Mental Preparation
While listening as someone describes a close loss, how many times have you heard the expression “he choked!”? On the other hand, how many times have you observed last minute heroics that brought sudden victory in a very close game? When the pressure is on, how was it that Michael Jordan always seemed to drain the long jumper or that Tiger Woods inevitably sunk that clutch putt? Call it what you’d like; focus, concentration, “in-the-zone”, etc... but the simple truth is that all successful athletes understand the vital role mental preparation plays in ensuring top performance when the pressure is the greatest.
You probably won’t develop Tiger’s Zen-like concentration over night, but here are some tips that will help you develop your mental readiness:
Setting Goals:
“If you set a goal for yourself and are able to achieve it, you have won the race. Your goal can be to come in first, to improve your score, or simply to finish the race. It’s up to you”
- David Scott, Triathlete
“If you chase two rabbits, both will escape”
- Author unknown
Without goals, we simply have no way to define success. Furthermore, as our unknown author points out, if the objective lacks focus or is too broad, we cannot properly execute the task at hand. Thus the first step in mentally preparing to succeed is to define precisely what it is we expect to achieve. Once we’ve clearly defined what it is we expect to accomplish, we can begin the tasks of mentally preparing to achieve it.
Preparing for success:
“Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration”
- Thomas Edison
“I’m a great believer in luck. It’s seems the harder I work, the luckier I get”
- Thomas Jefferson
Neither of these two men were known as great athletes. They did however seem to understand a few things about the importance of preparation. Nothing (and we do mean nothing!) builds mental confidence and self-assurance more than properly preparing for the task at hand. Whether giving a class speech or preparing for the game of your life, if you know you’ve done everything you can to prepare your more that half way there toward achieving it.
Believing in yourself & positive thinking:
“The winners in life think constantly in terms of I can, I will, and I am.
Losers, on the other hand, concentrate their waking thoughts on what they should have or would have done, or what they can’t do”
- Dennis Waitley
“The minute you start talking about what you’re going to do if you lose, you have lost”
- George Schultz
Fretting, worrying, and high anxiety have never helped an athlete achieve their goals. On the other hand, a positive mental attitude is a critical element behind every great achievement. All successful athletes have a crystal clear vision of what they expect to achieve and precisely how they intend to achieve it. Before an event, great athletes often form a mental vision of what a successful outcome will bring. In many cases, victory for them becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy. The bottom line: truly believing in yourself, your ability, and your goals is a vital element of mentally preparing to succeed.
On Focus:
“My thoughts before a big race are pretty simple. I tell myself: Get out of the blocks, run your race, and stay relaxed. If you run your race, you’ll win… channel your energy, focus.”
- Carl Lewis
“Concentration is the ability to think about absolutely nothing when it is absolutely necessary”
- Ray Knight
Successful athletes learn to keep it simple. Their ability to focus solely on the fundamentals or to simply clear their minds of all distracting thoughts has proven a recipe for success with many athletes. These athletes don’t think about what could go wrong or what other competitors might do. They simply focus on just the basics of what they must do… or they focus on nothing at all. When you’ve mentally removed all distractions, all that will remain is a pure and simple focus on the matter at hand.