With the wave of the new year's short-term objectives behind us, it’s time to get serious about the year and season ahead. Make no mistake, the focus or goal for most of you is to achieve! Whether that be results, PRs, finish lines, or championships, most people we chat with are eager to take their performance to the next level. To do that, we must first align with the goal and think bigger about the role of fitness and performance in the life of a time-starved athlete. In this episode of the Purple Patch Podcast, IRONMAN Master Coach Matt Dixon returns to fundamentals and helps frame an intelligent approach for your athletic journey. Matt frames the discussion in three parts: The role of the athletic journey in broader life (11:55) "The sporting journey is something that can be a little bit of a backbone or a framework for us to organize components around...If you do things successfully, and you get your recipe right...it should be a catalyst for you to improve your health profile. And beyond that, you should actually amplify your energy in the day. And if you have more energy, you're going to have more willpower and focus to actually give to all of the other components of life. And that means better clarity, better decision making, better ability to stay on task -- and that becomes really powerful. The unique challenges of the time-starved athlete (17:11) "It's never just about time...when we just label things in a challenge of time, I think that we miss a really important point, and that's that what we're really faced with as a time-starved athlete, is more of a challenge of total stress accumulation...A time-starved athlete has to manage a huge amount of variable stresses in life." A performance approach for time-starved athletes (the four pillars of performance) (26:53) "They combine and what they end up creating is your own performance recipe. They are in many ways, your toolkit, your method for you to approach everything around your goals and your performance to Yes, take your performance to the next level, but also to go beyond and think about effective productivity, boosting your health and more." Episode Timestamps 00:00 - 03:06 - Welcome and Episode Introduction 03:14 - 08:32 - Matt's News-ings 08:39 - 48:00 - The Meat and Potatoes - Episode 250: Back to Basics - Building a Season of Performance Purple Patch Video Podcast and More The Purple Patch Center is Open - Learn More and Schedule a Visit Free Live Webinar - Free Speed: Essential Strategies to Help You Align Trained Potential with Race-Day Performance Purple Patch Coaching Consultation Purple Patch and Episode Resources This episode is sponsored by our collaboration with INSIDE TRACKER. Inside Tracker and Purple Patch - Receive 20% off their services with code: PURPLEPATCHPRO20 Ask Matt Anything - Leave a voicemail question for Matt Learn more about Purple Patch Squad High-Performance Training Program Join Bike Squad - Don’t just exercise and work out; learn to train with our structured online cycling program Join Run Squad - Increase your running performance through our progressive, multi-sport approach to running Learn more about Purple Patch Fully Customized 1:1 Coaching Learn more about Purple Patch Strength Programming Purple Patch Swim Analysis Stay Up-to-Date with Purple Patch News and Events Purple Patch Upcoming Webinars and Events