And now I decide that I do want
to work out, I'm really motivated.
What kinds of inference would you encourage me to put into my
(14:09):
life? And also, are there multiple
sources when you're talking about this?
I'm thinking about people may belistening to podcasts that are
surrounding healthy eating, why it's important, and maybe having
a more curated social media feedor being just conscious about
the types of conversations that they even allowed to enter their
(14:29):
conscious mind and that they ruminate on.
So how far does this go in termsof you helping someone change
their identity in that way? And am I kind of on the right
track with that? You are I think what happens is
we need to be very mindful in when we're building our
self-image to be the person thatwe want to be.
(14:50):
We want to also protect it once it's built.
So that means I want to hang around with people who are very
beneficial to me for myself image growth.
So maybe that's having it. I like to call it a count of
bill, a buddy, you know, somebody that you can be your
accountability partner. I love that.
Maybe they understand the goal that you're trying to set for
yourself, that you're trying to accomplish, and they're tasked
(15:13):
with complimenting you, encouraging you, and helping you
along the way. I think that's really important.
I think we get somewhere where we want to go a lot of times in
community and not always all by ourselves.
So I think that's something thatwe can look at.
Podcasts are helpful. Audiobooks are helpful, even
just the way that you communicate with yourself, the
things that you imagine, make sure that the imprints that
(15:37):
you're giving are going to be inline with your goals.
That's what's important. That doesn't mean that you can't
veg on the couch and watch some TV.
Obviously everything in moderation.
But at the end of the day, and and I'm not someone who's like
an all or nothing person, I think that you should still have
the freedom to enjoy life. But I think you have to figure
(15:58):
how what type of life do you want to live?
What lifestyle do you want to have?
And there may be some uncomfortable moments to get
where you want to go. That's why you're not there yet.
Growth is often uncomfortable, but dissatisfaction is really
good motivator for moving towards what you do want.
You touched on all or nothing thinking or not being an all or
(16:20):
nothing person. I see this happened a lot, that
people have maybe a goal that's running 3 kilometers for
example. When they hit the goal, it's
like they don't have the next step in their head in place.
So like they've done it, they finished, they're done.
I'd love to hear your thoughts on how you would help somebody
(16:43):
that has a tendency to look at fitness in that way.
So I find those same people don't have the kind of same
mental block when it comes to dog training or moving forward
after they've reached a milestone with their dog
training, but they do with theirfitness.
What is that about and how wouldyou help somebody through that?
Yeah. Are they defining themselves as
(17:06):
a dog trainer, not just one skill.
So if we're looking at working out or fitness, if you're
choosing to live a fit and healthy lifestyle, then running
that 3 kilometers is just one skill that you're gaining, not
necessarily the identity that you're creating for yourself.
(17:28):
So I think it determines like, how do you want to communicate
with you? It reminds me of the idea of,
let's say that your goal is to quit smoking.
In order for you to quit it again, you have to start smoking
again. To quit it again, what would be
to become a non-smoker? Someone who doesn't smoke.
(17:49):
So you see what I'm thinking about.
My goal is then to become a runner.
It's not to just run 3 kilometers.
Maybe it's to become someone whoenjoys the.
Act of run. That's a very different
conversation. Yeah, I think it's important
that we're choosing who we want to become ahead.
I love that. I think that's really helpful
(18:13):
and also I'm going to be sendingeverybody over to see you
because you've got just amazing way of communicating with
people. I want to ask you about this
perfectionist. We're all or nothing thinking
when it comes to fitness and this is common in other areas of
life too. Sometimes I feel like when I'm
(18:35):
working with people, if they're not hitting their target
workouts in a week, that they feel like it's just not worth
doing at all. And it's crushing to their
progress forward and I think also crushing to their mental
state around it at all and theirconfidence.
And I hate seeing that. I'd love to hear from your
(18:55):
perspective. How do you help people through
that? And what kinds of message would
you have for someone who finds himself in an all or nothing
trap? Baby steps are still steps
forward. So no matter how large the step,
if you're moving forward, that'sstill progress.
(19:17):
It may not be as fast as you want to get there.
It may not be as exciting as youwant to get there, but if you're
getting there, you get. I was sitting in a seminar that
he was doing and somebody reallywanted to be a world champion.
And he's like, well, does it matter when you do it or that
you do it? Like what matters that I do it?
(19:37):
He says, OK, then why are we limiting the timeline to this
year? And it's one of those things
where if you're giving yourself such a short window, it can be
overwhelming the amount of pressure you could put in
yourself to make it happen. And so maybe we need to extend
the timeline and give ourselves a little bit of grace as we're
(19:57):
moving forward because if we're taking those small steps, at
least we're getting somewhere. Babies fall over 300 times
before they actually walk. And yet, in what other point in
our life do we actually give ourselves that many attempts to
become proficient in something? We start off super dedicated and
(20:20):
excited to actually accomplish things.
We are very motivated as children, so at what point do we
talk ourselves out of progress? I hear you, and something that I
actually sit with and think about a lot is that adults do a
great job at filling our lives primarily with things that we're
fairly good at. It's a lot more comfortable than
(20:42):
that space, you know, and I agree with you.
Speaking of resilience, I'd loveto hear your thoughts on helping
people bounce back after they'vefallen off the wagon with the
Pamela's. Miss a week or maybe a trial
weekend threw off their routine.It's really common for them to
feel like they failed and then just stop all together or take
(21:05):
multiple weeks off before they feel motivated enough to dig in
again. And what do you wish people
understood about getting back ontrack when they've fallen off
their plan? You mentioned failed, and I
think failure has to be an option for failure to be
realized. And I don't necessarily believe
(21:29):
that we have to focus on you where you lose necessarily in
life. I think you win or you learn.
And so if you fall off the wagonor you get derailed in your
progress, you have to look at what are the lessons in which
I'm supposed to be learning right now in order to get back
on the wagon and move forward faster.
So instead of choosing to go completely negative and beat
(21:51):
yourself down, how about we build ourselves up and look at
what are the things that we can learn through this process.
And I'll tell you, dog sports, this is so cool to me.
The amount of opportunity for personal self discovery through
the challenges that dog sports provides for a handler is so
(22:11):
cool. And some of you are like, I'm
tired of learning. But seriously, it's so cool
because your dog provides opportunities for you to learn
as you're trying to teach them skills and trying to get
comfortable in these competitiveenvironments.
You get another dog later, they teach you a whole different set
of skills. It's like have a different
child. God doesn't give you 2 the same,
so you got to learn. I think it's something that we
(22:33):
need to be eager and excited to learn who we can become through
the process instead of so perfectionistic in our
mentality. I think that's really helpful
for people to be able to think about it through that lens and
hopefully that hits home for some people.
And I like to call things like that not getting back on the
(22:55):
waking, but it's just a restart and always starting with more
information. It's not like a failure, it's
just information about what didn't work for you.
And especially when few people haven't been working out for a
long period of time or if this intensity is new to them, I
think it's really important to understand that finding a zone
where it works for you and exercises that you like that
(23:18):
make your body feels good. All of that takes some time and
some playing around to find yourrhythm.
And I would hope people take from this that having a bit of
patience and kindness towards itself is helpful.
I want to ask you about people that you see that sabotage their
mental game. So a lot of people start off
(23:38):
super strong and then say thingslike I'm too old for this or I
don't have time for this. My body is injured and it
doesn't move like it was before.I think that also comes from a
place of maybe having a peak fitness in their younger years
and then returning to fitness and wanting to move and be
(24:00):
strong like they were when they were younger.
And it's just maybe going to take some time for them to get
there. But it's frustrating.
So how do you help people through that?
