Brave listMost athletes in individual sports have now finished their seasons and many have had a training break too. Now comes winter training, which can feel a bit daunting when you don’t have anything in the near future to focus on. A great activity to do during this period involves nothing more than your favourite drink (a large very hot latte for me please!), a pen and this Annual analysis sheet. Page 1 will help you think about all you have achieved this year, consider what you learnt and put any issues or problems into perspective.

Page 2 helps you look at next year. What do you want to achieve? What will you do differently. What is getting you excited about next year (and if there isn’t anything you need to go race hunting!).

Finally, something I always do for each year that I learnt from a friend who runs the www.beatinglimitations.com website is to set a word for the year. This year my word was Brave. When I dithered about anything, or thought it was beyond my abilities or my status, I reminded myself I was aiming to be brave and got on with it. I created a ‘Brave list’ and jotted down every time I did something I felt brave doing, and I jotted next to it the outcome. Looking back over it, at least half of the 30 new things I had to summon up some bravery to do were successful. So 15 things I’d have not achieved without that word. So what is your word going to be?