Setbacks as a Way to Peak Performance

15 Steps to Mental Strength in Sports

Step 6 – Setbacks as a Way to Peak Performance

One thing that is certain in your athletic training and performance is you will hit set backs.  You might label these as losing or failures and I would suggest that there are no failures, only feedback.

You see the top performances know how to deal with these set backs and learn from so that they will achieve peak athletic performance.

Here’s something that might scare you.  In order to improve you must put yourself in the position to lose.   You have to compete with others that are better than you.  This way you will be given feedback back, by your performance, as to that areas need for improvement.

In order to achieve peak athletic performance you need to change your attitude and approach to “failing.”  You can’t be timid or afraid to make a mistake, fail or lose.  If you are, then you’re holding yourself back from your true potential.

Within each perceived failure is the seed for success.  You see, in each setback there is a learning of what not to do, that is, where to improve.  This could be physical, mentally or emotionally.  Regardless of what it is, there is learning.

The key is you must look for and find it in order to reach your athletic peak performance

In each failure has in it the seed for success

Deal With It

With dealing with set backs, mistakes and failures you need to use your mental strength and get a hold of your emotions.  You will be to develop emotional intelligence.  That is, you must be able to calming look at the results you’re getting and put together a plan for improvement.

Getting angry, frustrated, upset or mad will not support or help you in reaching peak athletic performance.  Listen to me…nothing…I mean nothing constructive EVER comes from these emotions.

Beating yourself up about the poor results will only create doubt, lack of confidence and feeling less than.   When you take the perspective of your result has valuable feedback you’re well on your way to becoming an elite athlete.

If you think you’re experiencing set backs take a look at Dan O’Brian’s Olympic story and then how he bounced back.  You’ll see the power in learning from mistakes.  You can read a bit about Dan here:

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/olympics/story/2012-02-10/dan-obrien-driven-by-failure/53043212/1

When it comes to your results from your performance, you have choice on how to respond.  This choice will determine how soon you will reach peak athletic performance.

Let me tell you a story…

A man meets a guru in the road. The man asks the guru, “Which way is success?”

The berobed, bearded sage speaks not but points to a place off in the distance.

The man, thrilled by the prospect of quick and easy success, rushes off in the appropriate direction. Suddenly, there comes a loud “Splat!!!”

Eventually, the man limps back, tattered and stunned, assuming he must have misinterpreted the message. He repeats his question to the guru, who again points silently in the same direction.

The man obediently walks off once more. This time the splat is deafening, and when the man crawls back, he is bloody, broken, tattered, and irate. “I asked you which way is success,” he screams at the guru. “I followed the direction you indicated. And all I got was splatted! No more of this pointing! Talk!”

Only then does the guru speak, and what he says is this: “Success is that way. Just a little after the splat.”

The road to your peak athletic performance is just beyond your splat!

How To Stay Motivated

By this time, if you understand the power in failure, you’re probably thinking, “OK, I’ll buy into this, but how can I stay motivated when I hit my setbacks?”

Great question!

One of the keys in staying positive and motivated about your setbacks is your self-talk…your internal dialogue. How do you explain the setbacks to yourself will greatly determine your motivation to continue or your disappointment and looking for reasons to quit.

When you hit a setback you have a myriad of explanations you can use, choosing the supportive ones will help propel you to peak performance.

The following methods of explanation come from the book “Learned Optimism” by Martin Seligman

The benefits of an optimistic outlook are many: Optimists are higher achievers and have better overall health. Pessimism, on the other hand, is much more common. Pessimists are more likely to give up in the face of adversity or to suffer from depression.

In his book, Seligman invites pessimists to learn to be optimists by thinking about their reactions to adversity in a new way. The resulting optimism — one that grew from pessimism — is a learned optimism.

Other differences exist between pessimists and optimists in terms of explanatory style:

Permanence: Optimistic people believe bad events to be more temporary than permanent and bounce back quickly from failure, whereas others may take longer periods to recover or may never recover. They also believe good things happen for reasons that are permanent, rather than seeing the transient nature of positive events. Optimists point to specific temporary causes for negative events; pessimists point to permanent causes.

Pervasiveness: Optimistic people compartmentalize helplessness, whereas pessimistic people assume that failure in one area of life means failure in life as a whole. Optimistic people also allow good events to brighten every area of their lives rather than just the particular area in which the event occurred.

Personalization: Optimists blame bad events on causes outside of themselves, whereas pessimists blame themselves for events that occur. Optimists are therefore generally more confident. Optimists also quickly internalize positive events while pessimists externalize them.

The optimist’s outlook on failure can thus be summarized as “What happened was an unlucky situation (not personal), and really just a setback (not permanent) for this one, of many, goals (not pervasive)”.

So, it’s not “bad” to make mistakes, have setbacks or even experience failures, but it is critical to your longevity as an athlete as to how you frame, label and look at them.

Start today in developing your mental strength for peak athletic performance by picking up a copy of “Mental Strength Training for Athletes” by going HERE.