It reminds me of, I think it's aChinese proverb, but it when was
the when is the best time to plant a tree 20 years ago?
When is the second best time to plant a tree right now?
(24:22):
One of those things where you have to realize that yes, you
may have some limitations or differences in your ability
because of your age, but if you wait until tomorrow, you may be
waiting forever. And you have to look at what are
the benefits to starting now. And it goes all the way back to
the why, right? Why are we doing in the 1st
(24:44):
place? What is the point of making this
change within ourselves? And do we want to?
Because a person who doesn't want to change isn't going to,
and no matter how good of a fitness coach you are or how
good of a mental coach I am, we're not going to convince them
that they should do it if they are not convinced themselves
that it's important and worthwhile to do.
And so the why has to be there and has to be strong enough to
(25:04):
get them to want to change thosebehaviors.
I was telling you before about awebinar that Barbara and T and I
are doing. So Barbara Currier, who has 20
years of experience and agility,and Tia Anders, you guys don't
know 15 or more years of experience in Noah's work.
We partner together on a Patreonchannel and we're also doing a
(25:28):
webinar and webinar series together.
And we're going to tackle some of these common mental mistakes
that handlers make when they're competing in any dog sport.
And I highly recommend that yourlisteners join us.
It would be great. But something that I've realized
is a lot of the things that we struggle with in dog sports are
things that you struggle with ineveryday life.
And so when you're looking at changing your thought process
(25:51):
towards fitness or your sport, it could very well be that you
can take those same like mental management principles and apply
them to everything that you do in your life.
And so you think when you don't limit yourself to believing
that, oh, this fitness change that I'm making is only going to
help me in Don agility, for example, or this thought process
(26:13):
is only going to help me in my dog's sport, you're minimizing
the actual progress you can makein your life.
So remember that when whatever you're learning in your sport,
it's going to help you become a better human.
Is it your goal to become the handler your dog deserves?
(26:34):
Isn't that the ultimate goal? If that's the ultimate goal,
you're going to learn a lot of opportunities for you to become
a better human even without, which is really transformational
if you choose to accept. It it really is when people
haven't been working out and they start working out and it
sticks. There's three or six months in
(26:56):
the changes and how they sleep, their energy levels.
I find they dig into life in a general sense with a lot more
intensity and it's quite a cool thing to see to help people with
that. Sometimes I ask them to set
their environment up in ways that I talk about it, like
(27:17):
barriers that take some barriersaway from it.
So, for example, if someone has their place, their home, set up
in a way that their fitness stuff doesn't need to be taken
out of a closet and set up everysingle time, or it's in a
location that's convenient for them and set up in a way that is
convenient for them. It's a lot more likely that the
(27:39):
thought and barrier of having totake it out of the closet and
set it all up doesn't get in theway.
Do you advise people to do that as well, to set their
environment up in a way that's more conducive to them tackling
new challenges? And also, further to that, do
you ever have people create habits by using something that's
(28:01):
already in their routine as a cue for doing the new thing?
Yeah. It brought back this memory.
So back in 2020, during the pandemic, you know, everybody
wanted to get into fitness because it's the one thing you
could do from home, right? Yeah.
And we were so thankful because we built a swimming pool the
year before, so it was almost like we were at a resort every
(28:23):
day, which is nice. But my husband and I decided to
buy workout equipment. But the mistake that we made, in
my opinion, was we put it upstairs and therefore I can
count on 2 fingers, I think, howmany times I've used that
wonderful treadmill we bought. Maybe I'm not being fair to
myself, but it was one of those things where the intentions were
(28:45):
great. We bought that like I spent good
money on that stinky treadmill and it holds wonderful clothes
like to dry, but it's not being utilized for what it was
intended because it is not convenient.
And I didn't see it. And to me, I think that's really
important. So you have to make the things
that you want to do more convenient to be able to do
(29:07):
them, but you have to make the things you don't want to do less
convenient. When you think about, for
example, one habit that I have that I'm very proud of, if I get
up right away, like I am a morning person, I can get out of
bed without a problem. It is not a challenge for me.
I'm probably built this way, thankfully, but I also didn't
(29:30):
allow myself to create the negative habit of hitting the
snooze. Don't hit snooze because my
phone, which has my alarm, is not near me.
I put it in the bathroom. I have to actually get
physically out of bed to walk over to my phone to turn off my
alarm. Should I set it?
(29:51):
And I think when we don't make things that are bad habits,
inconvenient, continue to do that.
My dad tells this great story about a time when he was
training for, I believe it's actually a national
championships. It was, it was a very important
competition that he had, but he was living in an area that
(30:15):
didn't have any access to a range to shoot at.
So he couldn't go and train in an actual shooting.
He had to train in a bedroom, which means he couldn't actually
shoot any bullets. He's not going to shoot inside
the house, right? But he had to drive fire.
He had at least simulate that hewas training so that he could
keep his muscles where they needed to be, so he could keep
his mind sharp and so he could imagine and visualize and
(30:37):
rehearse that he was hitting the10 ring over and over again.
That mental reversal was crucialto him being at a competitive
mental state when he went to competition and the repetition
of actually holding the gun in his hands was necessary for him
to be in the physical state. But he didn't actually enter a
gun range except for two times, and that was for competition.
(30:58):
My father was able to get himself to go and do this, but
he had to do it in the middle ofthe night because of the way
that our just our whole family structure was at the time.
And his job that he had at the time, it wasn't conducive to him
being able to train during the day.
So he had to wake up at about 3:30 in the morning to go and
practice for a couple of hours before he was able to go and do
(31:21):
his actual job. And so the first day that he had
this great idea, he's going to do this, my mom decided that she
would move the alarm clock to the other side of the room.
So when the alarm went off, he had to get up and go turn it
off. And so in the middle of the
night, he's going to go hit thatsnooze button, right?
He's just going to turn it totally off because ain't no way
(31:41):
I'm not going to get a good training day and I'm exhausted.
That sneaky woman. I'll just turn it off.
I can walk across the room no problem, My mother had written
on a sticky note next to the alarm clock.
Go to bed. Lanny.
The Russian is practicing. So my mother motivated my father
(32:04):
to go ahead and get out of bed and go and do what he needed to
do. So he was able to put that into
practice. Your why has to matter, and she
was able to reignite his why in the middle of the night when the
bed seemed so comfy. So you have to put things into
place that allows you to remember the reason for what
(32:26):
you're doing. So I don't know if that means
you're going to put a picture onthe wall of something that you
want to accomplish or if that means you're going to write a
directive affirmation, which we probably don't have time to go
into what that is specifically, but my father's book with
Winning in Mind goes into great detail on what a directive
affirmation is. It's more than just not
formation statement. It's more like a paragraph of
(32:48):
the person that you want to become.
And also we will go over how to write one of those in the Middle
Mastery series for dog handlers that we're going to do in
September. I want to ask you some questions
about this mental mastery seriesbecause my understanding is it's
going to be a spread out course where people are going to have
(33:12):
access to you to learn and then actually go through all the
exercises together. And also, can you tell me a
little bit about who you built this for and what people can
expect to learn? So there's two different
webinars that we're going to be doing.
The first one is going to be on July 23rd.
(33:32):
That one is going to be the top five mental mistakes Sandler's
make, what to do about them. And so that's kind of like a
wonderful way for you to get a little bit of a teaser of what
we're going to be doing in the larger class.
The larger class is a mental management course.
It's very similar to the one-on-one course that my father
would do and what I was taught to do when I started working for
(33:52):
him and as a mental management certified coach.
What Barbara and Tia and I all teach, we break it into four
different sections. So the first section is the
foundations of Mental Management.
