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Developing a Peak Athletic Performance Game

Jul 122012

15 Steps to Mental Strength in Sports…putting it all together

OK…you’ve read and I hope even practiced all the preceding mental strength in sports tips…congratulations!

But now what?

Let’s say you have a big game or match coming up…it’s important to you for a variety of reasons and you want to achieve your peak performance, how do you put all the 14 tips together?

This is where the Peak Athletic Performance Game Plan comes in!

You see, if you leave out ANY of the 14 mental strength in sports tips you will NOT achieve your peak performance.

The bigger the game the better chances for mental mistakes.

What’s the biggest mistake you can make?

Bring your goals and expectations into the competition with you, that is, focusing on how important the performance is, what you want to have happen and what you want to accomplish as an end results.

Worrying on the outcome will only get you into trouble.

You’ve done enough of that (focusing on your goals) for months…now it’s time to let it go. Keep your goals close to you on a daily basis, but on the day of the competition you must have a completely different agenda that has nothing to do with the outcome.

When you focus on your outcome you lose concentration on your execution.

How do you let go of the outcome?

By following this Peak Athletic Performance Game Plan.

These goals are not in a specific order, and they may overlap, because repetition is important to learning.

I suggest you write these down on index cards and review before each event and critique how you did so that you can improve for the next event.

Peak Athletic Performance Game Plan

Focus on what’s important and block out everything else. What’s important is what you can control.

Stay in the now, stay in the moment. Take things as they come…one step at a time, one pitch, one catch, one throw…one thing at a time…first things first.

Every time you “time travel” (move out of the now) simply catch yourself and gently and smoothly bring yourself back to the now.

Focus on you…stay inside yourself…play YOUR game, own your agenda.

Use negative thinking and self-doubt as a neutral signal to relax and refocus.

Keep track of your “uncontrollable’s”, now what uncontrollable’s are so that you’ll recognize them when they pop-up and you’ll be able to neutralize them by focusing on something you can control

Trust and let it happen. Trust your training, your coaching, and your body and let the performance come out all by itself.

Act as if. Get in the habit of acting like you’re already a winner. If things get tough, act as if you’re in control. When you act the way you want to become you’ll become the way you act.

Stay calm, lose and relaxed. Control your focus and breathing. Using any of the techniques previously relaxing techniques. Know the difference between good and bad nerves.

Don’t think, just do. You can think yourself into peak performance. Stopping to think wastes time and energy.

Have fun! Having fun is essential to reach peak performance. When you’re having fun everything else falls into place. Have fun first and peak performance will naturally happen.

Stay positive no matter what! Nothing good comes from being negative. Maintain a “can do” attitude.

Remember, to reach peak performance you have to be “out of your mind.” And by following the above Peak Performance Game Plan and use the supportive 14 steps (in prior posts) you’ll have everything you need to be a mindless athlete.

In the bonuses that come with “Mental Strength Training for Athletes” there are additional resources to help you get out of your mind.

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Learning to Believe in Yourself As An Athlete

Athletic Performance, Mental Strength, Peak Performance, Personal Performance No Responses »

Jun 282012

15 Steps to Mental Strength in Sports…

Necessary Roughness

Step 14 – Learning to Believe in Yourself As An Athlete

Belief is the stuff of Hollywood movies…it’s the stuff of legends. Belief in yourself has nothing to do with your talent and more to do with your perseverance and never giving up!

You can see this belief in moves like “Rudy”, “Hoosiers” and more current accounts can be found on ESPN e-60

When you truly believe in yourself the sky is the limit!

As an athlete you are always limited by what you believe is possible.

Let me repeat that again… as an athlete you are always limited by what you believe is possible.

You see you will act in accordance with your beliefs. If you think you can only pole vault 14 feet…you’ll only pole vault 14 feet.

Sure, just believing won’t make you jump 15 feet, but it will give you the drive to strive for 15 feet and then you know what? You’ll clear 15 feet.

You see what happens here is a vicious cycle. If you don’t believe in yourself you wont put in 100% effort, you’ll come up short and then you’ll lose confidence in yourself and the next time you’ll put in less effort and so on and so on…you get the picture.

The opposite can happen as well. When you believe in yourself you put in max effort and achieve great results and then next time you do more and pretty soon you’ll be achieving peak athletic performance.

Success or failure at work, school or in sport is not always down to lack of ability or incompetence but simple self belief, says a study that adds that a remarkable difference could result from creating new stereotypes for a team.

To begin, start to question your limiting beliefs and self-limiting inner talk.

Learn to Explain Your Setbacks Differently

Believing in Yourself and Optimism

Reacting to setbacks from a presumption of personal power
Bad events are temporary setbacks
Isolated to particular circumstances
Can be overcome by my effort and abilities

Lack of Belief and Pessimism

Reacting to setbacks from a presumption of personal helplessness:
Bad events will last a long time (permanence)
Will undermine everything I do (pervasive)
Are my fault (personal)

Permanence

Do you believe that bad events are permanent or temporary? What about good events?
- Permanent: Traits, abilities, “always”, “never”
- Transient: Moods, effort, “sometimes”, “lately”
Failure makes everyone at least momentarily helpless. But how quickly do you recover? For some people, it is near instantaneous. Others may never recover.
People who believe that good events have permanent causes try even harder after they succeed.
People who believe that good events have transient causes give up even when they succeed, believing success to be a fluke.

Permanent (Pessimistic)

I’m all washed up.
Diets never work.
You always nag.
The coach is a bastard.
You never talk to me.

Temporary (Optimistic)

I’m exhausted.
Diets don’t work when you eat out.
You nag when I don’t perform well.
The coach is in a bad mood.
You haven’t talked to me lately.

On the other hand, people who believe good events have permanent causes are more optimistic than those who believe they have temporary causes.

Temporary (Pessimistic)

My lucky day.
I try hard.
My opponent got tired.

Permanent (Optimistic)

I’m always lucky.
I’m talented.
My opponent is no good.

I’d like to share a great article by Polly Campbell about self-talk that will help in creating a strong belief in yourself.

Positive self talk can help you win the race–or the day Manage your mental chatter, before it manages you.

What are your inner voices saying? You know, the ones. Some days they sound like the paternal Obi-Wan Kenobi booming: “You Can Do It.” Other days the self talk takes on the tone of a whiny child: “I can’t. It’s too hard. I’m not good enough.”

No matter which tone they take, those inner voices talk incessantly. And we should be paying attention, because what we say to ourselves has a direct impact on our success – or failure. Plenty of research indicates positive self talk creates positive results. Now an analysis of 32 different studies of self talk in sports, indicates that the specific words we use when talking to ourselves also play a role in how well we perform.

Positive self talk usually consists of words or brief phrases which inspire, motivate, or remind us to focus and keep moving. Phrases like, “Keep your head down,” “Let’s go now,” “Breathe,” help us focus our attention and trigger the ideal (hopefully) response and action for the task at hand.

If you want to improve your technique or hone specific, precise skills you’ll be better off with inner voices relaying technical reminders like “elbow up” or “head down,” says sports psychologist Antonis Hatzigeorgiadis, who conducted the study with colleagues at the University of Thessaly. Their findings will be published in Perspectives on Psychological Science.

