Episode #44-Prime Sport Challenge is the last of four episodes that will explore what is preventing you from committing to mental training and how you can develop a comprehensive mental training program to support your athletic goals.

Ultimately, just like with other aspects of your sport, you have to decide how important the mind is to achieving your goals. If you truly believe that it is essential to your athletic success, you must then do what is necessary to weave mental training into the very fabric of your training and competitive efforts. You want to get to the point where it is simply what you do to be the best athlete you can be, just like physical conditioning and technical training.

In my Train Your Mind for Athletic Success podcast, I have attempted to convince you that mental training is worth the investment of your time and energy. But perhaps you remain a bit skeptical. Let me now present you with my Prime Sport Challenge and start with a question. How much better would I need to guarantee you would improve for you to commit to doing mental training consistently? Often, when I ask this question to groups of athletes, someone will blurt out something like “25%”. Let’s consider that number. This means that, for example, a miler who runs a five-minute mile would need to improve by 75 seconds to achieve that goal. Well, I think mental training can help you improve, but mental training can’t enable you to make those kinds of big leaps in your performances. But what if I could promise you that you would improve by just one percent? One percent doesn’t sound like very much; would it be worth it? Returning to the example of the miler, a one percent improvement translates into being three seconds faster. Three seconds in the mile is an enormous improvement!

Now, consider the time and effort you put into your sport, in the gym and during training, to get your sport’s equivalent of those three seconds better. I’m guessing that you devote several hours or more every day to your conditioning, training, and other activities related to your sport. Why do you put in that much time and effort? Because you know that it is necessary for you to have the kind of success you want. I hope that listening to Train Your Mind for Athletic Success has convinced you that a commitment of time, effort, and energy to mental training is equally important.

To learn more, please listen to Episode #44-Prime Sport Challenge of my Train Your Mind for Athletic Success podcast.

Episode #43-Three Goals for Athletic Success is the third of four episodes that will explore what is preventing you from committing to mental training and how you can develop a comprehensive mental training program to support your athletic goals.

My Train Your Mind for Athletic Success podcast is filled with practical information and dozens upon dozens of mental exercises and tools you can use to strengthen your mental muscles and be better prepared mentally to perform your best in both training and competitions. But all of this information might seem a bit overwhelming because it’s one thing to have learned a lot about mental preparation, but it’s an entirely different thing to be able to put all that you’ve learned into action. This is where I want to return to the notion that you should approach mental training the same way you approach your conditioning and sport training. Just as those two areas of performance are organized into  comprehensive and structured training programs, now you are ready to take what you’ve learned in Train Your Mind and organize it into a comprehensive and structured mental training program. To that end, I have created a four-step process to help you identify what you need to work on mentally, set appropriate goals for those areas, and then to create a mental training schedule for you to commit to in developing those mental areas.

To learn more, please listen to Episode #43-Three Goals for Athletic Success of my Train Your Mind for Athletic Success podcast.

Episode #42-Three Goals for Athletic Success is the second of four that will explore what is preventing you from committing to mental training and how you can develop a comprehensive mental training program to support your athletic goals.

Defining success in sports is a difficult task. When I ask most athletes and coaches how they define success, it is usually in terms of results, whether wins, rankings, or times. Though, admittedly, results are the ultimate determinant of success, I have found that a preoccupation with them can both interfere with achieving those results and can produce feelings of disappointment and frustration (or worse).

Given the uncertainty of sports, basing how you feel about your performance (and about yourself!) solely on your results is a recipe for experiencing the very thing you want to avoid—failure—and some pretty bad feelings. I prefer to define success in terms that are controllable. To that end, here are three goals that, if you accomplish them, not only will you experience considerable satisfaction in your athletic efforts, but you are also more likely to get the results you want.

To learn more, please listen to Episode #42-Three Goals for Athletic Success of my Train Your Mind for Athletic Success podcast.

Episode #41-Seven Reasons Why Athletes Don’t Do Mental Training of my Train Your Mind for Athletic Success podcast the first of four that will explore what is preventing you from committing to mental training and how you can develop a comprehensive mental training program to support your athletic goals.

Convincing athletes and coaches of the value of mental training doesn’t seem like a very hard sell considering that, when I ask athletes how important the mind is compared to the physical and technical sides of sports, the vast majority say that it is as or more important. Given that so many of the athletes I speak to or work with have big goals, it seems only natural that they would take my ideas to heart and incorporate them into their training regimen.