We're going to talk about the conscious, subconscious and
self-image and how they work together, how to be balanced, in
what ways you might be out of balance and challenge you to be
(34:13):
able to determine are you out ofbalance and if So, what needs to
change? And we'll talk about the
principles of mental management.I'll give you a little bit of
homework. I'm not, I'm not checking your
homework. You don't have to turn it in.
It's things that you can do on your own in order to better your
mental game for you to be able to be the better handler for
your dog. The next week, we're going to
(34:34):
cover pressure and distractions,things that could distract you
in a trial. What are things that you can do
in order to better mentally handle those distractions?
The next week we'll talk about the system and teach you how to
run a solid mental management system.
Tia will tackle how to apply it to nose work.
Barbara will tackle how to applyit to agility.
But it's open to any dog handlerin any sport.
(34:57):
And if you let us know what sport you're in and the kind of
challenges you have or the questions that you have, we will
address the questions of those who are taking the class as they
arise and as they come up, Whichis the beauty of doing it over
several weeks is the questions you have will change from week
to week. And then the last tackle
self-image. How do you change your
(35:18):
self-image and how to write a directive affirmation in order
to get where you want to go? It's a lot of fun.
We've been doing it this way since the pandemic.
Since everyone was forced to do things on Zoom, I just kept
doing it on Zoom, which is great.
So it can be anyone anywhere cantake the course.
You do not have to attend live. I highly recommend that you do
(35:39):
if you can. But it will be recorded and
available for 30 days after the webinar series is over.
You'll have access to go back and rewatch and make sure that
you've written some really good notes.
But it's my favorite way to train because it gives people an
opportunity to get bite sized information, to be able to apply
(36:00):
it then on their own as they have a trial, to be able to come
back and ask some questions. We also do it as a webinar, so
you can't see each other, communicate with each other.
It feels very personal to you, which is kind of nice and also
just makes the video recording so much easier.
And then you also get an opportunity at the end of that
(36:24):
to be able to have a Facebook group that those who have been
through that course have a chance to join, which is really
exciting. And so that way you're able to
communicate with other people who have this training and
should understand how to run a mental management system and
encourage and motivate each other out of trial, which my
hope is to make the dog sports community as positive and
(36:48):
beneficial for the handlers. Possible.
I think this sounds like the third geek and incredible
opportunity to have three or four really condensed weeks or
you don't need to send six months thinking about it, but
you've got like a solid month where you can really be
conscious about your thoughts and what you're thinking about
(37:09):
and build some new inference. They that is enough time for
people to see lasting change andalso make some really great
strides forward. So cool that you do that.
It's. Fun.
It's fun. We have so much fun.
I bet you do. I got one last question for you
and then if you have some heart and wisdom, I'd love We're all
(37:31):
ears. This question is about stress,
managing stress and burnout. I think dog handlers are
incredible at giving all of their energy to their dogs, but
in doing that, they're often tootapped out to focus on
themselves. And workouts, especially if it's
(37:51):
not something that's in their routine, are often the things
that get dropped first. How do you help people protect
their own energy so that they don't burn out?
It depends a little bit on what's causing the burn.
OK, If we have a negativity and we're focusing on everything
(38:11):
that we don't like, we're going to burn out.
You have a certain amount of mental energy at the start of
every day based on maybe how much sleep you've got, maybe
what's going on in your life andin your world.
You have a certain amount of mental energy, but you can build
up and tear down energy based onthe way that you think.
And a lot of times people don't realize this.
If you're focusing on things that you can control, if you are
(38:34):
enjoying your environment, if you're finding those little
moments of joy in your life, that gives you added energy.
But if you are irritated, annoyed, frustrated, angry, and
miserable, you had no energy to give anybody, including your
dog, and definitely not yourself.
And so if you have to make a conscious decision at the start
(38:55):
of every day that you are going to choose how you internalize
the environment that you're in and how you're going to
communicate with yourself and with those around you in order
to enjoy life more, that's a conscious choice.
And so I think it's #1 deciding just because people are
(39:17):
irritating doesn't mean I have to be irritated.
Just because people are frustrating doesn't mean I have
to be frustrated. And so go ahead and make a
decision. I am going to choose to find the
value in other people. I'm going to choose to find the
good in the days in which I am given.
It's a decision. And so that's one thing.
Also, burnout can happen when we're going for a goal that is
(39:40):
not the right goal. So you have to make sure that
what you're going for is something that actually is
building you and it's something that is for you and not
something that you just want, but you know, you're not going
to get it. So my dad knew, he knew the
Olympics was what he wanted, so much so that he told my mom when
(40:03):
he met her, he was a junior in high school when they met.
And he basically told her, I'm going to the Olympics.
I am, I am going to go. And so there wasn't this.
I'm sure there were times when he was frustrated, and I'm sure
there were times when he wanted wanted to quit because we all
have those moments. But there wasn't a time when the
dream didn't matter enough to handle the uncomfortable times,
(40:29):
right? In fact, when he didn't win the
Olympics in 1972, he turned to my mom.
And he's like, I need to beg forfour more years.
Like you're going to need, will you give me four more years
because my goal has not been realized.
This is a huge sacrifice for her.
She was probably burned out whenher dream.
(40:49):
And so here he's asking her, please, can I have another four
years? But I'm going to do it the right
way. I'm going to find the answers to
the problems today. The other thing that is really
interesting is when a goal, OK, this is something that he told
me that I just think is really cool.
There's a difference between a wish, a goal, and a dream.
(41:12):
A wish is something that I mean,you want it, but you're not
going to change behavior at all.Get it?
It is simply going to stay A wish.
It's never a goal is a wish witha plan, right?
You're going to put a plan into action and there's a change in
behavior. But a dream is a goal that
(41:32):
haunts you. You can't stop thinking about
it. You can't stop focusing on it.
It will not go away because it it is necessary that you do it.
That's a dream and that's the difference.
I think when people wind up witha burnout, it's because they're
going for a goal, but they have a negative attitude about the
hardships that are coming their way in order to pursue it.
(41:54):
So you have two choices. You either finish until the end
or you trade up for another goalthat matters more to you, that's
more important. That's OK.
You can trade up. What you don't want to do is
trade down to something that just happens to be easy.
I love that distinction of trading up and trading down
rather than giving up and choosing something else.
(42:14):
Trade up or you're going to haveto decide that's not worth your
pursuits. I think that's awesome.
All right, friends, I hope you have enjoyed this conversation
with Heather as much as I have. It was packed with so many
practical Nuggets and I hope you're leaving feeling a little
more clear with some Nuggets of how to take in your environment
(42:39):
and your own thoughts to inspirechange and ready to take the
next small step to work towards your goals and your dreams.
Heather, thanks so much for joining us today and sharing
your wisdom. Before we wrap up, I'd love it
if you could tell them really quick how to bind your Patreon
(43:00):
page and also tell us about yourpodcast Girl.
So the Patreon is mental management solutions for dog
handlers. It is on Patreon.
It's an app on your phone that you can snag and you can listen
to our content. We post something every single
week. It's a lot of fun.
For example, Patreon members right now, they get a 50% off
(43:22):
discount code that they can use on our top five mental mistakes
handlers make and how to avoid them.
So you want to become a Patreon member and then use your
discount to then pay for your session so you can save a little
money. The podcast is called She Wins
Solutions and Stories for Women.My favorite demographic to work
with are women who are pursuing big goals.
(43:44):
And the majority of people that I've interviewed on my podcast
are people that I've worked withbefore.
I work in two primary markets. I work in dog sports, working
with handlers. I also work in pageantry, which
probably surprises some of you. Like, what is that?
