The Power Choices And Athletic Performance

Life is filled with a myriad of choices. The choices you make will have a significant influence on your behavior and your behaviors affect your outcomes and your athletic performance.

The challenge is that so many of these choices are made at the unconsciousness level, we’re not even aware we are making them!

Let me ask you, are you aware of ALL the choices you have related to exercise and sport performance? Go ahead and take a minute to think about the multitude of choices you have and make. The most basic one is, with your athletic performance is, you have a choice about whether or not to exercise.  This choice is made on a daily basis.

Also, you do have a choice about how you talk to yourself, you have a choice about what and how much to eat and drink, you have a choice about what to focus on during a workout or competition, etc.

Throughout the day you have an endless array of choices.

Now, for the mental strength question – what are you doing with all these choices?

More importantly, do you make a choice after careful and consciousness consideration?

Often, athletes just act or think in a specific way without really making a conscious decision to do so. This is because it has become habit.  This shows up in to form of automatically grabbing for an apple instead of potato chips or telling yourself you are a horrible golfer after missing putts.

It can also be because you don’t realize it is something you actually do have a choice about.  “I had no confidence”, “I couldn’t get into practice today” are examples of statements that show a choice being made out of one’s control.

In reality, an athlete may struggle getting motivated for practice but actually has the choice about whether to wallow in that low motivation or use their mental strength and take purposeful steps to increase their motivation that will ultimately enhance their athletic performance

Think about how much more productive practices could be, how you could enhance your sport performance and achieve your personal goals by being more aware of and purposeful about choices that influence your performance.

I presume I’ve made my point pretty clear right?

So what to do?

Here are three mental strength action steps that will help you increase your awareness of the choices you have and how you can be more purposeful in how you think and act; to make choices based on consideration rather than by habit or ignorance.

1 – Be clear about what you want to accomplish in regards your sport and exercise. That is, identify your performance and personal goals. I have talked about goals in other posts and the importance of them.  I’m sure I don’t have to go over them again here do I?

2 – Become aware of the many choices you make that tie into the chase of your professional and personal goals. You can fool yourselves into believing that “this it is the way it is” rather than believing that you have created things as they are through the choices you make.

For example, take an athlete who “just couldn’t get into practice today”. Motivation, both lack of and abundance of, is in one’s complete and total control. In truth, this athlete made a choice and allowed them self to be ambivalent about practice. The athlete had the choice and ability to use certain strategies that will heighten their motivation and energy, but choose not to.

3 – After careful consideration, make focused choices that will lead to achievement of your goals. Now that you’re aware of all the choices you really do have, go ahead and ask yourself, “Am I making the right choices? Are my choices helping me reach my goal or holding me back?” Use your mental strength and commit to making better choices. Commit to breaking these unsupportive habits and to take back control of your thoughts and behaviors.

By following these steps you will take control of your athletic performance by purposefully considering all the choices you have to make. Think about why you do the things you do and how you do them differently.  Know that the choices you make, conscious or not, directly impact your practice, performance and competition.

Use your mental strength, make the right choices and watch your athletic performance soar!