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Review – Mental Strength Tips For Peak Athletic Performance

Feb 092012

During the past year on Thursday I’ve discussed a variety of mental strength skills and concepts to help enhance your athletic performance.

The intention of these posts is give you an awareness and understanding of the importance of mental strength skills and how they can impact your athletic performance.

In addition to this knowledge and learning’s, the posts have also attempted to give the specific “how to’s.” Specifically, the posts have addressed ‘how to’ learn and develop specific mental strength skills, i.e confidence, imagery, motivation, goal-setting, effective concentration, and then how to use these the mental strength skills during practice and competition to achieve athletic peak performance.

There have been two main goals for these posts:

To get you thinking about the importance of the mental aspect of peak performance and creating awareness about how important mental strength affects your athletic practice and performance.

To provide you with the resources to manage and control the mental aspect of your athletic performance.

Given that we are already well into the New Year it seemed fitting to take a look at some of the highlights from the posts….kind of a mental strength in sport year in review.

I hope this will be a reminder as to the importance of developing your mental strength right along with your physical strength and your athletic skills.

So here at the top 8 mental strength tips for peak athletic performance for 2011.

Know Yourself: A point that has been infused throughout discussions has been the importance of knowing yourself—what helps performance (and what hurts) from a psychological perspective? What are your mental strengths and weaknesses? Be aware.

There Is No One Best Way: But there is a best way for you: I’ve been unable to provide a specific “recipe” on how to approach practice, how to think effectively prior to and during competition, or how to focus, because everyone is different and what works for one athlete may not be best for another. Instead, these posts have provided mental strength skills and strategies that you can learn and blend into training as is best for you to help your athletic performance.

Be An Athlete: That is, during training, commit mentally and physically to the task at hand and leave everything else off the playing field (or out of the pool, weight room, etc). Make practice more than a physical attempt by mentally engaging in what you are doing.

Set Goals: Goal-setting works. Effective goal-setting can enhance athletic performance. Think about how you can incorporate goals into your daily training—goals that focus on what you need to do to improve.

Be Aware Of Your Thinking: Work on thinking effectively: Too often, athletes let their thinking and self-talk “run wild” during practice but expect to have disciplined thinking during competition. Use practice to figure out how to think effectively (that is, what to say to yourself and focus on to facilitate peak performance) – and practice it during practice sessions.

Recognize Success: In a quest to improve, athletes often focus solely on weaknesses, areas that need improvement and what went wrong. Equally important is to recognize strengths, what went well and all of the little successes. These little successes, that occur on a daily basis, can serve as the foundation for confidence but only if they are recognized.

Create a Mental Strength Plan For Competition: Being mentally prepared for competition has been identified as a primary factor influencing performance with elite athletes. Work to figure out how you tend to think, feel, focus when you perform your best and develop a plan and routine that gets you thinking, feeling and focused in this way to optimize your athletic performance.

While this is certainly not an all-inclusive list of reminders, it does serve to highlight some of the key points discussed this past year.

Take some time and reflect on these key mental strength skills, as well as others you can identify. Then begin thinking about which ones you need to work on most and how you can better develop them to incorporate into your training in the upcoming year.

If have more to add to this list please share them in the comments below.

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Train Your Mental Core For Peak Athletic Performance

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Feb 022012

Core training has been a hot topic for quite awhile now. Professional, amateur, high school, college athletes and weekend warriors understand the importance of a strong core for functional movement and peak athletic performance.

To skinny on the core training is it involves training the muscles that surround the body’s center of mass—the abdominals, lower back, and hip. A strong core is one of the keys to peak performance utilizing effective movement, stability, and balance.

Utilizing of the core comes into play with even the most basic of movements and is certainly essential to more involved movements. For example, performing a squat without activating your abs or lower back muscles, you can’t do it, can you?

While developing your physical core strength is important, there is another “core” that is critical for athletes to train and develop.

That other core is your mind…your mental strength.

The core of your mind is as important, if not more so in some respects, then your physical core. Just as strong physical core is important to effective athletic movement like stability, balance and peak performance.

A strong mental core is crucial to effective mental stability, mental balance and mental strength. A strong, well-developed mind or “mental muscle” is paramount to peak athletic performance.

The mind is activated during every athletic training session and certainly during every athletic performance. How the mind affects athletic performance is intricately tied to how well the athlete has trained, developed and strengthened their mental muscle.

