The Preparation
Workbook
Preparation isn't about predicting everything. It's about improving what you can, and practising how you'll respond to the rest. This workbook helps you name what a task demands, sort what you can act on from what you can't, and plan for both.
Why prepare this way?
Every performance comes down to two things: getting the most out of what's within your control, and adapting well to what isn't. Anxiety tends to show up when there's a gap between how capable you feel and what the task seems to demand.
Anxiety is a normal response, and a useful one. It's how the body and mind ready you for a challenge: it scans ahead for problems and pushes you to find solutions. When a solution appears, you act and the anxiety settles. When no solution appears, you can get stuck in worry, turning the problem over without reaching a conclusion.
So the aim isn't to get rid of anxiety. It's to put it to work early, during preparation, so that by the time you perform, most of what it raises already has a plan or a rehearsed response.
So does having a way to think, decide and adapt when the day refuses to follow the plan.
Confidence built on relevant preparation holds up better than a general promise that everything will be fine.
What you'll do
Name the task and what a good outcome looks like.
Map its demands in widening circles: you, the task, then the setting.
Sort each demand by how much it's yours to act on.
Plan the controllables specifically enough to use.
Decide and rehearse your response to what you can't control.
Set limits and decide when preparation is enough.
Give yourself time to do this properly, ideally well before the event, so there's room to practise what you plan. You can save your progress and come back.
What are you preparing for?
A date in the diary says when you need to be ready. It doesn't say what readiness involves. Start by naming the task.
Naming the task, and what a good outcome would be for you, gives the rest of the workbook something specific to prepare for. A good outcome doesn't have to be a result. It might be climbing the way you've trained, or making clear decisions under pressure.
What does it demand?
List the skills, decisions, physical effort, environment and practical arrangements involved. Work outward in circles: you, then the task, then the wider setting. Stick to the likely and important difficulties. You don't need every imaginable disaster.
This is where you put the anxious part of your mind to work. Instead of letting it loop on vague "what ifs", ask it to list everything that could go wrong or feel hard. Once a difficulty is written down, it becomes something you can prepare for rather than something to dread. Readiness is task-specific: the clearer the demands, the more relevant your preparation.
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What is yours to act on?
Different problems need different responses. Trying harder won't change the weather, and accepting uncertainty won't replace a missing skill. For each demand, ask: can I act on it, prepare my response, or both?
Sorting tells you which kind of preparation each demand needs. If something is within your control, there's a clear route forward: plan it. If it's outside your control, there's still one thing left in your hands, which is how you respond. Things you can influence, like nerves or energy, usually need both. Your own emotions often sit here: you can't switch them off, but you can train how you respond to them.
Practise a skill, pack equipment, clarify a role, leave enough time.
Recovery, attention, nerves. You can support them, not command them.
Weather, other competitors, a late schedule change.
Plan what you can act on
"I'll improve my route reading" is an intention. "On Thursday I'll preview two routes, describe my plan, and compare it with what happens" is a practice task. Answer what, where, when and how, and make room for obstacles.
A plan only holds if it's specific and accounts for what might get in the way. Once a controllable demand has a concrete plan, you can arrive at the event trusting that you've already dealt with it, and your mind has less reason to keep raising it.
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{{ d.typeName }}Nothing was sorted as something you can act on. Continue to plan your responses instead.
Plan and rehearse your response
You can't change the crowd, but you can decide, and practise, how you meet it. Write a simple if-then response, then bring a manageable version of the demand into training. These are starting points, not scripts. They reduce the need to invent every response under pressure.
Knowing how you'd like to respond is different from having practised it. Under pressure, we tend to fall back on what we've rehearsed. By recreating a manageable version of the situation and practising your response, you turn something you can't control into something you're prepared for, so the response you want becomes the response you have.
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{{ d.typeName }}Nothing needs a rehearsed response. Continue.
Set limits, then let preparation end
A changed plan can be evidence of good judgement, not failed commitment. And repeatedly checking the same plan in search of complete certainty can become another way of delaying action.
Good preparation leaves room for judgement. Limits and stop criteria let you change plan without it feeling like failure. Deciding what "prepared enough" looks like stops preparation turning into endless checking. And a short review afterwards means each event makes the next one easier to prepare for.
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You can't prepare for every possibility. You can arrive with relevant skills, useful options, and permission to adapt.
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