Is Personality the Missing Element When It Comes To Improving Performance?
September 14, 2018
What is your personality type? And why are we asking? Well, along with all the other training regimens you go through such as nutrition, speed and distance runs, shoe styles and stretching, to name a few, understanding your personality may also help tailor your training.
According to a recent article in Competitor magazine, individuals can fit under one of four personality types: dominant, influential, stable/steady or compliant. Based on the DISC Personality Type test and research, each type is associated with specific characteristics, thought patterns and habits.
Do you overthink decisions and need to consider all the possibilities before you can decide? Or are you more impulsive, making the choice on the spot? Do you write everything down, with painstaking attention to detail, or it is enough to just hear the details from someone else who you know is an expert in the field?
Whatever your type, understanding your personality category can impact your work, relationships and of course, your running. Training according to your personality type allows you to make the most of your regimen and to carry out an efficient and effective workout. Moreover, when your training aligns with your personality, and as a result your values and how you define success, you are more likely to walk away from a session feeling much more successful.
What is my personality type?
Here are some common traits and characteristics of each personality to determine where you fall. It is common that you have characteristics in more than one category, but figure out which one has more:
Dominant: Impulse decision-maker, “just do it” attitude, competitive/wants to win, driven by certainty, outcome and results-focused.
Influential: Values relationships, needs decision criteria, communication-based, driven by variety and trying new things, messy under pressure.
Stable: Indecisive, needs reassurance, wants to be comfortable, likes to please.
Compliant: Detailed and specific, self-critical under pressure, fears criticism, slow decision-maker needing evidence.
What's the Best Plan?
Again, from Competitor magazine, here are some sample training regimens based on the personality traits:
Dominant: Tempo
DO: Just get out the door and do it. Have a plan for the distance you will be covering, and the paces you need to hit, and then get started. Record what you achieve and next week, try to beat it, turning your running into a competition. Dominant types benefit from having clear outcomes and results and then trying to beat those next time.
DON’T: Overthink your paces, distance or the fine details of each mile. Overanalyzing for dominants leads to frustration and a feeling of being overwhelmed, and this takes up mental energy and may even cause them to throw in the towel and not do it at all.
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Influential: Long Run
DO: Plan out your route, where you can get water along the way (if not carrying it with you), and where you will take in each fuel source. Have an approximate time to get from your start to finish and be familiar with each section in between.
DON’T: Leave home without a route planned, or no knowledge of how far each section is and how long you expect to be gone for. Failure to know the details of getting between Point A and Point B will not set you up for success.
Stable: Track Workout
DO: Head to the track with a group and a pre-determined workout lined up, such as three sets of 6 x 400m. Have other members of the group indicate the start for each 400m sprint. Use the time to connect with others while being slightly pushed out of your comfort zone, without needing to make decisions.
DON’T: Tackle workout sessions, such as intervals, hills or track workouts, alone and without a plan. The need to make too many decisions, or having to do things alone does not bode well for stabilizers who follow a “let’s do it together,” mentality. As a general rule, stabilizers are group runners, not solo runners.
Compliant: Fartlek Workout
DO: Write down the workout before your session with clear details, deciding whether to use time or distance as your metric and accounting for the specifics of each part of the workout.
For example:
2 mile warm-up7 Fartleks, 1 mile each; 0.25 mile recovery between
1.5 mile cool down
Total: 12 miles
DON’T: Leave the house without a measured plan, thinking that you will just make each Fartlek from one block to the next. Lack of details and specifics will cost you a lot of mental energy during the session and make your performance suffer.
Me, I think I fall into the Dominant category. I don't like to overthink it. I like to compare how fast I ran from workout to workout, which is a competition with myself - someone who like to challenge.