“Instructional self-talk” works better for improving technique. Motivational self talk, a la “you can do it” helps participants succeed (and survive?) in strength and endurance based tasks, according to the analysis. It can psych you up and keep you confident and moving forward.

The right kind of self talk gives athletes an edge over competitors. And, while most of us won’t be competing in the Olympics – though I would be very good in 25-foot-dash-to- put- the-laundry-away-and-get-to-work-event – positive self talk has powerful benefits even when it comes to navigating your daily routine.

When you become aware of what you’re thinking and saying to yourself you can then edit and revise the snarky voices with phrases that empower you or at least help you better manage the situation at hand. The right kind of self talk can keep you from flipping out after a 45-minute wait at the doctor’s office; it can help you deal diplomatically with an ignorant boss; motivate you to exercise; help you diffuse anger when the four-year-old is wading through the puddle of milk he spilled.

My motivating, go-to phrase when I feel overwhelmed by the double work/home whammy? “Come on now, you can handle this. You got it going on.” And my version of instructional self talk? “Just Breathe.” Reminding myself to pause and inhale before I deal with a difficult situation often keeps me from losing it.

Ready to script some of your own powerful self talk?

Here’s how to start.

Notice what you’re already saying to yourself. Most of us don’t give conscious attention to the voices rambling in our heads. Yet, they impact us whether we notice or not. Consciously, tune into your self talk.

Politely acknowledge, then ignore the self talk that isn’t helpful. When you hook into some negative self talk, notice it, and shift your attention elsewhere. Don’t become angry or determined not to hear it – we tend to think about what we don’t want to think about. Instead, let the negative voices jabber in the background. Clinical psychologist Steven Hayes, Ph.D., an expert in language and cognition, likens these negative thoughts to unruly passengers in the backseat of the car you’re driving. Sure, you hear the noise and ruckus behind you, but you keep your attention focused on the road ahead.

Pick your power phrase. Choose words that inspire you, motivate you, make you laugh, or boost your mood: “You da Man” or “You go, girl,” for example. Consciously pick a couple of phrases that feel good – you may even feel a rush of energy when you say them – and practice them out loud in a big, powerful Obi- Wan (or hero of your choice) voice.

Pick a phrase or reminder word to help you focus. Say you’re performing open heart surgery or pruning a bonsai, or training a dog for show, or cooking a new recipe – use your self talk to remind you of your technique or a fundamental and critical skill you need to accomplish the job. When I’m writing an article I often say to myself: “Find your focus.” It reminds me to stick to the main point.

By going through these steps and paying attention to how we talk to ourselves, we can use language that best supports the action we’re after – whether it’s cooking a meal without igniting the house, or presenting the annual report to stockholders, we’re likely to do better and most importantly, feel better about what we’re doing.

In the bonuses that come with “Mental Strength Training for Athletes” there are additional resources to help with creating belief in yourself.

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Imaging Your Peak Athletic Performance

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Jun 212012

15 Steps to Mental Strength in Sports…

Step 13 – Imaging Your Peak Athletic Performance

Champions see what they want to happen, while “the also ran’s” see what they hope will not happen.

Either case, both individuals are doing mental rehearsal. The big difference is, one helps in achieving peak athletic performance, while the other is based in fear and holds them back.

Peak performance happens long before they go into competition. It starts in the head and finishes on the field.

There has been a lot written about mental rehearsal, so some of this might seem redundant.

There is one point I want to make, at least in the way I coach mental imagery. Mental rehearsal uses all the senses VAKOG (visual, auditory, kinesthetic, olfactory and gustatory) to experience the peak performance before hand.

Mental rehearsal is NOT visualization. Visualization is only “seeing”, so when you do practice your mental rehearsal include ALL you senses.

Mental Imagery

Mental imagery involves the athlete imagining themselves in an environment performing a specific activity using all of their senses (sight, hear, feel and smell). The images should have the athlete performing successfully and feeling satisfied with their performance.

What can mental imagery be used for?

Mental Imagery can be used to:

Familiarize the athlete with a competition site, a race course, a complex play pattern or routine etc.

Motivate the athlete by recalling images of their goals for that session, or of success in a past competition or beating a competitor in competition

Perfect skills or skill sequences the athlete is learning or refining

Reduce negative thoughts by focusing on positive outcomes

Refocus the athlete when the need arises e.g. if performance is feeling sluggish, imagery of a previous best performance or previous best event focus can help get things back on track

See success where the athlete sees themselves performing skills correctly and the desired outcomes

Set the stage for performance with a complete mental run through of the key elements of their performance to set the athlete’s desired pre-competition feelings and focus.

Mental imagery should not focus on the outcome but on the actions to achieve the desired outcome.

How do I apply mental imagery?

Golfer Jack Nicklaus used mental imagery for every shot. In describing how he imagines his performance, he wrote:

“I never hit a shot even in practice without having a sharp in-focus picture of it in my head. It’s like a color movie. First, I “see” the ball where I want it to finish, nice and white and sitting up high on the bright green grass. Then the scene quickly changes, and I “see” the ball going there: its path, trajectory, and shape, even its behavior on landing. Then there’s a sort of fade-out, and the next scene shows me making the kind of swing that will turn the previous images into reality and only at the end of this short private Hollywood spectacular do I select a club and step up to the ball.”

When should mental imagery be used?

To become proficient in the use of imagery you have to use it ever day: on your way to training, during training and after training. In every training session, before you execute any skill or combination of skills, first do it in imagery. See, feel, and experience yourself moving through the actions in your mind, as you would like them actually to unfold. In the competition situation use imagery before the start of the event and see your self performing successfully/winning.

How can I stay focused?

You have probably seen an athlete become angry at their performance. The situation here is that the athlete is focusing on the mistake (negative attitude), something that cannot be changed, and not on how to improve their performance (positive attitude).

In mental strength “pattern breaking” routines are used to help prevent the athlete falling into this negative attitude. A “pattern breaker” can be a word or phrase used by the coach in training or competition to move the athlete from a negative attitude to a positive one.

Many athletes have a role model who they try to emulate. Providing the role model is suitable then their name could become the “pattern breaker” phrase for the coach to use when the athlete takes on a negative attitude to a task. On hearing their role model’s name the athlete will shift their focus to how their role model would react and assume a positive attitude to the task.

Overtime the athlete will begin to recognize when they are focusing on negative thoughts and use the “pattern breaking” word or phrase (repeating it in their head) to get themselves to switch off the negative thoughts and get back into a positive attitude.

What are the benefits?

Mental Imagery itself can be useful in a number of circumstances including:

Developing self-confidence

Developing pre-competition and competition strategies which teach athletes to cope with new situations before they actually encounter them

Helping the athlete to focus his/her attention or concentrate on a particular skill he/she is trying to learn or develop

The competition situation

When combined with relaxation it is useful in:

The promotion of rest, recovery and recuperation

The removal of stress related reactions e.g. muscular tension

Establishing a physical and mental state which has an increased receptivity to positive mental imagery

Establishing an appropriate level of physical and mental arousal prior to competition

The “Quick Set” routine

Psychologist Jeff Simons developed a routine that would allow an athlete to achieve an appropriate mental arousal in the last 30 seconds before a competition. The “Quick Set” routine, which involves physical, emotional and focus cues, can also be used as a means of refocusing quickly following a distraction.