For example, if you doubt your ability to bench press 240 lbs, do you really think you’ll succeed?

Probably not.

Or let’s say you’ve entered a 5k race. There you are standing at the starting line and you begin to tell yourself you are not in good enough shape to run sub-20 minutes. What do you think the chances are that you’ll run it under 20, even if your body has been physically trained correctly?

Chances are slim to none and slim just left town.

Clearly the mental core strength plays a significant part in athletic peak performance.

As you continue your pursuit for peak athletic performance, it’s vital that you take into consideration the development of your “physical core strength” and your “mental core strength.” Sine they are both at the foundation of athletic peak performance.

Here are some tips to keep in mind as you look at developing your mental strength for peak performance:

The Mental Core Strength Can Be Developed

Through Mental strength Training

Mental strength training relates to the development of mental skills and strategies to help you manage your mind. That is, to be able to take control of your internal processes, i.e. self-talk, images, that either help or hinder your training and athletic performance.

Mental strength Skills Are SKILLS

Mental strength skills are equivalent to physical strength skills, in that they are both skills that can be learned and ultimately lead to peak performance. Many times, coaches and athletes approach mental strength skills as something an athlete either has or doesn’t have (i.e., she is confident or she is not confident) instead of something the athlete can learn and develop.

Mental strength Training Isn’t Easy

You can learn to manage what goes on internally and it takes discipline. Athletes who are unwilling to develop their mental core often demonstrate inconsistent performances due to a weak mental core. Athletes who do make the effort to train the mind discover that it takes time, effort, and persistence, just like physical training. But just as with physical training, the rewards can be great.

Seek Out Mental strength Resources

Keep on the lookout for resources that can help you build and develop your mental strength. Read books, continue to read these column, find a peak performance coach, talk to athletes that are achieving peak performance

As you develop your mental core strength, your performance and mental focus will become more balanced.

Use the information and skills outlined many post here as well as “Develop the Mental strength of a Warrior”, these will help you create the mental strength need to achieve peak athletic performance.

The core of the body and the core of the mind are always linked; weakness one will show up in the other. You need both to reach peak performance.

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Competitive Practice Environment For Peak Athletic Performance

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Jan 052012

Let me ask you, do any of the following sound familiar?

“I ran a personal best in practice, but I don’t understand why I can’t run that fast during a meet.”

“I had no double faults in practice and I was even hitting great forehands down the line the other day. But I had 5 double faults and my forehand sucked in my tournament.”

“In practice I can easily make 8 out of 10 free-throws, and then when I’m in a game, I drop to 4 out of 10, I just don’t understand.”

Most likely, a variety of issues can come into play that will affect Athletic Performance and perhaps may be the reason for the difference between practice and competitive Athletic Performances. Issues like; external climate conditions, opponent(s), the venue, expectations of yourself and others, confidence, tactics, strategies, and anxiety, to name a few can come into play.

With that, let’s look at one critical factor that can greatly affect your Athletic Performance, and when addressed, can help you reach peak performance in competition, that is your training environment.

As a performance athlete, you train to compete and train to win. You daily work on your athletic skills, physical strength and stamina so that you can reach a level of peak performance during your competition.

You train so that you excel during competition.

The important question is…is your training environment consciously structured to assist you performing better during the competition?

For many athletes, this just isn’t the case. Instead, training is classically structured to help athletes perform well DURING training. Nonetheless, athletes are expected to perform in competition the same way they do in practice.

This is like comparing apples to oranges in that the practice environment and the competitive environment are different. This must be changed if competitive performance is to improve.

Take a closer look.

For the typical athletes, the practice environment (which includes the external environment and the internal environment of thoughts, focus, motivation etc.) is characterized as a physical effort where the athlete puts in the miles, runs through drills and/ or does a lot of repetitions to refine a specific skill. In this practice environment, athletes most likely don’t think about their internal dialogue, how they react to mistakes, and their attitude during early morning practices or their confidence, the focus is on the hard work of physical training.

Also, many athletes don’t practice under the potentially adverse conditions that they’ll face in competition, such as having to deal with crowd noise, dealing with a malfunctioning piece of equipment, playing in the heat of the day, among other things.

Contrast the mental strength skills needed in the training environment with those mental strength skills—the thoughts and behaviors— athletes are expected to have in competition.

