Hope is Not a Strategy for Athletic Performance

Do you ever find yourself thinking something like the statements like:

• “I hope I have a good practice today.”
• “I just wish I could lift more.”
• “I hope I do well in the competition.”
• “I hope I don’t strike out”

My guess is that you answered “yes” since thoughts such as these are quite common among athletes. Of course you want to have a great practice, achieve specific athletic or personal goals and reach peak performance in competition.

What is wrong with hoping or wishing for positive outcomes?

Before we answer that take a moment and read the above statements again and ask yourself, “Do these comments sound like an athlete with much confidence?” Let me ask you, if you were to say these things to yourself, do you think you are going to go into practice or competition with strong beliefs in your abilities to achieve peak athletic performance?

Probably not—when you rely on hope as a strategy you get an empty feeling and a lack of confidence. Don’t get me wrong, hoping and wishing have their place in right situation.

“Hoping” and “wishing” are best saved for events where you have no control or can’t influence the outcome, things like winning the lottery, making a connecting flight or going to a movie that might be sold out.

Your performance in practice and competition should not be left to hope and wishing.

“If wishes and buts were candy and nuts, oh what a Christmas it would be”

Wishing and hoping are poor strategies for athletic performance because you can exert a level of control and influence many of the factors that relate to your athletic performance.

Stay away from hoping for desired a performance or outcome. Instead, use our skills and abilities to influence the outcome and peak performance.

Here are three simple steps to convert hope into action.

1. Watch Your language

It is important to become aware of the words you use when talking to yourself. Are you someone who tends to use words such as “hope” and “wish” when referring to athletic performance and endeavors?

Take a week or two to simply monitor or increase your awareness of how and when you tend to hope and wish for positive outcomes. In my work with athletes, I am attuned to the language athlete’s use. I find myself pointing it out when athletes use words like hope, wish, want, and luck. These words tell us that their athletic performance is something that happens to them not something by them.

2. Change Your language

Hoping and wishing indicate little control or influence – this needs to change. It may seem nit-picky to focus on words, but these words reflect how you are thinking and can indirectly influence how you think about and respond to a given situation.

The goal is to switch from hoping to using words that communicate strength, confidence, and control over what you are going to do and what is going to happen.

For example, compare the following, very similar, statements and tell me, which one is more powerful and conducive to reaching peak performance.

• “I didn’t do well in the training session yesterday. I just hope it goes better today.”

• “I didn’t do well in the training session yesterday. I am going to have a great practice today as I took more time to warm up my body and get mentally prepared.”

You can feel the difference can’t you? A small change in words can work wonders towards impacting attitude, feelings and athletic performance.

3. Action

Only changing your thoughts and words is not enough to affect athletic performance. You’ll notice in the example above that it is not simply a matter of changing words, but also taking action, by controlling factors that can be controlled and that can influence athletic performance.

The athlete went from hoping for a good practice to believing they’ll have a good practice.  This is because of things they can and did influence their practice, mainly warming up better and getting mentally focused.

This concept of controlling factors that influence athletic performance is something I talked about before. As I’m sure you remember, it’s critical to take action in order to manage and control the factors that do influence your athletic performance.

Identify the things you need to do and think to set yourself up for peak performance and then do them.

Hoping is not a strategy!

Instead, use your mental strength and control your thoughts, make the necessary planning to manage and control only the factors that affect your athletic performance.

Have a great training session today!