An example of this “Quick set” routine for a sprinter could be:

Close your eyes, clear your mind and maintain deep rhythmical breathing, in through your nose and out through your mouth (physical cue)

Imagine a previous race win, see yourself crossing the line in first place and recreate those emotional feelings of success (emotional cue)

Return your focus to the sprint start, think of blasting off on the ‘B’ of the bang with the appropriate limb action (focus cue)

“You only achieve what you believe”

I use this quotation when I hear an athlete make a negative statement about their ability and to focus their attention when assisting them to develop mental imagery skills.

The benefits of mental imagery have been outlined and I have found that when an athlete is in a fully relaxed state, they are particularly receptive to mental imagery. The next stage is the creation of scripts to help in developing and apply mental imagery skills.

The reference

MACKENZIE, B. (2002) Mental Imagery Available from: http://www.brianmac.co.uk/mental.htm

In the bonuses that come with “Mental Strength Training for Athletes” there are a few relaxation audio’s and mental rehearsal already recorded for you. If you don’t want to record your own this is a great alternative.

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No More Excuses, Now Get Something Done

Mental Strength, Peak Performance, Personal Performance 2 Responses »

Jun 192012

Here’s a simple yet very powerful productivity method that I picked up from Steve Pavlina, it’s called the 15-minute method.

If you’ve been around any NLPer’s you’ve probably heard the phrase “chunk it down.” This is in reference to breaking large projects into smaller, more manageable tasks.

Sometimes it’s easy to break projects into bite-sized pieces, but other times it can be more difficult to do so. Especially when you’re doing very creative work, it can be nearly impossible to identify all the steps in advance, and clearly defining those steps may be tricky.

Even after you chunk a project into smaller tasks, some of those tasks can be intimidating when think about doing them. This can be especially true with tasks that are very tedious. Even if the steps are clear, you’re more likely to procrastinate when you think about a 3-hour block of relatively dull work.

You also know that getting started on a task is usually the hardest part. Once you get past the first 15 minutes or so, it’s easier to keep going. Once you’ve built up some momentum, two hours can flow by like it’s nothing. You just have to find a way to get started and naturalize the desire to procrastinate.

The 15-minute method is a great mental strength process and way to help you overcome inertia and get moving on a task. It’s basically a psychological trick, and it’s very simple.

How It Works

This is so simple…all you do is tell yourself that you’re going to work on a particular task or project for only 15 minutes. You can work longer if you feel like it, but you won’t worry about that until your initial 15 minutes are up. Only after you’ve completed those first 15 minutes will you even think about working longer.

Make sure you prepare your environment in advance; the preparation does not count as the 15 minutes. Set out all the materials you’ll need to work on your task for 15 minutes. Do what’s necessary to make sure you won’t be interrupted during that time. This is very important.

When you begin your 15 minutes, do nothing but the task at hand. Don’t get up for any reason. If you’re working on your computer, don’t open any applications except for the one you use for the specific task, i.e. Word, Excel and only these applications. Yes, this means NO Facebook or e-mail!

If the phone rings, let it go to voicemail. If a text message comes in, let it wait. Again, don’t even think about checking your email, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter or any other social or non-social site.

If someone pops in and asks, “Do you have a minute?” tell them to come back when your 15 minutes are up (or later).

For those 15 minutes only, commit to not being distracted. So what does this mean? This means that you are focused…Follow One Course Until Successful!

Work quickly during this time. Focus on speed. Try to make as much progress on your task as humanly possible. If distracting thoughts come up, repeat the phrase from Star Wars as they were attacking the Death Star…”Stay on target…stay on target.”

Put a clock or timer in front of you, so you can see the minutes counting down. It’s important to create a sense of time pressure. Know that you don’t have the luxury of all day…you only have 15 minutes here. The time will pass quickly.

Here are a couple of online timers:

http://www.timeanddate.com/counters/customcount.html

http://www.online-stopwatch.com/countdown-timer/

And I’m sure there’s many apps for timers as well for your smart phone.

Chaining 15-Minute Chunks

After your 15 minutes are up, now you can decide whether you wish to keep going with the task at hand. At this point your mind is in a different state than it was when you first began. You aren’t in the same mental state you were in 15 minutes earlier. Your neurons are saturated in task-related activity. Your mind will have a strong tendency to want to keep going and to resist stopping.

If you want to stop, give yourself permission to stop. Get up, walk around, take a break, or switch to some other project. My suggestion is to take the break for 15 minutes as well. When you’re ready to do another 15-minute chunk, then do so. You’ll soon get into a great rhythm.

But most likely when those first 15 minutes are up, you’ll want to continue. You may even be annoyed that your time is up. Feel free to keep working. If it’s easy to do so, restart your timer immediately, and commit to doing another 15-minute chunk.

Once you get moving, it’s much easier to keep moving. It’s hard to get started when you’re staring at a two-hour task or longer. That may seem like a big commitment, so don’t commit to that much up front. Only commit to 15 minutes.

When you notice that your 15-minute segments are becoming less productive, or you’re getting distracted, stop and take a break. That’s a good time to go for a walk, have a meal, or switch to other tasks. Then when you’re ready to begin again, start with a fresh 15-minute commitment.

With practice you can challenge yourself to chain several 15-minute chunks together. I suggest chaining only 4 to 5 sessions together. You want to stay fresh so after the 5^th session, take a break, stretch, take some deep breaths, drink some water and take care of any hygiene issue. Then after 15 minuets, get back to it!

Remember…NEVER allow yourself to do anything off-task during a 15-minute chunk. If you feel the urge to check email or return a phone call, do it between — never during — 15-minute chunks.

Benefits of This Method

The 15-minute method has many benefits. First, it helps you overcome inertia and gets you moving forward productively. No matter how unpleasant the task may seem, it isn’t that difficult to commit to working on it for only 15 minutes.

Second, it gets you past those “I don’t know what to do” excuses. You can easily figure out what to do for 15 minutes. If you really don’t know how to begin, then chunk down the task some more, or hire a personal coach .

Third, it keeps you focused. You’re compelled to make clear distinctions between real work vs. distractions. You can’t deceive yourself into thinking that web surfing or checking email is working. When you use the 15-minute method, you’re getting real work done. A whole day spent using the method can sometimes be more productive than a whole week without it.

Fourth, it helps you work faster. You’ll find that the act of checking in with yourself every 15 minutes helps you maintain a fast tempo. Even if you keep working for hours at a time, those frequent check-ins are valuable, and they only take seconds.

Finally, it helps you build more mental strength. You’ll train yourself to stick to the task at hand and put off distractions. And you’ll challenge yourself to work flat-out instead of procrastinating.

First Thing in the Morning

If you want to have a really productive day, get started with the 15-minute method first thing in the morning. Don’t allow yourself to have breakfast, check email, or do anything else that could chew up your time until you complete at least one 15-minute chunk on a key task.