Athletes want (and need) to be confident, athletes want to keep self-talk positive and focused on what they need to do to perform well, athletes want and expect to manage their emotions so they don’t hurt their performance.

Athletes need to deal with expectations of self and others, and need to manage their reaction to the crowds or their opponent. The list could go on but I think you get the point. Most likely that training environment is nothing like the competitive environment.

So, how do athletes make their practice more like their competition?

First, evaluate what you as an athlete are asking yourself to do in competition and train those skills, which have been discussed in several past posts.

Here are a few examples:

You want to be positive and focused on your performance, so during practice work on managing your self-talk and practice using the internal dialogue and cue words that will facilitate performance.

You want to manage your reaction to mistakes or frustration in competition, so challenge yourself to do the same in practice. Work on appropriate means of managing your emotions.

You want to approach competition with confidence so purposefully build your confidence by recognizing daily successes, recalling great practice performances, etc.

To prepare for external distractions, use imagery in training to simulate the competitive environment.

Depending on your sport, you can also prepare for the competitive environment by bringing in “fans” to observe practice, piping in noise or creating pressure or challenging situations.

Additionally, embrace challenges when they present themselves in practice. When a shoelace breaks or your racquet string pops mid-point, rather than give up, play through the distraction.

Use all practice mishaps as opportunities to learn how to play through adversity.

The bottom line is, if you can construction your practice environment to look, feel and sound more like your competitive environment, you’ll be in a better position to reach your peak performance competition.

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Stress And Athletic Performance – Part 1

Athletic Performance No Responses »

Dec 152011

Earlier studies suggested that tension as well as overall athletic performance were related by a curve shaped roughly like an upside-down U. This appears to be no longer the case. A more realistic shape for the curve relating performance to stress is shown below.

This particular sort of curve is typically known as| a catastrophe curve. What this means is that at low levels of stress athletic performance should improve with a rise in stress up, to a certain critical point. At this stage (point B) the athlete begins to perceive that the demands of the situation are |more than his/her ability to meet them.

Anxiety occurs, and the athletic performance suddenly and dramatically fails. After such failure the original level of performance is only able to be regained if stress levels are considerably reduced (to point A). This sort of phenomenon is very common in sport performance situations. Once an athlete starts to “go over the top”, it is very difficult to get him/her back up to a high level of performance.

Catastrophe curves like the one shown above usually occur as a result of opposing forces, and recent work suggests that this one is no exception. In competition these two forces are the desire to compete and succeed, and the fear of losing or failing.

Under normal circumstances the activation system “amplifier” is fine-tuned by the athlete to meet the needs of their situation. However, when athletes become anxious this fine-tuning is lost—in their anxiety they fiddle about with all the knobs, and so greatly distort their own performance.

There are several discussions about how much effect the physiological response related with anxiety has upon mental performance. However, there seems less doubt about its importance for physical performance, as any football coach who has witnessed the sustained speed at which a typical playoff or final is played will no doubt testify.

In addition, it appears that the distortion produced by excessive physiological arousal is most clear in skills requiring fine control or touch, this can be extremely critical for tactical athletes.

The basic implication of this pretty clear: to keep up peak performance in the face of anxiety an athletes must use their mental strength and either cut anxiety or increase the “strength” of the activation system.

The “activation system”, can be thought of all the internal and external factors that might cause stress and how the athlete interprets, i.e. the activation pattern of the information-processing system.

In order to perform difficult skills with accuracy and ease, the athlete must clearly “process” a vast amount of information about the environment and their orientation within it.

To do this, the athlete must first perceive the relevant cues, and then use them to make decisions about proper courses of action, “program” these decisions into responses, and finally send these responses to the muscles.

Obviously, different situations mean each of these processes will varying in degrees, so that the activation pattern necessary to achieve peak performance will differ from sport to sport, and from skill to skill within a sport.

For example, speed of perception will be very important when making a shot during a game of basketball, but much less so when performing a free-throw. In fact, the stressors and the activation pattern is itself an over-simplification, since each of the three major cognitive processes which we have distinguished:

Perception

Decision-making

Action (is itself made up of a number of sub-processes)

For example, decision-making requires information to be stored in memory, transformed into likely consequences, and recalled—all before the information is passed on for programming.

The important feature of the model shown in the stressors and the activation pattern is that it represents the availability of each process by its elevation above the base plane.

Fortunately, our brains are very flexible about how they divide the resources at their disposal to each of these processes, so we are able to cope adequately with a great number of diverse situations.

