response on mindset from one of our golfers: “I was 30 yards out, had for some reason practiced it during the week, imagined in my mind and heart hundreds of times that this type of shot was going to happen. It just did. I knew it was going in after I hit it.”
Developing a Plan of Attack to Make it Consistent
If you want to consistently hit more first serves or obtain a higher free-throw percentage, you a need to practice first serves or free-throws. Your mindset is no different. This book is all about providing ways for you to “practice your mindset” in that same manner. After all, perfect practice makes perfect, right? So how should you practice this? Consider these tips:
Be consistent with your journal. Journaling about your top performances once per month is not going to help you improve, just as decreasing your 100-backstroke time won’t happen if you practice it only once per month.
Aim to journal about your best performances or top performance moments 4-5 times per week. If you state that you are going to journal every single practice or every single day and miss one, don’t beat yourself up and then give up. Expect that, on occasion, you will miss a time or two. That’s okay. Keep going!
Take 5-10 minutes before practice to read a journal entry or two about your top performances. This process triggers those good memories in your mind and helps you connect with what it is to be in your ideal mental and emotional state right before practice. You then increase your chances of having a better practice. What do you think that will do to your confidence?
If you have an extended break in action during a practice, game, or workout, take a quick glance at your journal again. It is hard for all of us to stay focused for long periods of time, so good mental preparation can simply take the form of reminding ourselves what we want and need to be our best.
After a game or competition, think about your great performance moments. Jot down the important details. Remember, it does not have to be an entire game or competition. It might be one wrestling move, such as a first period double-leg takedown that you hit, but those moments are the critical ones to focus on!
Spend 5-10 minutes, 3-4 times per week, and reimagine these moments (see Chapter 7, on imagery). When you bring these images to your conscious mind and re-experience them in your body, you are training your body to become more familiar (and more comfortable) with this state of mind or being.
Consider these additional ways to track and keep connected to these great mindset moments:
Use voice notes on a computer or phone and simply describe in your own words what it was like.
Listen to podcasts from great athletes about what it is like for them when they have those incredible moments.
Listen to podcasts associated with this book about how to practice and learn your ideal zone of performance. Learning and improvement never stops.
Discuss these great moments with teammates, coaches, parents, and friends. Every time you do so, your heart and body connect to this mindset and it becomes more familiar. This is when your ideal mindset starts to happen more consistently.
Preparing your ideal mindset
There is a difference between preparation and practice. In this case, your preparation is going to be learning and developing your awareness of your ideal mindset. You can do this using all of the different ways mentioned in this chapter.
Practicing your mindset
When you practice your mindset, you have already prepared your mind to understand what your ideal mindset is. Then, you can use the steps mentioned in the chapter to develop your own practice routines. These routines should incorporate steps in your training and practice schedule. Also, feel free to create your own individual style of doing things. Be curious. Be creative. No judgment. Reread this chapter as a refresher every few months. The key is to make practicing your ideal mindset as common and normal as practicing your sports skills. However works best for you, do it!
Assessing and improving your mindset
This practice drill can easily be done when you are journaling, listening to a podcast on mindset, reading this or another book on mental training, or talking with a mental performance consultant or psychologist. Every time you do these drills, you are bringing to mind the importance of mindset development. The more you can do this, the more these skills can help you become aware of what you are doing well and what still needs improvement.
Avoiding the mindset of perfection
If you want to improve your mindset, you also need to work on accepting yourself as human and imperfect.
In sports, athletes seem determined to pursue perfection at all costs. They talk and think about it so much that they actually start to believe that it exists. Here is an inevitable truth, however — perfection has not, does not, and will not ever exist. For you, or for others. You have high moments of excellence, but truly there is no perfection. So why keep pursuing it?
When you can accept that you are “perfectly imperfect,” you will not get down on yourself so much when you make a mistake or do not perform as you hoped. One of the greatest lessons that anyone can take from this book is the fact we are all perfectly imperfect — as coaches and athletes and human beings. We were designed to be different, and to perform differently. In fact, your long-term motivation will endure when you accept this fact and are not constantly criticizing yourself.
Slipping into the flow state or zone
Many athletes and people ask us how