Or use the first 15 minutes to mediate and visualize all that you intend to get done. This can very powerful in that you are preparing your unconsciousness mind to help you stay on target.

Variations

Feel free to vary the 15-minute method to suit your situation. You can do 10- or 20-minute chunks if you’d like. Just make sure the chunk sizes aren’t so big that you have a tendency to procrastinate. The point is to make it easy to get started by lowering the perceived commitment.

You can also use the 15-minute method to monitor and control how much time you spend on activities like web surfing or email. Limit yourself to a certain number of 15-minute chunks. For example, you can set aside a 30-minute block of time to handling your online communication.

I think you get the overall concept here right?

When you block out specific number of chucks of time for ONE task until it’s completed, you’ll more done in a day than you thought was possible.

Let me know what you think of this method in the comments below.

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Keeping Calm The Night Before a Big Match

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Jun 142012

15 Steps to Mental Strength in Sports

Step 12 – Keeping Calm The Night Before a Big Match

One of the most common mistake athletes makes happens long before the event.

It happens the night before a big event when they are lying in bed trying to fall asleep, bit their mind is racing 100 mph thinking about all the things that could happen during the event. Then they think about how they’re not falling asleep and this just adds fuel to the fire.

Then when you get ready for the competition you’re exhausted and play well below peak performance.

And in actuality, it’s not the lack of sleep that will do you in, it’s when you worry you’re muscles get tense, your breathing becomes shallow and you’re basically in the ‘flight or fight’ syndrome. This uses up all your energy so that you have none left to perform with.

Even if just laid there relaxed for most of the night, you’d still do better than having tense muscles for 6+ hours.

What you need for those times is a relaxation strategy to fall asleep.

Progressive muscle relaxation this keep your muscles loose and keep your mind occupied.

Once you have developed this skill you’ll be able to quickly and effectively relax anywhere.

Progressive Muscle Relaxation Induction

You can either close your eye or use a soft focus when you perform this process.

The basic technique here is to tense and then relax each muscle group progressing from the head to the feet, while allowing your mind to drift away. It is also known as the Jacobsen Technique, named for the German doctor who developed it in the 1930′s.

Advantages: A relaxation induction is simple and almost full-proof.

Disadvantages: This will work with everyone, and it can take a very long time to induce relaxation, up to twenty minutes with some people.

Uses: It is simple to do and easy to learn. Most people go into deep relaxation in after a few minutes. It is good practice for someone learning how to relax.

Read the following process a few times so you get the basic understanding and then give a go yourself. Of you read and record this process and make your own MP3 to listen to a night.

The Process:

By tightening a muscle and then releasing, you can feel the difference between tense and relaxed. Actively engaging in progressive muscle relaxation exercises effectively loosens and relaxes the muscles.

Make sure not to do any movements that cause pain. If any of these exercises causes discomfort, ease up or stop to ensure that you do not cause muscle cramping or injury.

Sometimes if you are very tense already, actively tensing your muscles with progressive muscle relaxation exercise will not be helpful. If this is the case, you may want to try passive progressive muscle relaxation exercises instead.

Start reading the guided progressive muscle relaxation exercise script here:

Begin by finding a comfortable position sitting, standing, or lying down. You can change positions any time during the progressive muscle relaxation exercises to make yourself more comfortable as needed.

The first progressive muscle relaxation exercise is breathing. Breathe in forcefully and deeply, and hold this breath. Hold it…hold it… and now release. Let all the air go out slowly, and release all the tension.

Take another deep breath in. Hold it…. and then exhale slowly, allowing the tension to leave your body with the air.

Now breath even more slowly and gently… breathe in….hold….out….

..breathe in…hold…out…

Continue to breathe slowly and gently. Allow your breathing to relax you.

The next progressive muscle relaxation exercise focuses on relaxing the muscles of your body.

Start with the large muscles of your legs. Tighten all the muscles of your legs. Tense the muscles further. Hold onto this tension. Feel how tight and tensed the muscles in your legs are right now. Squeeze the muscles harder, tighter… Continue to hold this tension. Feel the muscles wanting to give up this tension.

Hold it for a few moments more…. and now relax. Let all the tension go. Feel the muscles in your legs going limp, loose, and relaxed. Notice how relaxed the muscles feel now. Feel the difference between tension and relaxation.

Enjoy the pleasant feeling of relaxation in your legs.

Now focus on the muscles in your arms. Tighten your shoulders, upper arms, lower arms, and hands. Squeeze your hands into tight fists. Tense the muscles in your arms and hands as tightly as you can. Squeeze harder…. harder….. hold the tension in your arms, shoulders, and hands. Feel the tension in these muscles.

Hold it for a few moments more…. and now release. Let the muscles of your shoulders, arms, and hands relax and go limp. Feel the relaxation as your shoulders lower into a comfortable position and your hands relax at your sides.

Allow the muscles in your arms to relax completely.

Focus again on your breathing. Slow, even, regular breaths. Breathe in relaxation…. and breathe out tension….. in relaxation….and out tension…. Continue to breathe slowly and rhythmically.

Now focus on the muscles of your buttocks. Tighten these muscles as much as you can. Hold this tension….. and then release. Relax your muscles.

Tighten the muscles of your back now. Feel your back tightening, pulling your shoulders back and tensing the muscles along your spine. Arch your back slightly as you tighten these muscles. Hold…. and relax. Let all the tension go. Feel your back comfortably relaxing into a good and healthy posture.

Turn your attention now to the muscles of your chest and stomach. Tighten and tense these muscles. Tighten them further…hold this tension…. and release. Relax the muscles of your trunk.

Finally, tighten the muscles of your face. Scrunch your eyes shut tightly, wrinkle your nose, and tighten your cheeks and chin. Hold this tension in your face…. and relax. Release all the tension. Feel how relaxed your face is.

Notice all of the muscles in your body…. notice how relaxed your muscles fee l. Allow any last bits of tension to drain away. Enjoy the relaxation you are experiencing. Notice your calm breathing…. your relaxed muscles…. Enjoy the relaxation for a few moments….

When you are ready to return to your usual level of alertness and awareness, slowly begin to re-awaken your body. Wiggle your toes and fingers. Swing your arms gently. Shrug your shoulders. Stretch if you like.

You may now end this progressive muscle relaxation exercise feeling calm and refreshed.

In the bonuses that come with “Mental Strength Training for Athletes” there are a few relaxation audio’s already recorded for you. If you don’t want to record your own this is a great alternative.

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Developing Composure in Clutch Situations

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Jun 072012

15 Steps to Mental Strength in Sports – Step 11: Composure in the Clutch

Step 11 – Developing Composure in Clutch Situations

How do you handle pressure, especially during a clutch situation like a championship game?

It doesn’t matter how good you are, how much you’ve practiced or how much you’ve been coached, if you can get stay cool in critical situations, if you’re nerves get the best of you, you will never, ever…not ever achieve peak athletic performance.

True champions thrive in clutch situations. Think of Michael Jordan and you get the picture.

When it comes to achieving peak performance in clutch situations you need to:

Understand how you respond to stress; know how to read yourself, i.e. good nervousness or bad nervousness.

Know what you do consistently do to get yourself uptight.