However, this flexibility is also our greatest weakness, for it means that the activation pattern required for a given situation can also be easily distorted by outside influences such as pressure from parents or coach, as well as internal influences like personality factors, anxiety and other negative mood states. The research literature suggests that the cognitive anxiety which is present for some time before an important event disrupts these activation patterns by:

Reducing the overall capacity of the system—pushing all the “process towers” down

Depressing the availability of some processes more than others.

On the other hand, it suggests that the physiological arousal that occurs immediately before performance tends to “turn up the volume controls” on all the output signals to the muscles. Thus errors which are due to problems in picking up the right cues or in making decisions about those cues are likely to occur several days before a big event, because errors due to output failures are much more likely to happen on the day.

As mentioned earlier, the solution for such distortion is either to build some sort of mental barrier to protect the processes by blocking anxiety, or to strengthen the resilience of the required activation pattern to such an extent that it cannot be easily distorted by anxiety; this in effect is mental strength.

A mental strength coach can greatly influence this latter remedy, and at least partly influence the former.

Next week we’ll look at how to overcome stress and anxiety problems.

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Warrior Mind Podcast Episode # 65 – Work Life Balance

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Dec 032011

This Warrior Mind Podcast is based on Mental Strength Tip # 29 – Recovery and Personal Success

This Warrior Mind Podcast is to help you develop the mental strength so that you can determine how balanced you are in your personal and professional life.

Let me ask you….at the ideal, what would your work/recovery cycle look and feel like? Do you believe a work live balance would lead toward peak personal performance? Just as in physical training, the work/recovery is essential for sustained growth. Too much or too little of either leads to stagnation and burnout.

Enjoy the podcast below:

Warrior Mind Podcast

Who Ever You Think You Are, You're More Powerful Then That

The Native American Medicine Wheel gives great guidance to living a full and complete life. Balance must first take place with the individual in their ‘four directions’; spiritual, physical, mental and emotional in order to reach peak performance.

This balancing of personal inner life for the balance of external personal life and personal success is the focus of The Warriors Quest. Give yourself permission to take time and consider that beliefs must be chipped away at a little are a time until the change takes place.

And you can start building your mental strength for balance today! Order you copy of “Develop the Mental Strength of a Warrior” HERE now. This is a fantastic e-book that helps you take control of your thoughts, develop success awareness and helps you tap into the powers of your unconsciousness mind to create the mental strength to succeed at anything!

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Achieving The Unachieved For Peak Performance

Athletic Performance, Peak Performance No Responses »

Dec 012011

“I’m supposed to be going for a Personal Record in the bench today. I don’t know if I can do it…it seems like so much weight.”

“6’2”! Are you kidding me? I’ve never cleared that height in a competition.”

“Dammit, I drew Frank in the first round. I haven’t beaten him in the 5 times we’ve faced each other. He’s gotta have my number. I’m not 0-5 against anyone else.”

Facing a potential Personal Record (PR), or going against an opponent you have yet to defeat.

Have you experienced a similar situation?

How did you respond?

Such scenarios (or similar ones) present tough physical and mental challenges. You’re asking yourself, and being asked, to accomplish something you’ve never done before and, on top of it, you are looking for the confidence in your ability so you can do it.

When faced with surpassing a PR, some athletes are able to perform up to their abilities whereas others are not able to do so…they are unable to accomplish the unaccomplished.

There is a huge mental component to breaking through athletic performance barriers.

Think about the 4-minute mile. It was once seen as one of those mythical barriers.

For years, athletes had been approaching 4:00 but could not break through that wall. Yet, within one year of Roger Bannister running sub-4:00, multiple other runners broke through that time barrier as well.

It was not that the athletes were physically unable to run a mile under four minutes, it was that a mental barrier had been created, setting this up as a near impossible task. Once the mental barrier was removed from the mind, the body was “given permission” to accomplish the physical task.

If you’re reading this then I presume that you want to be one of those athletes that achieve the unachieved, right?

Of course you do!

So, let’s take a look at some mental strength tactics you can use to help you break these barriers (physical and mental) and reach your athletic peak performance.

A side note, I would recommend using all them one at time and see which one or two you connect with best and which ones help produce the results you want.

Focus On The Process

In physical and athletic challenging situations, what tends to be your predominant thought?

What’s your focus?

