Even if your fitness goals don’t include competing in the 2016 Rio Games, you can still steal training secrets of the pros to help achieve your own personal best. Check out these four secrets to any athlete’s success, created by a team of experts at the University of Alabama at Birmingham: You’ll need a ladder. The odds of becoming an Olympian at this year’s games was about 1 in 562,400—something that could make even the most confident of athletes want to throw in the towel. So what’s the secret to not doing that? Create a ladder of progressively more ambitious goals, says Gitendra Uswatte, PhD, a professor of psychology at UAB. “You have to crawl before you can walk,” she says. If you’re looking to run your first 5k, focus on walking a mile, then running one, then two. (Get started with our beginner-friendly 5k training plan.) The act of crossing off mini-successes will help keep you motivated to reach that final goal. It might hurt a little. Achieving big dreams takes a level of personal sacrifice, says Lauren Whitt PhD, UAB wellness coordinator. For Team USA women’s Olympic gymnast Gabby Douglas, that meant packing her bags as a young teen and moving away from home to train with an elite coach. For the rest of us, committing to a goal might mean trading a weekly happy hour for a group training run or rethinking that second cookie at lunch. Realizing upfront that there’s a level of sacrifice that comes with a fitness goal can help keep it from derailing you later on. Keep your eye on the prize. Does your to-do list is of mini-goals feel a little daunting? Remembering that each rung is an important step to achieving your goal will help keep you accountable and motivated—even on those days when you don’t feel like working out. (Need inspiration? See How Swimming Keeps Dara Torres Young.) You just gotta get back up. As any good Olympic-watcher knows, even the pros have bad days. The key: Turning the setback into a lesson in motivation rather than an excuse to give up. After Michael Phelps’ disappointing fourth place finish in last weekend’s 400 IM race—an event he’s dominated in the past—he admitted to being disappointed, but then went on to help lead his team to a silver medal in 4x100 free relay the following day. Accepting the mistake and learning from it is what helps separate the successful from the unsuccessful, says Whitt. Bottom line: Don’t fret over a week of missed training or one cheat day that turned into three—next time, you’ll know better and do it differently. More from Prevention.com: 12 Olympians On Weird Diets