Have several relaxation techniques in your mental strength bag and know how and when to use them

Here’s the thing that most athletes don’t understand and that is stress does not come from the outside people or circumstances. It doesn’t come from the crowd, from importance of the game, the weather, or even your coach.

Stress comes from how you choose to respond to them. Notice I said you choose. You see you do have a choice as to how to respond. Unfortunately for many athletes this is an unconsciousness and automatic reaction and not a thoughtful response.

You see, it’s not what’s happing to you (outside events) that causing your nervousness, but what’s happing inside (your head).

This is good news!

How is this good news you ask? Well no one else makes you nervous, only you can. So you are in complete control of your nerves.

Mental Strength Plan for Calming Nerves

With a little bit of mental strength training you can create a proactive plan to stop nervousness before or during any competition and achieve peak performance.

Please remember, that being relaxed is the key to achieving peak athletic performance. When you’re uptight you will never reach your full potential

Here are four steps to help gain control over your nerves in critical situations so that achieve peak athletic performance.

Step 1: Your first line of defense is for you to know how to read yourself. This means you must be able to quickly know what happens before you get nervous

Let’s create a nervous scale from 1 – 100 with 1 being snoozing and 100 being over the top as follows:

1 – 33: Not enough excitement; performance flat; Just don’t care.
34 – 66: Optimum arousal; peak performance, in the zone.
67 – 100: Bad nervous; over aroused, too excited; When you make the performance and its outcome too important.

Now you need to become aware of your tendencies. Before a typical event do you know where you are on this scale? Awareness gives you’re a choice and you can do something about it.

I’d like to do the following exercise in how to read yourself. In your journal or a piece of paper label the top “Poor Performance.” This can be either not enough nervousness or too much.

You experience nervousness three ways:

Felling – “good” feelings are very different from “bad” feelings
Mentally – type of self-talk and you focus on, good vs. bad
Behave or act before a performance; good vs. bad

Now think back to the last time you had a bad performance under pressure. I know this might be hard to do, but it give is shot anyway.

Then think about and write down:

Signals of detrimental nervousness:

What was I feeling?

Where was the energy in my body?

What was I thinking?

What was my self-talk? About me, my opponents, the game, etc

How did I behave?

Did I isolate myself, did I go quite, and was I running around all over the place?

Now do the same exercise for when you had a great performance under pressure

Signals of positive nervousness:

What was I feeling?

Where was the energy in my body?

What was I thinking?

What was my self-talk about?

How did I behave?

Did I focus on the task at hand?

If you’re not able to read yourself you’ll end up never achieving peak performance.

You’re ability to discern where you are before a performance will allow to take the necessary actions to change your state.

Step 2: Acting “as if.” This has been mentioned several times in previous posts. In this step you deliberately change your outward behavior to coincide with how you feel and behave when you’re in the optimum zone of arousal.

If you act the way you want to become you become the way you act. You’re “leading” yourself as opposed to faking it. You have experienced this before and all you’re doing is “reminding” yourself what this feels and looks like.

Step 3: Is to understand the primary cause of nervousness and where it comes from. Remember, the source is not outside yourself, you generate it from the inside. This is done by what you focus and concentrate on, before or during a competition. Focusing on the wrong things and you’ll send yourself into over arousal or flat-line.

What is the “wrong” focus? All the things out of your control like:

The judges or referee’s
Weather
Opponent
Coaches (how they have treated you
Other people’s expectations
If you get sick
Your teammates
Any past mistakes
Any future results

If you focus on the UC’s (uncontrollable’s) before or during an event:

You’re going to get more and more uptight
Your level of confidence will start to go down
Performance will suffer

You mental strength practice as a peak performing athletic is to be able to effectively handle the UC’s when they show up. You do this by using your concentration skills and focus.

It’s OK if you get a UC that pops in your head just don’t let them camp out there.

Step 3: Notice any UC’s and swiftly shift your focus away from them. You need to get to know you’re UC’s VERY well. Each one is unique to you. Become aware of the UC’s that grab your attention so that you can dismiss it and refocus on what’s important. Which one or two of the UC’s really through you off? Which one’s get to you…write them down and look at them regularly.

Get to know your enemy so you can prevent an attack.

Step 4: Having effective and dependable relaxation techniques. You may have two sets of these. One set for before an event and the second while you playing the game.

One of the quickest ones that I suggest is 7-11 breathing. You take an inhale for a count a 7 and then exhale for a count of 11. This will activate your parasympathetic nervous system and calm you down. More centering exercise can be found on Mental Strength Training for Athletes”

The bottom line here is that you want to have a tool kit that will help you get centered and focused at the task at hand and keep you mind on the only thing you can control, your performance.

You can continue to develop your mental strength and concentration for peak athletic performance by picking up a copy of “Mental Strength Training for Athletes” today.

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Developing Winning Concentration For Peak Performance

Athletic Performance, Mental Strength, Mental Training, Peak Performance, Personal Performance No Responses »

May 312012

15 Steps to Mental Strength in Sports – Step 10: Developing Winning Concentration

Step 10 – Developing Winning Concentration For Peak Performance

Last week I talked about the trouble slumps and obstacles can present in reaching peak athletic performance. Today I’ll go over some specific mental strength tips to help you develop winning concentration to overcome these.

Whether during practice or competition you’re going to be faced with distractions. These distractions will be different and have a different affect on your performance. The important thing to remember is that during your physical practice is the time to for your mental practices as well.

You don’t want to wait till you’re in the heat of competition to try to figure out how to concentrate or refocus.

If there is nothing else you get from this post, remember that concentration is the key to mental strength and peak athletic performance. You cannot perform your best unless you have rock solid concentration.

So…What is concentration?

Here’s the thing about concentration, when you’re doing it well you don’t know you’re doing it.

Concentration is focusing on what’s important and blocking out everything else. The word here is ‘important.”

When you are concentrating on the things that are important, everything else fades away and you enter “the zone.”

All athletes are great at concentrating, yup, you heard me correctly. The trouble is those athletes that struggle do a great job of concentrating on all the wrong things.

You mind can only hold one thought at a time so you can only concentrate on one thing well! You better make damm sure that one thing is important!

Do you know what that one thing is you need to focus on during practices and/or competition?

If you’re not aware of where of what that thing is, you will struggle and not achieve peak performance.

Let me repeat this…if you don’t know were to put your focus you can’t reach peak performance.

Awareness is essential in concentration. You have to know when you’re focusing too much on the wrongs things, the things you can’t control.

Up to this point I’ve told you ‘what’ to do, not how to do it. I’ve gone over some things that are interesting but haven’t given you any solutions to develop your mental strength for improved concentration.

So let’s now take a look at the “how to.”

Before I begin, let me ask you. What happens to your focus during a boring show, book, and practice? You drift off right? This is normal; we all drift off at one time or another.

And the way you learn to concentrate is to bring yourself back when you catch yourself NOT concentrating.

I know, you’re probably thinking Uh???

Hang in there…I’ll pull this all together.

So, to develop concentration there are two steps:

Step 1: Is to realize the instant you lose your focus and start to drift off.

Step 2: Is quickly and gently return your focus to what’s important.