Why is that? And what I haven't noticed is
those who are in that world, a lot of times go on and do some
pretty remarkable things when they're outside of competing.
(44:07):
So it's not all about winning the titles or the awards or
whatever. It's also about what did you do
next? So it's very inspirational for
people, no matter who you are orwhether you're in that world or
not. I have interviewed several
handlers as well that you on there and you can find that on
all podcast places, YouTube, allthe thing.
(44:30):
My website isheathersondland.comand you can look on there under
webinars and you will find the webinar we're doing this month.
And then very shortly, I will bepromoting the Mental Mastery
series that's coming up in September.
I believe we're starting at the second week in September.
That timing's just perfect. Summer's kind of wrapping up.
(44:51):
Kids are back in school. If you have kids are going back
to school and kind of like the fun excitement of the summer
sort of winding down. I think that's a really great
time for people to take their summer and all the adventures
they went on, What went well, what didn't go so great, and
then really take stock and put aplan in place they can improve
themselves for the next year. I really want to say thank you
(45:15):
again so much for taking the time to be here today.
This was just a fantastic conversation.
I've learned a lot from you and I'll be sure to link all these
resources in the show notes so those of you can go check those
out. And I look forward to talking to
you again soon, Heather. Awesome.
Thank you so much, Liz. Thanks so much for being here
(45:36):
with me today and choosing to spend this time investing in
yourself. I hope you feel encouraged to
take action. Even the smallest steps forward
will add up in ways you cannot even imagine yet.
If this episode gave you something to think about or
lifted you up, please share witha friend.
You never know who might do these tools and reminders.
(45:57):
Today and remember. You're never For more
information practical tools. Workouts and resources.
You get stronger and you're confident both in and out of the
ground. Head on over to
caninehandlefitness.com. You can also find.
Me all the. Circles over the same name come
all over and say hi. I'm here to help you build the
(46:19):
skills, knowledge, and belief you need to reach your goals.
Keep going, keep learning, and most of all, keep showing up for
yourself. You've got this and I'm cheering
you on every step of the way.
Hey dog sport handlers, welcome to the canine Handler Fitness
podcast. I'm your host Liz Joyce, your go
to expert for all things dog sport fitness.
Whether you're running, agility,doing protection work, tackling,
search and rescue, handling it tough tugger or just looking for
a lifetime that ventures with your dog.
Remember you are fat the ticket and I'm here to help you stay
(00:23):
strong, mobile and injury free. Join me as I breakdown the
unique commands handler fitness,speed, strain.
Everything you eat comes warm atyour best, both in and out.
Bring Let's stay strong, stay inthe game and do what we love.
Let's buy the Hey friends, and welcome back to the canine
(00:48):
handler fitness podcast. I am Liz Joyce and today we're
digging into a sticking point for many and something that I
hear all the time, which sounds a lot like I know I should work
out. So why is it so hard to actually
stick with it? If you ever felt frustrated by
that mental tug of war, you are in for a treat.
(01:10):
I've grown as someone truly special.
Heather Sondland is an incredible mental management
coach who helps athletes, competitors, and everyday
handlers understand what's really happening in our heads
when we struggle to commit and follow through.
Heather, I'm so thrilled that you're here.
And before we dive into all the gold you were about to share,
(01:32):
could you start by telling us a little bit about you, what you
do, who you love working with, and what lights you up about
this work? I started mental coaching in
about 2006. I was working for my father's
Symphony, mental management systems.
He is an Olympic champion. Before he became the world's
(01:53):
best in a sport, though, he was struggling mentally to be able
to range the level of success that he desired in his sport.
My dad's an Olympic rifle shooter and he was competing
with the current world champion who was his teammate.
They were preparing for the Olympic Games 1972.
My dad was capable of competing not only alongside the world
(02:15):
champion, but beating him in practice.
And so he thought, hey, if no one on the planet can beat this
guy and I can beat him in practice, I have a chance of
winning the Olympic gold medal my first time.
Now, that's not what sherbet because my father trained
technically. He had the best coaches, the
best equipment and all of the things that what he didn't have
was mental control in an environment that required.
(02:38):
So when you're competing at the Olympic Games, it is the most
pressure filled situation an athlete will ever be in.
And my father could handle everything but the pressure.
And so he came home with a silver medal because he was so
technically skilled, but he wasn't mentally in control
enough to snag the gold. So he came home feeling
(03:00):
frustrated and irritated at being the world's best loser, is
what he would say because he gotso close to winning.
But it didn't happen. So he started interviewing
Olympic champions to find out what they were doing differently
about the mental game, created mental management based on his
own research. And then he dominated by
applying the mental management system that he created to his
(03:20):
own game. So in 1974, he became world
champion. He won.
Let's see, he competed at the World Championships.
He brought home 15 medals, 8 of them were gold.
Became the number one ranked shooter in the world.
He was literally the Michael Phelps of rifle shooting at the
time. In 1976 he won the gold medal in
(03:42):
his sport, 78. He repeated as world champion
and the company Mental Management was formed in 1977.
When people were wondering, whatare you doing differently?
You went from being very inconsistent in your sport to
being super consistent. What did you do?
So Mental Management was born and my father was teaching it
(04:03):
for a very long time before I came on board working for him.
I started working for my father's company because his
system transformed my mindset inthe workplace.
I don't think I paid a lot of attention to what he was doing.
When I was growing up, I didn't really care about rifle
shooting. I didn't want to shoot anything
at all, so I never really walkedon the range where he was.
(04:26):
He was literally teaching peoplefrom across the globe how to
shoot and how to control their mind.
I wasn't listening to all of that, and so my brothers were
really being mentored by him, but I was off doing other
things. I was competing in pageantry and
my mom was helping me and things.
I wanted to be a singer. I thought it's going to be
famous, all the things, but I didn't really pay attention to
(04:47):
how mental management was going to transform my life.
And I read with Wang in mind at a time when I needed it the
most, working in the corporate world.
The book actually transformed the way that I viewed my
environment, which really changed my life.
So when I was at a place where Icould change careers, I chose to
(05:08):
work for my father's company andI worked for him for about 19
years. And then I started my company of
Solid Solutions 2 1/2 years ago and I'm teaching the same thing.
I'm just working for myself and I'm mainly focusing on helping
women transform the way that they view their environment and
taking the mental management principles and applying it to
their own lives as well as theircompetitive environments too.
(05:31):
It's been so much fun. Oh, I can imagine.
Well, I'm looking forward to hearing how you're going to help
all of these listeners work through challenges that they
have, putting the why into practice so they can continue
seeing results and excel in their sports.
Talking about the why, I want toask you about motivation and the
(05:55):
why. I get so many people saying
things to me that sounds like I lost my motivation or I was
motivated, then I lost it. And I'd love to hear from you.
How do you help people work through it when they lose steam
after a few weeks of working outand at that late the time, it's
(06:18):
not enough time for them to havehabits that really stick.
And how do you help someone prioritize their fitness so that
they can see the goals that theywant out of the process?
I think the first thing that we have to look at is motivation is
very temporary. I mean, usually I'm motivated.
Why am I motivated? You know, I'm motivated because
(06:39):
I want results. But then once things get hard
and difficult, then I'm no longer motivated.
Yes. And now I'm seeing all the
things I don't like about this goal that I set for myself.
One thing that we can talk aboutreal quickly is goals have 3
phases. So you set this wonderful goal.
I want to transform my fitness, transform my life.
For whatever reason, the first phase of a goal is attraction.
(07:00):
Super excited about this goal. I might think about everything I
like about this goal. This goal is fun.
