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ArticlesTraining vs. Trusting – What Mindset are you in? Every athlete knows the importance of training and developing the physical skills to beat the competition. Unfortunately, I have seen the athlete that never gets out of the training mentality and is always trying to perfect his or her skills. This leads to the problem of great practice player, poor game player. When I work with this type of athlete I develop techniques to take an athlete from training mindset (practice) to trusting mindset (playing). Can you just go out and play your sport without being obsessed with mechanics? Can you play with confidence at the end of an important competition? If you can’t get into the trusting mindset try these mental game techniques.
Shifting from training mindset to trusting mindset will allow you to play with confidence and freedom. Start today by balancing out your practice to be in both mindsets. The Mindset of Peak Performers Working with young athletes a key distinction between those that make it and those that fall short is their mindset. The peak performance mindset includes confidence, mental toughness, and thriving under pressure. The best maintain a high level of belief in their ability and know they are the best on the field. This belief propels them to play with trust in their skills. Unfortunately most young athletes focus on just practicing the physical side of sport. They train hard and are always refining their mechanics. This can lead to increased confidence, however, when a competition doesn’t go how they expect we see the mindset skills. How do you deal with challenges? Are you one to focus on the loss as a failure and beat yourself up? Or, do you focus on ways you can improve so you are better next time. If you lose confidence easily your mindset is what will get you back on track. Keeping your confidence high no matter the result is the key to long-term success. Some of the ways athletes sabotage their confidence is through negative self-talk. Using self-labels like, “I always choke under pressure”, or “I never play well at this course” are going to erode at your confidence. You must take control of your self-talk and replace negative self-talk with positive statements. Start saying, “I love having the ball at the end of the game” and “I have all the shots for this course, stay focused”. Having the discipline to shift your self-talk is a skill that needs to be practiced like your physical mechanics. An area that all experienced athletes have to deal with is facing adversity. How mentally tough are you when things are not going your way? Can you shift from the outcome of the situation and place your attention on what is in your control, your performance. So often athletes get rattled by the competition, a bad bounce, or a referee’s poor call that they lose focus and their performance suffers. The key is to change your perspective of the situation. Learn to focus on what is in your control and let go of what is out of your control. You can become mentally tough by looking at adversity as a challenge to take on, not an insurmountable obstacle. The best love pressure and can’t wait to feel the adrenaline of competition. Some get too hyped, while others view pressure as a negative. The key is to understand how you view pressure. When you are excited about challenging yourself you will embrace the moment. Pressure is self imposed. Are you putting pressure on winning or having a perfect performance? I coach my athletes to set high standards on how they will perform mentally. They stay confident, bounce back from adversity, and love to perform when it matters most. Start today by becoming a complete athlete through training your mindset. Do you have the Correct Goals? Goal setting is used by sports psychology coaches as a key fundamental to help athletes perform better. Goals can lead to motivation, good work ethic, and enjoyment when goals are achieved. The problem is that traditional goal setting is incomplete. Most are taught to write down their ultimate goal and magically they will achieve it. Every athlete I have worked with could easily tell me their long-term dream goal; however they had no plan to achieve it. I require athletes to break down their goals into three parts:
Here is an example of a golfer I worked with last year. Identify the outcome that you want to achieve in the next year. This was to get on the PGA Tour. Next is to identify the level of performance needed to achieve that outcome goal. An easy question is to ask, “Why haven’t you achieved this goal yet?” What areas of your game need to be improved to get to that level? With this player it was putts per round and greens in regulation. Once we identified each of these areas we specified what his performance goals were; to have 28.5 putts per round and hit 68% of greens in regulation. Finally the most important goal to the goal setting system is the process goal. Here you need to identify how you will reach your performance goals. With this golfer he had three process goals. His first was to take one lesson a week to improve his mechanics. His second goal was to practice specific drills 2 hours per week for putting and increase practice time on his swing to 10 hours per week. Finally he committed to practicing his mental game to improve his focus and commitment to shot. As his mental game coach I would check in to see if he was moving toward his performance goals and thus closer to achieving his outcome goal. You can always make adjustments to your process goals depending on your results. Remember it is exciting to identify your outcome goals, how you will reach your goal is through executing a detailed plan with the use of performance and process goals.
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