Developing a Peak Athletic Performance Game
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.