This goal is awesome. I'm going to do all the things
Liz told me to do so I can get where I want to go.
Woo Hoo. But then we hit distraction.
Distraction, the second phase ofa goal, and that's where we're
thinking about all things we don't like.
All the things that we think areawful.
Oh my gosh, I have to get up early to add this workout in.
(07:22):
Are you kidding me? I like to sleep.
I'm not seeing any results yet. Therefore, I'm really
disenchanted with this goal. This takes me away from the
thing that I really like to do, which is eat the thing that
maybe I shouldn't be eating right now in order to get my
goal. Whatever it is, it's distracting
you from being able to see the benefits of the goal.
So the third phase is traction. You want to be able to gain
(07:44):
traction. So that's where your why fits
in, right? We want to focus on why did we
set this goal in the 1st place and what is it that we need to
change about ourselves in order to arrange the goal that we have
set. We don't have it because it's
not like us yet. And so we have to figure out
what do I need to change in order to make this new habit or
attitude like me? You ever see people skip the
(08:06):
distraction stuff? Do you ever see people go from
attraction to attraction all in one go?
Or do you find that there reallyis a process where they have to
go through the whole? The goal is super.
Fast. My dad tells this story.
When he went back to school again in like 2000, he decided
(08:27):
to go back to school to get an IT degree.
My father's ambitious and he's like, you know, if I can learn
something about IT, that is the wave of the future, maybe I can
create something that's going tomake me more profitable and help
my business, blah, blah, blah. So I'm going to go back to
school and get another degree and there was this wonderful
(08:49):
program. You just had to go on Saturdays
and as long as you already had abachelor's, you can get another
bachelor's in a year. But you had to go all day every
Saturday for like you and my dadwas an attraction.
I love this. It's a great idea.
Until he had his first exam in this class and he says, I'm
(09:10):
taking this exam and my goal, I was going to get a 4.0.
I was going to go to school to learn this time.
I went to school to get out the first time and he said, so I'm
taking this exam and there's only four question and the first
question that he didn't understand.
And all of a sudden he hit distraction like crazy.
He's like, why am I doing this? This is ridiculous.
I could be making money. This is a prime day for people
(09:32):
to bring me in to speak and to go travel and do amazing things.
Why am I doing this? What's the point?
And he's in distraction, not first too long, but for long
enough to start to doubt why he's there.
And then he's like, you know what?
I can't stay. I teach this stuff.
I can't stay in this mindset. I've got to start, just get into
(09:52):
traction. I have a test in front of me.
I have got to finish it. Second question, you understood
a new 4th question, you understood a new.
Finish the test before anybody else walks over to the
professor, puts it on his desk and says, that's the best 75
you're going to see all day. I didn't understand the first
question. Professor then looks at the test
and that's the question. He goes, oh, I teach two
(10:15):
different programming classes. That's one for a different
class. You shouldn't know the answer to
that. I'm going to drop that question
anyway to add that 100 point of the story is often times when
we're in distraction, we're focusing on all the things that
really don't matter. It causes us to lose energy, to
lose focus, to lose momentum andthat motivation to get where we
(10:35):
need to go. So what we need to do is be
disciplined to focus on the things that we can control.
He could only control the answers to the three questions
that he understood. Say, sometimes what appears to
be the case isn't the case and you cannot control it.
So you go ahead and release thatcontrol.
You do what you can and you moveforward.
(10:56):
I think that's applicable lessonfor people who have injuries
that come up that is a part of being a human or have dog
injuries that come up or otherwise maybe take them off
track. I love that story you talked a
little bit about just briefly, and I want to pick your brain
about this, about people's identity and their self belief.
(11:18):
As I noticed that handlers who really stick with their fitness
long term began to see it as a part of who they are and not
something that they should be doing to get to a goal.
How do you help people ship fromsea fitness as an uncomfortable
(11:38):
obligation to see it as a part of their identity?
So when you think about mental management, there's three mental
processes that performance is a function of.
You have your conscious mind, which is your thoughts, your
subconscious is your skills and yourself.
Image is your habits and your attitude.
If we don't have something now, it's because it's not like us to
(11:59):
have it or this goal has not been realized because something
needs to change within us in order to make it happen.
In fitness is like that, where Ihave to become someone who
chooses to go to the gym or chooses to fuel my body in a
certain way and utilize my body in a certain way in order to
become quote UN quote fit. But that's not who I've always
(12:21):
been. So how am I going to get there?
Will we have to change self in it?
Well, your self in it is just changed through imprints.
What you think about, talk about, write about, who you hang
around, what you watch, what youlisten to, what actually happens
to you, all of these things are imprints onto your self-image.
So the more you do something, the more you think about
(12:42):
something, the more it's like you to do something, the more
that self-image changes to wherethat becomes your comfort zone.
Yourself image is the upper and lower level limits of what's
like you, which essentially is your comfort zone.
I've told you in the past when we've had conversations that I
only run when I'm chased. That's my comfort song, right?
I have identified myself as someone who sits much more than
(13:05):
I move and that is not necessarily going to aid me
well, if I'm choosing to be in asport like agility where I would
need to move my body. Now for your listeners
understand, I have dogs. I don't actually compete in dog
sports. I do work with dog handlers and
so I understand that there are things that you have to change
(13:27):
about you in order to arrange the goals that you set or the
goals that you've set for your dog.
Because you have to be there equipped and capable handler to
get where you want to go. And that may mean you have to
change some things about you andthe process.
So if I was someone who hadn't worked out, let's say I'm in my
(13:48):
50s, so I've got decades of lived experience and habits and
lifestyle and belief and self identity surrounding someone who
it doesn't work out. And now I decide that I do want
to work out, I'm really motivated.
What kinds of inference would you encourage me to put into my
(14:09):
life? And also, are there multiple
sources when you're talking about this?
I'm thinking about people may belistening to podcasts that are
surrounding healthy eating, why it's important, and maybe having
a more curated social media feedor being just conscious about
the types of conversations that they even allowed to enter their
(14:29):
conscious mind and that they ruminate on.
So how far does this go in termsof you helping someone change
their identity in that way? And am I kind of on the right
track with that? You are I think what happens is
we need to be very mindful in when we're building our
self-image to be the person thatwe want to be.
(14:50):
We want to also protect it once it's built.
So that means I want to hang around with people who are very
beneficial to me for myself image growth.
So maybe that's having it. I like to call it a count of
bill, a buddy, you know, somebody that you can be your
accountability partner. I love that.
Maybe they understand the goal that you're trying to set for
yourself, that you're trying to accomplish, and they're tasked
(15:13):
with complimenting you, encouraging you, and helping you
along the way. I think that's really important.
I think we get somewhere where we want to go a lot of times in
community and not always all by ourselves.
So I think that's something thatwe can look at.
Podcasts are helpful. Audiobooks are helpful, even
just the way that you communicate with yourself, the
things that you imagine, make sure that the imprints that
(15:37):
you're giving are going to be inline with your goals.
That's what's important. That doesn't mean that you can't
veg on the couch and watch some TV.
Obviously everything in moderation.
But at the end of the day, and and I'm not someone who's like
an all or nothing person, I think that you should still have
the freedom to enjoy life. But I think you have to figure
(15:58):
how what type of life do you want to live?
What lifestyle do you want to have?
And there may be some uncomfortable moments to get
where you want to go. That's why you're not there yet.
Growth is often uncomfortable, but dissatisfaction is really
good motivator for moving towards what you do want.
You touched on all or nothing thinking or not being an all or
(16:20):
nothing person. I see this happened a lot, that
people have maybe a goal that's running 3 kilometers for
example. When they hit the goal, it's
like they don't have the next step in their head in place.
