Building Your Mental Platform

When it comes to embarking on the journey to improving your mental game and therefore your overall performance it is important to start with a strong base and build from there.

Athletes tend to focus on buzz words when it comes to sport psychology – motivation – confidence etc… and really all they are doing is focusing on what they believe to be the key topics and not what actually impact total performance on a regular basis.

So where does an athlete start when building their mental skills base?

BUILDING A BASE

ATTITUDE 

The one thing you can control in all circumstances is your attitude to your sport. Attitude does not switch on and off like a light – it is a choice athletes make and potential is often fulfilled on not met based on the attitude of the athlete. 

MOTIVATION

The best athletes realize the risk vs reward of their sporting participation. They understand that rewards are intrinsic, extrinsic or both and they persist through the many obstacles and challenges that the sporting world presents in order to obtain those rewards. 

GOAL SETTING

Successful Athletes always set, restructure manage and build short/long term goals as a means to achieving success. The ability to challenge oneself, remain relevant, develop perspective and achieve mini victories leading to a greater goal is a trait common in athletes that achieve the highest levels of success. 

BEYOND THE PLATFORM – PREPARING FOR COMPETITION

Having built a competent structure for performance athletes that are successful then look to see how they prepare for performance.

There are many ways to prepare and here are just a couple

VISUALIZATION

Athletes can learn to “place” themselves in successful situations through effective visualization. Through imagery athletes create their environment is such a way that success is a planned for experience. Whether it is a swimmer visualizing a race or a soccer player visualizing a shot on goal athletic can sense success before performance. 
SELF TALK

Self Talk can be highly influential or detrimental to an athletes performance potential based on how they manage it. Simply put, negative self talk can drag an athlete performance potential down considerably whereas self talk that is positive with a sense of perspective can absolutely help an athlete prepare for success. 
MANAGING COMPETITION 

Now that an athlete has set their standards and worked on preparing for performance, there are many obstacles that present themselves and combat total performance potential.

An athlete will have to 
MANAGE ANXIETY

This is tough for a lot of athletes and extremely difficult to learn as a young athlete, but the best athletes understand anxiety as a reality in sport. They manage anxiety as a potential performance enhancer in team or individual sports and they can actively reduce anxiety during performance when it becomes too much.  
MANAGE EMOTIONS

Sport brings an array of emotions – joy, pain, anger, disappointment, regret and more and the best athletes manage a combination of all emotions across their life span and even over the course of a single performance. The ability to manage emotions allows an athlete to FOCUS.
FOCUS & CONCENTRATION

Top performers implement strategies to stay focused on the relevant points and triggers in competition so that they can maintain a higher level of performance on a more consistent basis throughout their career.

The best athletes can actively manage distractions and stay focused on the present so as to achieve success on a regular basis.