Yet, despite my best efforts, if I had to guess how many athletes actually make mental training an integral part of their preparations, I would put the number at less than 10% (and I’m probably being generous here). The question I have been asking is: Why? I have concluded that there are seven reasons that explain athletes’ lack of investment of time and energy into the mental side of their sport.

To learn more, please listen to Episode #41-Seven Reasons Why Athletes Don’t Do Mental Training of my Train Your Mind for Athletic Success podcast.

Episode #40-Psychology of Injury of my Train Your Mind for Athletic Success podcast is the final of three episodes that explores special topics that are often not addressed in mental training, yet have a real impact on athletic performance.

The sad reality of competitive sports is that many young athletes either have or will hurt themselves so seriously that it will end their seasons and potentially their careers. The good news is that surgical and rehabilitative technology has become so advanced that a full physical recovery from an injury that two decades ago might have been career-ending is now commonplace.

But another reality of physical injuries is that the mind gets “injured” as well. When you sustain a injury, you can experience a loss of motivation and confidence, feel stress and anxiety, become preoccupied with the injury and have trouble focusing, and experience a myriad of emotions including fear, frustration, anger, sadness, and despair. Yet, little attention is paid to how the absence of “mental rehab” can prevent athletes from returning to or improving on their pre-injury level of performance. As a result, I thought I would share some ideas I have about how injured athletes can ensure that their minds recover as fully as do their bodies.

To learn more, please listen to Episode #40-Psychology of Injury of my Train Your Mind for Athletic Success podcast.

Episode #39-Overcoming Performance Slumps of my Train Your Mind for Athletic Success podcast is the second of three that explores special topics that are often not addressed in mental training, yet have a real impact on athletic performance.

Performance slumps are one of the most common, yet mysterious and frustrating, phenomena in sports. Typically viewed as unexplained drops in performance, slumps are a source of concern for athletes and coaches. Despite its visible place in the collective psyche of the athletic community, little is known about the causes or cures for performance slumps. However, I have worked extensively with athletes who are suffering from performance slumps and I will share with you how athletes and coaches can identify, prevent, and overcome slumps.

To learn more, please listen to Episode #39-Overcoming Performance Slumps of my Train Your Mind for Athletic Success podcast. 

Episode #38-Perform Your Best in Big Events of my Train Your Mind for Athletic Success podcast is the first of three that explores special topics that are often not addressed in mental training, yet have a real impact on athletic performance.

Very early in my podcast, I introduced you to two important goals. First, to achieve Prime Sport which means performing at a consistently high level under the most challenging conditions. This goal involves maintaining a high level of performance day in and day out, week in and week out, and month in and month out. Second, to perform your best in Prime Time which is the biggest competition of the season under difficult conditions against your toughest opponents.  It is these events that you are aiming for because they are the ultimate standard by which you measure your success as an athlete. Depending on your age, level of competition, and ability, Prime Time can mean a state, sectional, or national high school championship, a collegiate playoff game, the Olympics, or the a professional game or match. Whatever your example of Prime Time, you want to enter the event totally prepared and then perform your best on this biggest stage of your athletic life.

Your ability to perform your best in Prime Time depends largely on how you think about the big event. In this episode, I will share with you some ideas that can help you approach the important competition with a frame of mind that will set you up for success.

To learn more, please listen to Episode #38-Perform Your Best in Big Events of my Train Your Mind for Athletic Success podcast.

Episode #35-What is a Routine? of my Train Your Mind for Athletic Success podcast is the first of two episodes that explore the essential role that routines play in ensuring total physical and mental readiness for practice and competitions.

Routines are one of the most important aspects of sports that you can develop to improve your conditioning, training, and competitive performances. Routines benefit all of your efforts in several ways.

• Routines ensure total preparation in your efforts.
• They enable you to be completely physically, technically, tactically, and mentally ready to perform your best.
• Routines ingrain effective skills and habits that make it easier to transition from training to competition.
• They train your mind and body to react the same way regardless of the importance of the competition.
• Routines create consistency, familiarity, predictability, and control.

I don’t know a world-class athlete in any sport who doesn’t use routines in some part of his or her training efforts and competitive preparations.

To learn more, please listen to Episode #35-What is a Routine? of my Train Your Mind for Athletic Success podcast.