For many, the focus is on the challenge or the outcome of performance, i.e., the victory, PR, pinning an opponent. It is important to get your thoughts away from the outcome and, instead, place your mental strength energy on what you need to do to accomplish the task.

Focus on what you control—your performance—not the end result.

For example, when approaching the bar, focus on the various elements of your pre-lift routine, critical aspects of your technique or your breathing (as opposed to the weight on the bar).

Do It Then Do It

That is…first perform the task mentally…see, feel, successfully mentally experience executing the lift, clearing the height or beating an opponent in complete detail. Then, physically perform the skill just as you did in your imagery.

In using imagery, you are mentally accomplishing the challenge which will help you prepare for the event and boost your confidence in your ability to physically accomplish the task.

Reasons To Believe

When you stop to think about it, it makes sense that you might have doubts as you’re asking yourself to accomplish a task you have yet to accomplish.

You don’t accept the doubts, instead, battle them. These are your doubts and you can control them. Convince yourself with “the facts” as to why you can and why you will be successful.

Identify the reasons you will be successful and use these to naturalize those doubts. These reasons can come from things you have done in training, past competitions, comments from coaches or teammates, or your work ethic or simply has anyone done this before. Remember, what one can do, anyone can do.

Shrink It

There is a tendency to make a task or obstacle a monumental challenge because it hasn’t been achieved yet and there may have been many failed attempts along the way.

This can make the obstacle grow to mythical proportions. Use your mental strength to knock it down…to shrink it mentally, to what it really is, just another event.

Instead of thinking about the weight on the bench as something you have failed at twice, remind yourself that it is only two kilograms more that you lifted last week.

Similarly, the opponent you are facing shouldn’t be viewed as someone “I just can’t beat.” Rather, the opponent is someone you match up well against and to perform well you need to attack their weaknesses.

I Think I Can

You could not complete the rep without a little help, you missed the height or you lost the match. How you react to this failure is going to significantly influence your future attempts at similar challenges.

Are you going to tell yourself, “I’ll never be able to do this?”

Or, are you preparing for what you need to do differently and what you need to work on to improve your performance the next time?

As The Little Train That Could kept saying…”I think I can, I think, I can…I know I can, I know I can….I did it!”

Remember there are no failures, only feedback. Learn from them and apply the learning’s to your future athletic endeavors and you will reach peak performance.

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Warrior Mind Podcast Episode # 64 – Comebacks

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Nov 192011

This Warrior Mind Podcast is based on Mental Strength Tip #28 – Personal Success and Comebacks.

This Warrior Mind Podcast is to help you develop the mental strength belief that being a comeback artist is one of the greatest secrets to personal success and that the ability to recover from apparent failures may be more important then the initial effort.

Take a few moments and think about your greatest comeback and the impact it had your thinking. Now, what do you believe is the greatest comeback story of all time and how you think this individual pulled it off?

Enjoy the podcast below:

Warrior Mind Podcast

Who Ever You Think You Are, You're More Powerful Then That

To truthfully evaluate yourself as a comeback artist you will have to make sure you are coming from objective reality. Many people claim to be a comeback artist, yet when they look deeper they really have never made a comeback in anything in their life.

I would suggest taking some time and research some comeback examples from mental strength individuals in your line of business; this will help you with developing the mindset to see the big picture of personal performance.

If you can’t think of one, how about Lance Armstrong!

Seventy percent of the populations will quite at the onset of physical or psychological pain and never even consider a comeback. I share this static with you to ask you if you think you’re above average.

Start building your mental strength and comeback ability today! Order you copy of “Develop the Mental Strength of a Warrior” HERE now. This is a fantastic e-book that helps you take control of your thoughts, develop success awareness and helps you tap into the powers of your unconsciousness mind to create the mental strength to succeed at anything!

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Trusting For Peak Performance – Part 2

Mental Strength, Peak Performance, Personal Develpoment No Responses »

Nov 162011

Welcome back!

In Part 1 of Trusting For Peak Performance we discussed what is a trusting space, how happens when trust is absent as well as the Will Rogers test.

Today we’re going to go over…

Building Trust Over Time

If there is one thing that we know about trust, it is that it must be earned, not demanded. A trusting space begins with rapport between you and your “partner” (remember in part1 we defined a partner as anyone of significance in your life, i.e. coworker, client, spouse, customer, friend or family member, etc).