So like they've done it, they finished, they're done.
I'd love to hear your thoughts on how you would help somebody
(16:43):
that has a tendency to look at fitness in that way.
So I find those same people don't have the kind of same
mental block when it comes to dog training or moving forward
after they've reached a milestone with their dog
training, but they do with theirfitness.
What is that about and how wouldyou help somebody through that?
Yeah. Are they defining themselves as
(17:06):
a dog trainer, not just one skill.
So if we're looking at working out or fitness, if you're
choosing to live a fit and healthy lifestyle, then running
that 3 kilometers is just one skill that you're gaining, not
necessarily the identity that you're creating for yourself.
(17:28):
So I think it determines like, how do you want to communicate
with you? It reminds me of the idea of,
let's say that your goal is to quit smoking.
In order for you to quit it again, you have to start smoking
again. To quit it again, what would be
to become a non-smoker? Someone who doesn't smoke.
(17:49):
So you see what I'm thinking about.
My goal is then to become a runner.
It's not to just run 3 kilometers.
Maybe it's to become someone whoenjoys the.
Act of run. That's a very different
conversation. Yeah, I think it's important
that we're choosing who we want to become ahead.
I love that. I think that's really helpful
(18:13):
and also I'm going to be sendingeverybody over to see you
because you've got just amazing way of communicating with
people. I want to ask you about this
perfectionist. We're all or nothing thinking
when it comes to fitness and this is common in other areas of
life too. Sometimes I feel like when I'm
(18:35):
working with people, if they're not hitting their target
workouts in a week, that they feel like it's just not worth
doing at all. And it's crushing to their
progress forward and I think also crushing to their mental
state around it at all and theirconfidence.
And I hate seeing that. I'd love to hear from your
(18:55):
perspective. How do you help people through
that? And what kinds of message would
you have for someone who finds himself in an all or nothing
trap? Baby steps are still steps
forward. So no matter how large the step,
if you're moving forward, that'sstill progress.
(19:17):
It may not be as fast as you want to get there.
It may not be as exciting as youwant to get there, but if you're
getting there, you get. I was sitting in a seminar that
he was doing and somebody reallywanted to be a world champion.
And he's like, well, does it matter when you do it or that
you do it? Like what matters that I do it?
(19:37):
He says, OK, then why are we limiting the timeline to this
year? And it's one of those things
where if you're giving yourself such a short window, it can be
overwhelming the amount of pressure you could put in
yourself to make it happen. And so maybe we need to extend
the timeline and give ourselves a little bit of grace as we're
(19:57):
moving forward because if we're taking those small steps, at
least we're getting somewhere. Babies fall over 300 times
before they actually walk. And yet, in what other point in
our life do we actually give ourselves that many attempts to
become proficient in something? We start off super dedicated and
(20:20):
excited to actually accomplish things.
We are very motivated as children, so at what point do we
talk ourselves out of progress? I hear you, and something that I
actually sit with and think about a lot is that adults do a
great job at filling our lives primarily with things that we're
fairly good at. It's a lot more comfortable than
(20:42):
that space, you know, and I agree with you.
Speaking of resilience, I'd loveto hear your thoughts on helping
people bounce back after they'vefallen off the wagon with the
Pamela's. Miss a week or maybe a trial
weekend threw off their routine.It's really common for them to
feel like they failed and then just stop all together or take
(21:05):
multiple weeks off before they feel motivated enough to dig in
again. And what do you wish people
understood about getting back ontrack when they've fallen off
their plan? You mentioned failed, and I
think failure has to be an option for failure to be
realized. And I don't necessarily believe
(21:29):
that we have to focus on you where you lose necessarily in
life. I think you win or you learn.
And so if you fall off the wagonor you get derailed in your
progress, you have to look at what are the lessons in which
I'm supposed to be learning right now in order to get back
on the wagon and move forward faster.
So instead of choosing to go completely negative and beat
(21:51):
yourself down, how about we build ourselves up and look at
what are the things that we can learn through this process.
And I'll tell you, dog sports, this is so cool to me.
The amount of opportunity for personal self discovery through
the challenges that dog sports provides for a handler is so
(22:11):
cool. And some of you are like, I'm
tired of learning. But seriously, it's so cool
because your dog provides opportunities for you to learn
as you're trying to teach them skills and trying to get
comfortable in these competitiveenvironments.
You get another dog later, they teach you a whole different set
of skills. It's like have a different
child. God doesn't give you 2 the same,
so you got to learn. I think it's something that we
(22:33):
need to be eager and excited to learn who we can become through
the process instead of so perfectionistic in our
mentality. I think that's really helpful
for people to be able to think about it through that lens and
hopefully that hits home for some people.
And I like to call things like that not getting back on the
(22:55):
waking, but it's just a restart and always starting with more
information. It's not like a failure, it's
just information about what didn't work for you.
And especially when few people haven't been working out for a
long period of time or if this intensity is new to them, I
think it's really important to understand that finding a zone
where it works for you and exercises that you like that
(23:18):
make your body feels good. All of that takes some time and
some playing around to find yourrhythm.
And I would hope people take from this that having a bit of
patience and kindness towards itself is helpful.
I want to ask you about people that you see that sabotage their
mental game. So a lot of people start off
(23:38):
super strong and then say thingslike I'm too old for this or I
don't have time for this. My body is injured and it
doesn't move like it was before.I think that also comes from a
place of maybe having a peak fitness in their younger years
and then returning to fitness and wanting to move and be
(24:00):
strong like they were when they were younger.
And it's just maybe going to take some time for them to get
there. But it's frustrating.
So how do you help people through that?
It reminds me of, I think it's aChinese proverb, but it when was
the when is the best time to plant a tree 20 years ago?
When is the second best time to plant a tree right now?
(24:22):
One of those things where you have to realize that yes, you
may have some limitations or differences in your ability
because of your age, but if you wait until tomorrow, you may be
waiting forever. And you have to look at what are
the benefits to starting now. And it goes all the way back to
the why, right? Why are we doing in the 1st
(24:44):
place? What is the point of making this
change within ourselves? And do we want to?
Because a person who doesn't want to change isn't going to,
and no matter how good of a fitness coach you are or how
good of a mental coach I am, we're not going to convince them
that they should do it if they are not convinced themselves
that it's important and worthwhile to do.
And so the why has to be there and has to be strong enough to
(25:04):
get them to want to change thosebehaviors.
I was telling you before about awebinar that Barbara and T and I
are doing. So Barbara Currier, who has 20
years of experience and agility,and Tia Anders, you guys don't
know 15 or more years of experience in Noah's work.
We partner together on a Patreonchannel and we're also doing a
(25:28):
webinar and webinar series together.
And we're going to tackle some of these common mental mistakes
that handlers make when they're competing in any dog sport.
And I highly recommend that yourlisteners join us.
It would be great. But something that I've realized
is a lot of the things that we struggle with in dog sports are
things that you struggle with ineveryday life.
And so when you're looking at changing your thought process
(25:51):
towards fitness or your sport, it could very well be that you
can take those same like mental management principles and apply
them to everything that you do in your life.
And so you think when you don't limit yourself to believing
that, oh, this fitness change that I'm making is only going to
help me in Don agility, for example, or this thought process
(26:13):
is only going to help me in my dog's sport, you're minimizing
the actual progress you can makein your life.
So remember that when whatever you're learning in your sport,
it's going to help you become a better human.
Is it your goal to become the handler your dog deserves?
(26:34):
Isn't that the ultimate goal? If that's the ultimate goal,
you're going to learn a lot of opportunities for you to become
a better human even without, which is really transformational
if you choose to accept. It it really is when people
haven't been working out and they start working out and it
sticks. There's three or six months in
(26:56):
the changes and how they sleep, their energy levels.