You train yourself to concentrate by being aware when you’re not concentrating and then bring yourself back.

We all know there’s nothing complicated about messing up. Here’s the secret though, it’s not a break in concentration that causes slumps and poor performance, it’s not catching yourself drifting and gently bring yourself back to what’s important that cause all the damage.

What are some of the wrong things?

Focus on winning
Focus on the opponent
Past poor performances
Error you committed
The college scout in the stand
What people will think
I’m too tired
Etc

So, what do I mean by gently bring yourself back? You bring yourself back without any judgment or negative self-talk …your job is to simply come back to what’s important.

There will be days when you don’t lose concentration that much and there will be others where you’ll drift a lot. It doesn’t matter, you must be persistent and consistent on all days in bring yourself back.

Here’s a training exercise that will help you improve the mental strength skill of concentration.

Take a ball, trophy or other object from your sport, place it eye level on something about 2-3 feet in front of you. Then find a spot on it to rest your eyes comfortably on. Your eyes should remain on this sport throughout the entire exercise.

Concentration is “passive”, you just let it happen. It is not intense or forced stare.

After you found the point to focus on, put your attention on you breathing. Inhale through your nose for a count of 5 and feel your diaphragm fill up with air. Exhale though your nose to a count of 7 and feel your diaphragm deflate. As you do this, while concentrating on the spot on the object, think of a word and repeat it to yourself. This will be your anchor or concentration cue.

You choose the word that has personal meaning; this will be your anchor word.

Again, inhale, feel your diaphragm fill-up, exhale repeating the word and feeling your diaphragm deflate. Keep the breathing easy, steady effortless.

If you’re normal you’ll get bored and soon start to drift, that’s OK, just bring your focus back to the object and your attention to your breathing repeating your anchor word.

Do this 3 -4 times a day for a few minutes each time. Smaller frequent rounds are better than fewer, longer rounds. You can also start to include this in your practice and training.

Variations

When you can successful concentrate without losing focus for 5 minutes, take the object and place it on a TV. Turn the TV on, option A, have no volume: Option B have the volume on.

Sit far enough back where you can see both the object and the TV together. And now perform the same focus drill for 2 minuets.

Here and Now Rule for Peak Performance

During practice or competition you are in two “location.” You are in “time” and you are in a “place.”

Time

Time has three times: Past, present and the future.

Past: When you’re in the past you’re thinking about (focusing on) things that have already happened, i.e. performance mistakes. Do this means you are not concentrating on what’s important and can actually kill your confidence during competition. You need to leave the past in the past and comeback. It’s OK to review past success BEFORE the event and review past poor performance during practice to find ways to improve. But during a competition you need to be present, in the now.

Present: When you’re in the now you are focusing on what’s important and you have a better chance of entering the zone and achieving peak performance.

Future: Here you’re thinking about what’s going to happen. You’re getting ahead of yourself like, “when we win”, “who do we play in the next round”, “I hope I make this catch.” When you focus on the outcome it pulls out of now.

Mental time travel equates to poor athletic performance. In order to reach your peak performance you MUST be in the now

Place

Where’s your mind?

Is it in right place?

Is it here on what you are doing?

Or is it in the wrong place and worried about who’s in the stand watching or thinking about bad call the referee made or thinking about the opponent.

In order to achieve peak athletic performance you have to be here now!

To help you bring yourself back to the here and now you need to develop focal points. Focal points can be visual, auditory or kinesthetic.

Here are some suggested focal points before and during a competition.

Pre-Performance Focal Points

Visual

Looking at arm or leg as you stretch
Keeping eyes at the ground
Looking at piece of equipment
Reading a book
Playing a video game
Going into soft focus or peripheral vision

Auditory

Listening to music
Positive conversation with coach or teammate
Repeating affirmations
Counting to yourself
Listen to sound of your breathing

Kinesthetic

Felling of breathing
Feel of stretching
Feel the warming up
Pre-performance feeling rituals, i.e. feeling the ball, stick, racket, etc.

Focal Points During Performance

These are usually sports and position specific that help you performer better. These may include

Watching the ball come into you hands
Felling the stroke of swimming
Sound of your feet hitting the ground during track meet
Listening to your breathing

Concentration is the key to peak performance and when it drifts you must develop the mental strength skill to bring it back. This requires practice everyday, especially during your practice and training.

Start to develop your mental strength and concentration for peak athletic performance by picking up a copy of “Mental Strength Training for Athletes” today.

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15 Steps to Mental Strength in Sports – Step 8

Athletic Performance, Mental Strength, Peak Performance, Personal Performance No Responses »

May 172012

Step 8 – Managing Mistakes and Their Negative Emotions

In my opinion the most performance damaging behavior an athlete can have is to hang on to their mistake during a competition. Hanging on to your mistake will certainly take you out of the game.

Holding on to a mistake means you’re not mentally present and paying attention to the game or your cues to help you reach peak athletic performance. The only time you can achieve peak performance is now and the only place is here.

When you are thinking about the mistake you are not in the here and now. You are in the past the there.

Keep in mind that every athlete makes mistakes. The difference is the great ones know how to release the mistake during the competition and then use the mistake as feedback on what to improve on during practice.

There is no real perfection in sports, except for how you respond to your imperfections.

Your job as an athlete during the game is to forgive and forget. Forgive yourself and forget about the mistake. Then during practice work on improving your performance so the mistake won’t happen again.

You see, you get what you focus on, the more you focus on the mistake during the game the more mistakes you’ll make in the game.

Focusing on the mistake will only make your uptight, nervous and tense. Your muscles than won’t be able move and function properly and you’ll make more mistakes. This can be a death spiral for trying to reach peak performance.

Peak performance comes from being calm and relaxed; focusing on mistake does just the opposite.

Focusing on mistakes kills your self-confidence and give’s you a distorted picture of your abilities. For example, you’ve had numerous practices when you were in the zone. By focusing on the mistake this negates all those great practices and you end up thinking you’re no good.

Dwelling on mistakes sets yourself up to trying too hard to make up for the mistake. When you try too hard guess what? That’s right; you make more mistakes, playing frustrated equals playing poorly.

Mental Rebounding

So what to do when a mistake does happen?

Here are a few mental strength tactics to help manage the mental and emotional side of making a mistake.

Step #1 – Awareness: When you make a mistake you must be aware that your focus of concentration has left the here and now and is in the past (on the mistake). Also you must become aware of the accompanying negative self-talk that comes along with the mistake. When you become aware you then can change your focus and negative self-talk.

If you don’t become aware you’ll end up in the performance death spiral. You need to know the mental cascade of thoughts that occur when you make a mistake so you can break the cycle/pattern.

Step #2 – Change Focus and Self-Talk: Once you become aware then you change your focus and self-talk. I went over the self-talk in a previous post that you can read HERE. As you change your self-talk you’ll be able to bring yourself back to the here and now. You might come up with a one word cue, like “focus” or “come back” to trigger yourself to refocus and shift your self-talk. Your job is to be aware where your attention is and bring it back to now (the game) so that you can achieve peak athletic performance.