Building rapport is just the beginning to achieve personal peak performance. The trusting space is then built up over time as you engage a range of strategies to continue to build trust between you and your partner. This doesn’t mean, however, that you can never make a mistake. We all make mistakes and you are on your own learning and growth journey, just as your partners are.

It does mean, however, that when you make a mistake, you are honest about this; the mistake is acknowledged, and then both you and your partner move on. The perception that you are human and make mistakes does not, in itself, destroy trust.

The perception that you lack the skills or integrity to identify and manage your own mistakes is sure to.

Contemplation

Have you had a relationship of trust in your life?

What were the particular features that allowed you to trust that person?

Why is trust so important to learning?

Why is it important to acknowledge your own mistakes?

What are some ways that you can build a trusting space with your partners?

Coaching

For me and many others, the principle of trust underpins the approach to coaching. Clients believe that the coach’s first and most important obligation is to create a “trusting space” for their clients in which to develop. The trust between coach and client can be described as the “bandwidth” of coaching, the greater the bandwidth, the greater to chance to reach personal peak performance.

An Open Mind

One of the main requirements for creating a trusting space is an open mind and a non-judgmental attitude on the part of you. In coaching, it is often said that the coach determines the process but the client determines the content of the sessions.

The client always sets the coaching agenda, as does your “partner”. You “partner” may come from a background that is very different from yourself or may have made different life choices.

In coaching, these will have an impact on the agenda that the client outlines; what personal goals they set; what values they wish to live in alignment with; and which skills they want to develop.

For me, the aim of coaching is for my client to be their best self for personal peak performance. It is up to them to decide what this better self looks like, not me, not their friends, or not their family.

It is up to me to listen to and validate their desire for a better self, even if it is not what I would want in my own life, or have thought of as the best thing for them.

This is important to remember when you are creating a trusting space for your “partner.”

Stober refers to this attitude as “unconditional positive regard.” Often the client’s personal goals and the goals that the coach thinks would work best for them are the same. This makes coaching easy and can be applied to assisting your “partner.”

However, sometimes the goals are not the same, and when they are not, your “partner” is still entitled to set the agenda. It can be a challenge to assist someone through the end of a marriage if you feel strongly about the sanctity of marriage, and believe they would be happier in the long run if they kept their marriage together.

It can be a challenge to assist someone through giving up a highly paid and powerful job, if you think it sounds fantastic to you and the career they want sounds risky or boring.

In my case, this is where coaching becomes more complex and I must engage all of my listening and empathizing skills. When these situations occur, it is beneficial for me to work through these challenges myself with my own coach. As a coach I must suspend my own judgments in a coaching relationship in order to build trust.

And you must do the same with your “partners.”

Support and Challenge

Another way to create a trusting space is by balancing the need to support with the need to challenge. If you only provide support, the “parent” may be prevented from growing and developing at a rate that brings them true satisfaction and personal peak performance.

They may even feel patronized. If you only challenge, you may be in danger of damaging you “partners” sense of self worth. People often expect to be challenged; however, even the highest functioning and resilient of human beings needs strong encouragement and emotional support to respond to challenges.

A skilled coach can carefully manage the “two-way street of support and challenge” (Ting and Riddle, 2006). They listen attentively to the effect that their words have on their client.

The following description of the coaching environment powerfully paints a picture of a trusting space where challenge and support are effectively balanced that you can use in building a trusting environment.

“When you confront me, I can trust that you are pushing me to think beyond my existing paradigms, not trying to blame or hinder me. When you ask me to explain my reasoning, I can trust that you will not use my answer against me but will help me seek higher levels of performance…..my mistakes will be treated as learning opportunities – steps on the path of accomplishment, not failures.” (Bianco-Mathis, Nabors and Roman, 2002)

My goal as coach is to have my clients feel this way about me, so that I can challenge them in ways that build their sense of self so that they can reach personal peak performance,

Trust and Ethics

To create a trusting space, you must operate ethically at all times. Operating ethically includes maintaining confidentiality, preparing for and focusing on the intervention or “assisting” session. It also means coaching and assisting from the heart and being prepared to walk away from the relationship if this is in the best interest of your “partner.”

In my coaching, my clients need to trust that my primary motivation is a desire for them to reach their full potential and peak performance. As their coach, I need to constantly ask myself whether I am acting in the best interests of my clients or whether other considerations are impacting the coaching relationship.