I find they dig into life in a general sense with a lot more
intensity and it's quite a cool thing to see to help people with
that. Sometimes I ask them to set
their environment up in ways that I talk about it, like
(27:17):
barriers that take some barriersaway from it.
So, for example, if someone has their place, their home, set up
in a way that their fitness stuff doesn't need to be taken
out of a closet and set up everysingle time, or it's in a
location that's convenient for them and set up in a way that is
convenient for them. It's a lot more likely that the
(27:39):
thought and barrier of having totake it out of the closet and
set it all up doesn't get in theway.
Do you advise people to do that as well, to set their
environment up in a way that's more conducive to them tackling
new challenges? And also, further to that, do
you ever have people create habits by using something that's
(28:01):
already in their routine as a cue for doing the new thing?
Yeah. It brought back this memory.
So back in 2020, during the pandemic, you know, everybody
wanted to get into fitness because it's the one thing you
could do from home, right? Yeah.
And we were so thankful because we built a swimming pool the
year before, so it was almost like we were at a resort every
(28:23):
day, which is nice. But my husband and I decided to
buy workout equipment. But the mistake that we made, in
my opinion, was we put it upstairs and therefore I can
count on 2 fingers, I think, howmany times I've used that
wonderful treadmill we bought. Maybe I'm not being fair to
myself, but it was one of those things where the intentions were
(28:45):
great. We bought that like I spent good
money on that stinky treadmill and it holds wonderful clothes
like to dry, but it's not being utilized for what it was
intended because it is not convenient.
And I didn't see it. And to me, I think that's really
important. So you have to make the things
that you want to do more convenient to be able to do
(29:07):
them, but you have to make the things you don't want to do less
convenient. When you think about, for
example, one habit that I have that I'm very proud of, if I get
up right away, like I am a morning person, I can get out of
bed without a problem. It is not a challenge for me.
I'm probably built this way, thankfully, but I also didn't
(29:30):
allow myself to create the negative habit of hitting the
snooze. Don't hit snooze because my
phone, which has my alarm, is not near me.
I put it in the bathroom. I have to actually get
physically out of bed to walk over to my phone to turn off my
alarm. Should I set it?
(29:51):
And I think when we don't make things that are bad habits,
inconvenient, continue to do that.
My dad tells this great story about a time when he was
training for, I believe it's actually a national
championships. It was, it was a very important
competition that he had, but he was living in an area that
(30:15):
didn't have any access to a range to shoot at.
So he couldn't go and train in an actual shooting.
He had to train in a bedroom, which means he couldn't actually
shoot any bullets. He's not going to shoot inside
the house, right? But he had to drive fire.
He had at least simulate that hewas training so that he could
keep his muscles where they needed to be, so he could keep
his mind sharp and so he could imagine and visualize and
(30:37):
rehearse that he was hitting the10 ring over and over again.
That mental reversal was crucialto him being at a competitive
mental state when he went to competition and the repetition
of actually holding the gun in his hands was necessary for him
to be in the physical state. But he didn't actually enter a
gun range except for two times, and that was for competition.
(30:58):
My father was able to get himself to go and do this, but
he had to do it in the middle ofthe night because of the way
that our just our whole family structure was at the time.
And his job that he had at the time, it wasn't conducive to him
being able to train during the day.
So he had to wake up at about 3:30 in the morning to go and
practice for a couple of hours before he was able to go and do
(31:21):
his actual job. And so the first day that he had
this great idea, he's going to do this, my mom decided that she
would move the alarm clock to the other side of the room.
So when the alarm went off, he had to get up and go turn it
off. And so in the middle of the
night, he's going to go hit thatsnooze button, right?
He's just going to turn it totally off because ain't no way
(31:41):
I'm not going to get a good training day and I'm exhausted.
That sneaky woman. I'll just turn it off.
I can walk across the room no problem, My mother had written
on a sticky note next to the alarm clock.
Go to bed. Lanny.
The Russian is practicing. So my mother motivated my father
(32:04):
to go ahead and get out of bed and go and do what he needed to
do. So he was able to put that into
practice. Your why has to matter, and she
was able to reignite his why in the middle of the night when the
bed seemed so comfy. So you have to put things into
place that allows you to remember the reason for what
(32:26):
you're doing. So I don't know if that means
you're going to put a picture onthe wall of something that you
want to accomplish or if that means you're going to write a
directive affirmation, which we probably don't have time to go
into what that is specifically, but my father's book with
Winning in Mind goes into great detail on what a directive
affirmation is. It's more than just not
formation statement. It's more like a paragraph of
(32:48):
the person that you want to become.
And also we will go over how to write one of those in the Middle
Mastery series for dog handlers that we're going to do in
September. I want to ask you some questions
about this mental mastery seriesbecause my understanding is it's
going to be a spread out course where people are going to have
(33:12):
access to you to learn and then actually go through all the
exercises together. And also, can you tell me a
little bit about who you built this for and what people can
expect to learn? So there's two different
webinars that we're going to be doing.
The first one is going to be on July 23rd.
(33:32):
That one is going to be the top five mental mistakes Sandler's
make, what to do about them. And so that's kind of like a
wonderful way for you to get a little bit of a teaser of what
we're going to be doing in the larger class.
The larger class is a mental management course.
It's very similar to the one-on-one course that my father
would do and what I was taught to do when I started working for
(33:52):
him and as a mental management certified coach.
What Barbara and Tia and I all teach, we break it into four
different sections. So the first section is the
foundations of Mental Management.
We're going to talk about the conscious, subconscious and
self-image and how they work together, how to be balanced, in
what ways you might be out of balance and challenge you to be
(34:13):
able to determine are you out ofbalance and if So, what needs to
change? And we'll talk about the
principles of mental management.I'll give you a little bit of
homework. I'm not, I'm not checking your
homework. You don't have to turn it in.
It's things that you can do on your own in order to better your
mental game for you to be able to be the better handler for
your dog. The next week, we're going to
(34:34):
cover pressure and distractions,things that could distract you
in a trial. What are things that you can do
in order to better mentally handle those distractions?
The next week we'll talk about the system and teach you how to
run a solid mental management system.
Tia will tackle how to apply it to nose work.
Barbara will tackle how to applyit to agility.
But it's open to any dog handlerin any sport.
(34:57):
And if you let us know what sport you're in and the kind of
challenges you have or the questions that you have, we will
address the questions of those who are taking the class as they
arise and as they come up, Whichis the beauty of doing it over
several weeks is the questions you have will change from week
to week. And then the last tackle
self-image. How do you change your
(35:18):
self-image and how to write a directive affirmation in order
to get where you want to go? It's a lot of fun.
We've been doing it this way since the pandemic.
Since everyone was forced to do things on Zoom, I just kept
doing it on Zoom, which is great.
So it can be anyone anywhere cantake the course.
You do not have to attend live. I highly recommend that you do
(35:39):
if you can. But it will be recorded and
available for 30 days after the webinar series is over.
You'll have access to go back and rewatch and make sure that
you've written some really good notes.
But it's my favorite way to train because it gives people an
opportunity to get bite sized information, to be able to apply
(36:00):
it then on their own as they have a trial, to be able to come
back and ask some questions. We also do it as a webinar, so
you can't see each other, communicate with each other.
It feels very personal to you, which is kind of nice and also
just makes the video recording so much easier.