Step #3 – Calm Down: When you focus on mistake you get nervous, when you get nervous you make more mistakes. When you’re too emotional about your mistake you don’t have access to all your mental resources and you’ll say or do some very stupid things. One tip to calm down is to immediately slow down, that is, deepen your breathing (slow diaphragmatic breaths) and go into peripheral vision (looking from the sides of your eyes/vision).

One method to control your breathing is to inhale to a count of 7 and exhale to count of 11. This will activate your “relaxing” nervous system and allow you to refocus and gain access to more of your mental resources. Doing this a few minutes of this daily will help you be prepared when you need it on the field.

Refocus Ritual

Use the above in any combine that works for you and when you make a mistake immediately perform the ritual. What ever ritual you create you need to have all 3 steps in the process. Here are three examples, oh yea, when reading these it may seem like they’ll take too long to do during the game, and as you practice them during training and practice you’ll be able to fire off your ritual during a match in no time.

1 – When the play (mistake) is over, go pick up some grass, focus on the grass and say “Let it go, it’s over, it’s in the past, stay in the now.” At the same time breathe deep, go into peripheral vision then take the grass and threw it away (the grass is representing your mistake), turn your back on the grass and get back into the game.

2 – Find a physical spot, when you make a mistake go the spot, touch it say “let it go”, take a few deep breaths go into peripheral vision and then come back to the game.

3 – Imagine you’re holding the mistake in your hand, breath deep, go into peripheral vision, squeeze your hand and then let relax and let go of the mistake.

It’s important to work on your ritual during practice so it becomes automatic in a game.

Step #4: Act as if: Once you have performed your refocus ritual you then use the “act as it” technique. This is, right after your ritual you “come back” to the game and act as if nothing happen. Head up, shoulders back, breathing confidently, you have a focused relaxed look your face and you act positive, as if nothing happen. When you change your physiology (your body) you will change your internal picture of yourself.

Play around with these steps and come up with your own refocus ritual. When you do, you’ll be better prepared to reach peak athletic performance.

Want to start today to develop your mental strength for peak athletic performance? Pick up a copy of “Mental Strength Training for Athletes” by going HERE.

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Concentration And The Creation Of Your Reality

Mental Strength, Mental Training, Personal Empowerment, Personal Success No Responses »

Mar 302012

“It is a spiritual law that the desire to do necessarily implies the ability to do.”

I’m sure you have either read, heard or watch the movie of “Aladdin’s Lamp”. This is just a fairy-tale but it does illustrate the fact that we have the power within us, if we are able to tap into it, to create our reality and manifest our desires. That is, to achieve our personal goals and reach our personal success.

If you have been unable to manifest your deepest desires it is time you learned how to use your innate powers. When you become conscious and aware that you have these latent powers within you in, and once developed, you will be capable of achieving unlimited possibilities of success.

You should have abundance of all things, not merely just getting by. All natural desires can be realized. It would be torture for the Infinite to create wants and desires that could not be realized.

Our very soul has the power to desire, and therefore, is the essence of the manifestation of our personal goals. Our very instinct leads us to thought, and in every thought there is great possibility, because true thought development, when connected to the mysterious powers which transcend us, has been the cause of all great accomplishments.

In our silence we can become conscious of “that something” which transcends thought and which uses our thought as a medium for expression. Many individuals have had glimpses of “that something,” but few ever reach the state where the mind is focused enough to comprehend its’ depths.

Silent, concentrated thought is more powerful than spoken words, for speech distracts from the focusing power of the mind by drawing more and more attention to the words instead of the feeling or energy behind the words.

We must learn more and more to trust ourselves; to seek more the Infinite within. It is from this source alone that we can gain the power to solve any challenges or circumstances.

No one should give up when there is always the resources of Infinity available to them.

The cause of failure is that we often search in the wrong places for personal success. This happens because we are not conscious of our real powers that when used are capable of guiding and directing us.

The Infinite within is unknown to those who go about life without developing a spiritual practice to awaken these powers. The Infinite is always available and manifest into desired personal goals by those that consciously utilize this power.

There is no such thing as a Special “Providence.” A person will not receive help from the Infinite except to the extent that they believe, trust and act as if they do have the power of manifestation.

Concentrate On What You Want and Manifest It

The mentally weak are controlled by their conditions, that is, their reality. The mentally strong control their conditions…their reality. You can be either the conqueror or the conquered. By the Law of Concentration you can achieve your personal goals and personal success. This law is so powerful that it almost seems impossible to comprehend.

By the Law of Concentration, what you first see as a dream then becomes a reality.

Remember that the first step in concentration is to form a Mental Image of what you wish to accomplish. This image becomes a thought, a mental seed that attracts thoughts of a similar nature.

Around this thought, when it’s planted in the imagination, you create associated thoughts which continue to grow as long as your mental strength and desire are intense enough to induce focused concentration.

Form the mental strength habit of thinking of something you wish to accomplish for five minutes each day. Shut every other thought out of your consciousness. Be confident that you will succeed; make up your mind that all obstacles in your way will be overcome and you will rise above any limiting conditions.

You do this by using the natural laws of the thought, which are the most powerful forces at our command.

A good mental strength practice for the development of focus and concentration is to write out your thoughts, the ones that have the most juice to them. Then continue to add to this each day until you have run out of ideas.

You will find that each day as you focus your attention on this thought, this thought that is at the center of your Consciousness, new plans, ideas and methods will flash into your mind. There is a Law of Attraction; these new thoughts will help you accomplish your goal.

A marketing person, for instance, gets to thinking along these lines. He has thoughts of his ideas, but he wants to know what others are doing. So he starts out to find ideas and he soon finds plenty of books, websites, articles and other resources on the subject. Although when he started he was not aware of their existence.

The same thing is holds true for any topic, subject or goal. We can attract those resources that will help us manifest them. Very often we seem to receive help in phenomenal ways.

It may be slow in coming, but once the silent unseen forces are put into action, they will bring results as long as we do our part. They are ever present and ready to aid those who know how to use them.

By forming a strong mental image of your desires, you plant the thought, the mental seed which begins working on the creation of that goal. In time, that desire, if in harmony with your higher nature, will materialize.

It may seem unnecessary to caution you to concentrate and focus only on the creation of that which is good for you, good for others and good the “community.” There are a few that forget others in their quest for personal success and have done “wrong” in the achievement of their goals, only to have their success slip away.

All good things are possible for you, but only as you bring your intentions into harmony with that Law which requires that we are kind to our fellow travelers as we journey along life’s road.

So consider your goals and desires and if they are “good” then say “I want this; I am going to achieve it. The way will be open for me.”

If you fully grasp mentally the thought of success and hold it in mind each day, you gradually make a pattern, a mold, which in time, will manifest.

Use your mental strength to keep a “safe place” for these thoughts free from doubt, fear and destructive forces. Never allow these to become associated with your desired thoughts.

You will eventually create your desired conditions by receiving help in many unexpected ways. This assistance will transform your current reality into your desired reality. Life will seem very different to you, for you will have found happiness through awakening within yourself the power to become the master of your reality and circumstances instead of their slave.

If you are new to this line of thinking, this information (and the information in the previous posts) may sound strange, even absurd, but, instead of doubting or discounting them, give them a shot. This is the only way you’ll find out they will work.