This is a good point to reflect upon in your relationships with your “partners.”

These considerations might be the need to maintain a certain income, the desire to build up a business, the wish to avoid failure or to avoid “letting someone down”, or the desire to influence the person in a direction that they don’t want, but that we want for them.

A person with mental strength is not afraid to reflect on their own motivations and is prepared to act if any of their motivations are impacting their “partner” getting the most out of the relationship.

Creating a trust space requires openness and honesty with yourself and with your partners. Building on trust is doing this on an ongoing basis. Trust grows, it strengthens relationships and empowers both parties. Creating and building trust is a privilege in getting to know someone and getting to know more about ourselves.

Reflection

Why do you have to be able to trust yourself in order to build a trusting space?

How do you think you could handle coaching someone whose goals are not the same as what you would want for them?

How could you let a “partner” set the agenda but still be true to yourself?

What is the relationship between ethics and trust?

I hope enjoyed and got something out of these two posts. If you’d like to experience a trusting environment so that you grow personally and reach your peak performance request your Introductory Consultation today HERE.

References

Biano-Mathis, V., Nabors, L. & Roman, C., (2002), Leading from the inside out, Sage Publications, California.
Goleman, Daniel, 1996, Emotional Intelligence, Why it Can Matter More Than IQ. Bloomsbury, London
Stober, Dianne, “Coaching from the Humanistic Perspective”, in Stober, Dianne and Grant, Anthony (eds), 2006
Evidence Based Coaching Handbook, John Wiley and Sons, New Jersey Ting, Sharon and Riddle, Doug.
“A Framework for Leadership Development Coaching”, in Ting, Sharon and Scisco, Peter (eds) The CCL Handbook of Coaching, 2006, Jossey-Bass, SanFrancisco

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Be Invincible For Peak Performance

Athletic Performance, Peak Performance No Responses »

Nov 152011

Guest Post By: Nick Outlaw CPT

Have you ever had a dream where you could fly and do anything you wanted without any fear or possibility of being hurt?

Normal limitations didn’t apply, like gravity or pain. Perhaps you can remember a time when you were unstoppable and everything you did was spot on. You were at your best, you were in the ZONE!

Here are accounts of athletes describing their experience of peak performance.

“a strange calmness; it was a type of euphoria; I felt I could run all day without tiring, that I could dribble through any of their team or all of them, that I could almost pass through them physical.” – Edson Arantes Do Nascimento (Brazilian soccer legend Pele’)

“It’s a very strange felling. It’s as if time slows down and you see everything so clearly. You just know that everything about your technique is spot on. It just feels so effortless; it’s almost as if you’re floating across the track. Every muscle, every fibre, every sinew is working in complete harmony and the end product is that you run fantastically well.” – Mark Richardson (1996 Winter Olympics Gold medalist)

“I’m Dr.Jekyll and Mr. Hyde when it comes to football. When I’m on the field sometimes I don’t know what I’m doing out there. People ask me about this move or that move, but I don’t know why I did something, I just did it. I am able to focus out the negative things around me and just zero in on what I am doing out there. Off the field I become myself again.” -Walter Payton (Hall of Fame NFL running backs)

“At that special level all sorts of odd things happened….It was almost as if we were playing in slow motion. During those spells I could almost sense how the next play would develop and where the next shot would be taken. Even before the other team brought the ball in bounds, I could feel it so keenly that I’d want to shout to my teammates, “It’s coming there!” –except that I knew everything would change if I did. My premonitions would be consistently correct, and I always felt then that I not only knew all the Celtics by heart but also all the opposing players, and they all knew me.” – Bill Russell (NBA legend)

Mihaly Csikszentmikhalyi, a western psychologist and leading scientific researcher in the area of flow, a.k.a. the zone or peak performance, describes the flow as completely focused motivation, a single minded immersion that utilizes your emotions for peak performance and learning. Csikszentmikhalyi has found 10 factors that are hallmarks of the state of flow.

Clear goals where expectations and rules are discernible and goals are attainable and align appropriately with one’s skill set and abilities. Challenge level and skill should be both high. Your practice should resemble the competition as much as possible.

Concentration on a limited field of attention. Fully focused on the task at hand.Being present in the moment. Eliminate distractions. Practice meditation and breathing exercises to clear your mind.

Become on with your craft. A loss of the feeling of self-consciousness, the merging of action and awareness.