And then you also get an opportunity at the end of that
(36:24):
to be able to have a Facebook group that those who have been
through that course have a chance to join, which is really
exciting. And so that way you're able to
communicate with other people who have this training and
should understand how to run a mental management system and
encourage and motivate each other out of trial, which my
hope is to make the dog sports community as positive and
(36:48):
beneficial for the handlers. Possible.
I think this sounds like the third geek and incredible
opportunity to have three or four really condensed weeks or
you don't need to send six months thinking about it, but
you've got like a solid month where you can really be
conscious about your thoughts and what you're thinking about
(37:09):
and build some new inference. They that is enough time for
people to see lasting change andalso make some really great
strides forward. So cool that you do that.
It's. Fun.
It's fun. We have so much fun.
I bet you do. I got one last question for you
and then if you have some heart and wisdom, I'd love We're all
(37:31):
ears. This question is about stress,
managing stress and burnout. I think dog handlers are
incredible at giving all of their energy to their dogs, but
in doing that, they're often tootapped out to focus on
themselves. And workouts, especially if it's
(37:51):
not something that's in their routine, are often the things
that get dropped first. How do you help people protect
their own energy so that they don't burn out?
It depends a little bit on what's causing the burn.
OK, If we have a negativity and we're focusing on everything
(38:11):
that we don't like, we're going to burn out.
You have a certain amount of mental energy at the start of
every day based on maybe how much sleep you've got, maybe
what's going on in your life andin your world.
You have a certain amount of mental energy, but you can build
up and tear down energy based onthe way that you think.
And a lot of times people don't realize this.
If you're focusing on things that you can control, if you are
(38:34):
enjoying your environment, if you're finding those little
moments of joy in your life, that gives you added energy.
But if you are irritated, annoyed, frustrated, angry, and
miserable, you had no energy to give anybody, including your
dog, and definitely not yourself.
And so if you have to make a conscious decision at the start
(38:55):
of every day that you are going to choose how you internalize
the environment that you're in and how you're going to
communicate with yourself and with those around you in order
to enjoy life more, that's a conscious choice.
And so I think it's #1 deciding just because people are
(39:17):
irritating doesn't mean I have to be irritated.
Just because people are frustrating doesn't mean I have
to be frustrated. And so go ahead and make a
decision. I am going to choose to find the
value in other people. I'm going to choose to find the
good in the days in which I am given.
It's a decision. And so that's one thing.
Also, burnout can happen when we're going for a goal that is
(39:40):
not the right goal. So you have to make sure that
what you're going for is something that actually is
building you and it's something that is for you and not
something that you just want, but you know, you're not going
to get it. So my dad knew, he knew the
Olympics was what he wanted, so much so that he told my mom when
(40:03):
he met her, he was a junior in high school when they met.
And he basically told her, I'm going to the Olympics.
I am, I am going to go. And so there wasn't this.
I'm sure there were times when he was frustrated, and I'm sure
there were times when he wanted wanted to quit because we all
have those moments. But there wasn't a time when the
dream didn't matter enough to handle the uncomfortable times,
(40:29):
right? In fact, when he didn't win the
Olympics in 1972, he turned to my mom.
And he's like, I need to beg forfour more years.
Like you're going to need, will you give me four more years
because my goal has not been realized.
This is a huge sacrifice for her.
She was probably burned out whenher dream.
(40:49):
And so here he's asking her, please, can I have another four
years? But I'm going to do it the right
way. I'm going to find the answers to
the problems today. The other thing that is really
interesting is when a goal, OK, this is something that he told
me that I just think is really cool.
There's a difference between a wish, a goal, and a dream.
(41:12):
A wish is something that I mean,you want it, but you're not
going to change behavior at all.Get it?
It is simply going to stay A wish.
It's never a goal is a wish witha plan, right?
You're going to put a plan into action and there's a change in
behavior. But a dream is a goal that
(41:32):
haunts you. You can't stop thinking about
it. You can't stop focusing on it.
It will not go away because it it is necessary that you do it.
That's a dream and that's the difference.
I think when people wind up witha burnout, it's because they're
going for a goal, but they have a negative attitude about the
hardships that are coming their way in order to pursue it.
(41:54):
So you have two choices. You either finish until the end
or you trade up for another goalthat matters more to you, that's
more important. That's OK.
You can trade up. What you don't want to do is
trade down to something that just happens to be easy.
I love that distinction of trading up and trading down
rather than giving up and choosing something else.
(42:14):
Trade up or you're going to haveto decide that's not worth your
pursuits. I think that's awesome.
All right, friends, I hope you have enjoyed this conversation
with Heather as much as I have. It was packed with so many
practical Nuggets and I hope you're leaving feeling a little
more clear with some Nuggets of how to take in your environment
(42:39):
and your own thoughts to inspirechange and ready to take the
next small step to work towards your goals and your dreams.
Heather, thanks so much for joining us today and sharing
your wisdom. Before we wrap up, I'd love it
if you could tell them really quick how to bind your Patreon
(43:00):
page and also tell us about yourpodcast Girl.
So the Patreon is mental management solutions for dog
handlers. It is on Patreon.
It's an app on your phone that you can snag and you can listen
to our content. We post something every single
week. It's a lot of fun.
For example, Patreon members right now, they get a 50% off
(43:22):
discount code that they can use on our top five mental mistakes
handlers make and how to avoid them.
So you want to become a Patreon member and then use your
discount to then pay for your session so you can save a little
money. The podcast is called She Wins
Solutions and Stories for Women.My favorite demographic to work
with are women who are pursuing big goals.
(43:44):
And the majority of people that I've interviewed on my podcast
are people that I've worked withbefore.
I work in two primary markets. I work in dog sports, working
with handlers. I also work in pageantry, which
probably surprises some of you. Like, what is that?
Why is that? And what I haven't noticed is
those who are in that world, a lot of times go on and do some
pretty remarkable things when they're outside of competing.
(44:07):
So it's not all about winning the titles or the awards or
whatever. It's also about what did you do
next? So it's very inspirational for
people, no matter who you are orwhether you're in that world or
not. I have interviewed several
handlers as well that you on there and you can find that on
all podcast places, YouTube, allthe thing.
(44:30):
My website isheathersondland.comand you can look on there under
webinars and you will find the webinar we're doing this month.
And then very shortly, I will bepromoting the Mental Mastery
series that's coming up in September.
I believe we're starting at the second week in September.
That timing's just perfect. Summer's kind of wrapping up.
(44:51):
Kids are back in school. If you have kids are going back
to school and kind of like the fun excitement of the summer
sort of winding down. I think that's a really great
time for people to take their summer and all the adventures
they went on, What went well, what didn't go so great, and
then really take stock and put aplan in place they can improve
themselves for the next year. I really want to say thank you
(45:15):
again so much for taking the time to be here today.
This was just a fantastic conversation.
I've learned a lot from you and I'll be sure to link all these
resources in the show notes so those of you can go check those
out. And I look forward to talking to
you again soon, Heather. Awesome.
Thank you so much, Liz. Thanks so much for being here
(45:36):
with me today and choosing to spend this time investing in
yourself. I hope you feel encouraged to
take action. Even the smallest steps forward
will add up in ways you cannot even imagine yet.
If this episode gave you something to think about or
lifted you up, please share witha friend.
You never know who might do these tools and reminders.
(45:57):
Today and remember. You're never For more
information practical tools. Workouts and resources.
You get stronger and you're confident both in and out of the
ground. Head on over to
caninehandlefitness.com. You can also find.
Me all the. Circles over the same name come
all over and say hi. I'm here to help you build the
(46:19):
skills, knowledge, and belief you need to reach your goals.
Keep going, keep learning, and most of all, keep showing up for
yourself. You've got this and I'm cheering
you on every step of the way.
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