An inventor has to work out his idea mentally before he produces it materially. The architect first sees the mental picture of the house he is to plan and from this works out the one we see. Every object, every material creation must first be mentally created.

I know a man that started a business with only a few dollars and zero available credit. In ten years he had built a very successful and profitable business. He attributes his success to two things; belief that he would succeed and hard work.

There were times however that it didn’t look like he would make it. He was being pressured by his creditors and even considered bankruptcy.

He kept using his mental strength and got an extension on his loan exactly at the time he needed it. When absolutely necessary to raise a certain amount of money in a specific time he always did it.

When he had large bills to pay he would set his intention that certain clients that owed him would pay him by a certain date and it always happened. Sometimes he would not receive their funds until the last day of the extension.

He would have no reason other than his belief in the power of affecting the mind of another by concentration of thought for expecting the funds to show up and was rarely disappointed.

So, use your mental strength and put forth the necessary concentrated and focused effort and you will be surprisingly helped from sources unknown to you.

Remember the words of a mystical master: “Whatsoever thing ye desire when ye pray, pray as if ye had already received and ye shall have.”

Learn how to start to develop your concentration, focus and mental strength to manifest and create our reality by picking up a copy of “Develop the Mental Strength of a Warrior” today. Simply go HERE now.

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15 Steps to Mental Strength in Sports – Part I

Athletic Performance, Mental Strength, Peak Performance No Responses »

Mar 292012

When it comes to athletic performance there are only few athletes that understand how the power their mind and thoughts have a direct result on their performance.

The others just haven’t gotten the message yet and continue to turn in subpar or inconsistent performances.

Knowing and using the power of your mind to enhance your athletic performance doesn’t guarantee peak performance, a scholarship to a Division-I college or being drafted by the pros. What it does guarantee is that you will have consistent performance inline with your athletic ability.

Over the next several weeks I’m going to layout specific steps for you that will:

Demonstrate how important mental strength training is.

Give you tools and techniques to help with your mental strength training to enhance your athletic performance.

So let’s get to it…

Step 1: Being Aware

This may sound obvious but most athletes that are struggling are not even aware of what’s going on inside their heads.

This step is short one and the most important of them all. If you are not aware of what you are focusing on and your self-talk you’re doomed to continue to turn in poor performance after poor performance.

Of course, the assumption here is that your technical athletic skills are at the level they should be.

In this step you begin to be aware that the power of your mind can enhance or derail performance.

This awareness shows up when you are struggling at your game, despite having the physical and technical abilities.

You are focusing on what NOT’S important and all the things you can’t control.

You worry about doing well in the event, but this leads to you getting tense during game and your performance declines.

You inner conversation is mainly negative self-talk.

Desperate attempts to get out of slump you actually reinforce the slump by focusing on what’s not working.

These are the mental mistakes that are made before and during event which negatively affect your athletic performance.

So, once you are aware the “something’s going on” and it’s not our physical or technical ability we move on to the next step.

Step 2: Getting Back In Control

Getting back in control is to know when you are in a mental slump and how to easily move out of it.

You get back in control by understanding the power of your mind and the role it plays in either undermining or enhancing your athletic performance.

Two Key Mental Mistakes

There are two mental errors that are at the core of diminished athletic performance:

Engage in destructive self-talk

Area (focus) of concentration (before and during event) was is all the wrong things

To improve your mental strength in sports you first have to be aware of these two critical factors. These two factors play an integral role in other mental strength skills that affect your athletic performance such as:

Ability to stay cool in the clutch

Abel to let go of mistakes

Avoid sike-outs

Master positive thinking

Maintain motivation

Use failure constructively

Properly prepare for up coming events

Build self-confidence

To better help you understand how the mind (your thoughts) play a critical role in your athletic performance let’s look at the “death spiral”, that is how slump happens and how most athletes stay in it.

The Cycle Nature of A Slump and Poor Performance

There is a trigger or event that touches them off. This can be a myriad of things, a dropped pass, miss shot or generally a bad performance.

Then you engage in negative self-talk about the event. You run the event over and over again.

This in-turn leads to deterioration in your confidence.

You begin to worry – focus on – that “it” might happen again.

This creates an expectation of failure, of “it” happening again.

So before and during performance get nervous about “it” happening again.

Getting nervous increases your muscle tension and creates a distraction.

You try to compensate for the tension by trying harder and continue negative self-talk of focusing on “I hope it doesn’t happen again.”

This negative self-talk disrupts concentration from focusing on the right cues to achieve your peak performance.

All this leads up to and resulting in a poor performance. This is a self-fulfilling prophecy.

The funny thing is that this happens so fast you’re not even aware of it. Then each time to cycle is played it reinforces itself, each bad performance can lead to another and another…unless you get back in control.

Just as there is a “negative loop” (described above) there is also a “positive loop” that reinforces good performances.

This is done by:

Engage in positive self-talk

Giving your focus and concentration on the right cues. Especially before and during the event. However you post-game dialogue is equally important as it sets up your expectation for the next event.

In sports and in life…you get what you expect.

The race is won prior to and during the event, not when the event is over. By then, it’s too late.

This is why your attitude and mental strength is so important during your practice sessions and before as well as during the event.

There is an interrelationship, a direct connection, between your mind (what you are thinking) and your body (how well you will perform).

If you use negative self-talk you’ll start to get nervous, your muscles will get tight, your heart rate will increase, your blood pressure will go up, your breathing will become shallow and your stomach will start to feel funny from the digestion shutting down, and your hands and feet will begin to get cold as blood is forced into your “core.”

This WILL affect your athletic performance in a negative fashion.

Let’s look at two of these components:

Tight Muscles: With tight muscles your timing will be off and will produce the opposite effect of being in zone…that is, tight muscles are the kiss of death!

They will produce:

Inflexibility

Slow you down

Improper body mechanics

Increased fatigue

A Chance of injury

Cold Hands and Feet: Since most sports involve the use of hands and feet this can have a devastating effect on athletic performance were “touch” and feel are crucial, such as football, soccer, basketball, etc.

Remember that self-talk either works for you or against you. Your athletic performance is self-fulfilled based on you what you focus on and your self-talk.

So, how to you get back in control?

You build an awareness of your mindset before a performance.

Here do this…think of a time when you really had great performance.

Got it…

Now, what did you think about and focus on before and during that performance?

OK…now think of a really poor performance.

Got that…

What did you think about and focus on before and during the performance?

Now compare. What are the differences between the two, that is, what was your self-talk and focus before both these performances?

I hope you now see and understand that how you perform is directly related to what goes on in your mind.

Get in control of your thoughts, self-talk, focus and your performance will improve.

Fieldwork

Take time right now….yes right now and review several other good and bad past performances…in detail. Become aware of patterns of self-talk for both performances.

Remember if you can’t become aware of them, you can’t break off the negative self-talk and focus that contributes to your poor performances. And you won’t be able focus on the right self-talk that will enhance your performances.

Next week we’ll continue with the next step creating mental strength for peak performance.

If you’d like to get started today on controlling your self-talk and focus pick up a copy of “Mental strength Training for Athletes” by going HERE.

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