A distorted sense of time, one’s subjective experience of time is altered. When we were kids we would play outside for hours.

Direct and immediate feedback. Be able to assess your performance quickly and make changes immediately.

Balance between ability level and challenge. The task should be challenging enough and you have the ability to handle the task

A sense of personal control over the situation or activity

The activity is intrinsically rewarding, so that there is effortlessness in the action. You must enjoy the activity. Remember why you started playing.

A lack of awareness of bodily needs. Use the restroom before you compete, stay hydrated and fueled.

Absorption into the activity, action awareness immerging.

Buddhist PhD Andrew Cooper, a leading expert and researcher of the zone, describes this phenomenon as:

“profound joy, acute intuition (which at times feels like precognition), a feeling of effortlessness in the midst of intense exertion, a sense of the action taking place in slow motion, feelings of awe and perfection, increased mastery, and self-transcendence.”

The way that the athletes have described their record-breaking performances sounds dream and mystical like. They seem to be in a trance like state where they could close their eyes and play. To induce these peak state performances of invincibility:

Become one with your craft. Put in the time to perfect your skills.

Love what you do. You should associate pure joy with your craft. When you love what you do it is no longer work.

Practice mindfulness and meditation. Be able to eliminate distractions at will. The better you are at staying focused the easier it will be for you to get and stay in the zone.

Practice loving self talk and self-awareness. Pay attention to your thoughts. Be able to replace and or change negative self talk quickly. This will improve your confidence.

Go and grow beyond yourself. Be part of something greater than yourself. Practice forgetting about yourself and your ego. Grow for the greater good.

Being your best will never be achieved strictly through physical training. We must train the mind with the same intensity and purpose of improving our game. Spiritual practices have proven successful throughout the world before scientific methods were ever employed. By synchronizing our body and mind, we can grow on the eternal rhythm of the universe. Living for something greater than ourselves will truly make us invincible and our spirit unstoppable so that you will reach peak performance!

Nick is a nationally certified through American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) as a personal trainer and has helped hundreds of clients change their lives in the 8 years he has been training. His experience includes, but is not limited to college and pro athletes, sports specific, strength and conditioning, functional training, post rehabilitation patients, a physical therapy clinical setting, and general fitness, toning and weight loss.

Nick has a BS from the University of North Carolina at Wilmington. While attending college he competed in the Power Lifting and endurance competitions where he placed in the top three every time. His Senior Research project was an in depth study of ideal body images in American culture.

Nick’s blog is at www.raleighpersonaltrainer.org

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Warrior Mind Podcast Episode # 63 – The Power of Conflict

Mental Strength, Podcast, Warrior Mind No Responses »

Nov 122011

This Warrior Mind Podcast is based on Mental Strength Tip #27 – Conflict for Personal Growth

This Warrior Mind Podcast is to help you understand the process and benefit of conflict for personal growth and the development of mental strength and the achievement of peak performance.

Dictionary.com states ‘conflict’ as “a state of opposition between ideas, interests, etc; disagreement or controversy” and “a mental struggle arising from opposing demands or impulses.”

Let me ask you…how often does conflict present itself in your daily activities? As a warrior mind student disciplined in mental strength you can see how, by the second definition above, that conflict provides an opportunity to exercising your mental strength, right?

Enjoy the podcast below:

Warrior Mind Podcast

Who Ever You Think You Are, You're More Powerful Then That

To be mentally strong is to embracing conflict a bit more every day… even though many of us have been taught to void it all costs. Remember that the average personal loves to be comfortable, and conflict terrifies them, as such, they will never reach peak performance.

I really like the definition of conflict as a mental struggle. This fits SO well into the concept and practice of mental strength. In order to get stronger (at anything) there must be a “struggle” of some kind. It’s up to you to label the struggle or conflict as empowering or disempowering.

Conflict doesn’t always mean yelling and screaming. Conflict is a gap between two perceived different views. It’s the job of the mental strength practitioner to recognize this gap and develop the techniques to bridge the gap…this can be thought of a negotiations or resolution.

You can’t get good at resolving conflict unless you face conflict. This is one of the cornerstones to personal growth, a mindset to face fears head on.

Start building your mental strength today! Order you copy of “Develop the Mental Strength of a Warrior” HERE now. This is a fantastic e-book that helps you take control of your thoughts, develop success awareness and helps you tap into the powers of your unconsciousness mind to create the mental strength to succeed at anything!

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