The Seven Mental Skills that You MUST Master to be a Sports Champion

Our intention is that, by the time youre done, youre much more aware of the mental skills that sports champions have and the importance of developing these skills for you to realize your sports dreams. These tips are a sampling of the Customized Mental Training programs we offer at MTI. Weve hand selected these tips and ordered them in a very purposeful manner. On behalf of the entire MTI Team, I respectfully invite you and challenge you to not just read these tips but to make a decision to master these mental skills. The pay off for you in competition and in your life in general will be invaluable. Lets do it!

Tip 1
Lay Down a New Success Track
Do you have the necessary foundation in place for your sports dreams? When athletes come to us for their free Initial consultation, the conversation generally starts with performance issues. Here are some of the frustrations we hear from our clients:

"Im experiencing a plateau, and I need a breakthrough." "The pressure to perform is negatively affecting my results and well being." "I want to ensure that all my physical training and technical practice pays off." "There are so many others competing with me that I need a mental edge." "I choked last time, and this time needs to be different." "Im tired of not performing up to my ability in competition."

Can you relate to any of these comments? Now, it might seem like the best place to start would be to give you a bunch of mental toughness techniques to overcome these issues, but its not; not if you are truly sincere about becoming the best athlete you can become.

First, you need a foundation built on clarity, passion, and focus. In other words, you need to have a long-term vision and short-term goals, backed up by intelligent plans, fueled by passionate motivation, and channeled through self-discipline. This foundation is the MOST critical part of an athlete's short-term effectiveness and satisfaction and long-term success. What we find, though, is that most athletes are off course in two ways:

They are approaching their dreams too rigidly or loosely They are often weighed down by the frustrations listed above

Unless they address both of these, their sports dreams will likely not happen. Or, if by some remote chance they do, it will be at the expense of their overall well being. So what do we do? We breathe new life into their dreams and help them to create a world-class road-map with a detailed step by step process...

Dream Establish Your Why Develop a Long-term Vision Anticipate Roadblocks Create Short-term Outcomes Isolate Controllable Activities

We call this our 'Passionate Motivation' process, and it is very empowering! Our client athletes tell us repeatedly that they are amazed with their renewed belief, energy, and determination. They feel like theyve released their frustrations, fears, and regrets and started fresh. So, first step, create a new foundation for your sports dreams built on 'Passionate Motivation.' Of course, when an athlete comes to us, this is just the beginning of our work together. Next, we develop a Customized Mental Training program.

Tip 2
The Root of Peak Performance

Weve discussed the importance of establishing Passionate Motivation as the foundation for your training and competitive success. Now, lets look at what it is were aiming at through your mental skills development: Emotional Mastery Winning might be one of your objectives or even your highest objective, but winning is a function of performing your best and performing your best is a function of emotional mastery. Emotional mastery is akin to being in the zone. When athletes are in this state they report feeling...

Energized and eager to compete and give their all Unbelievably confident about their abilities A sense of ease as though everything is effortless Able to bounce back after mistakes Happy because they are enjoying themselves so much

Its a great state to be in! Now, to help our athlete clients increase their odds of generating and maintaining a peak emotional state, we monitor their attention to key performance habits, skills, and attitudes. Here is a sampling of what we teach: Before Competition

Learn and practice efficient technique Condition your body with fitness, sleep, and nutrition Understand and practice high percentage strategies Ready your equipment, schedules, minimize mental distractions

During Competition

Carry yourself as if you were in your peak state Keep your thoughts present, positive, and helpful Use rituals to calm your mind Flash visualize performance outcomes and sequences

If youve ever had a zone experience in your sport and wished you could duplicate it, now you have more clarity on how to do just that. In the following tips, well go into more detail.

Tip 3
How to Step Into Your Peak State
Weve laid a foundation now of planning and understanding. In the next three tips, well delve into some of the mental skills that we help our clients master to take them to their sports dreams. The first of these skills is actually the easiest to implement, and, ironically, it has little to do with using your mind... Carry Yourself 'As If' To review what we covered in the last tip, your results stem from your moment-to-moment performance, and your performance flows from your moment-to-moment emotional state. When athletes are in the zone, it is visible, even palpable. Think Tiger Woods. When he is on a roll, you can see and feel his enthusiasm, confidence, and focus. Its projected in the way he is striding confidently, smiling, and approaching each hole with laser focus. Now, what if you could ignite this emotional state at will? You can! Try this. Stand up and walk around the room as though youre really off your game. Youre frustrated, losing belief and motivation. You cant seem to do anything right, and its happening in front of more people than you care to count. Now, do the opposite. Imagine you are at the top of your game. You are feeling full of energy and enthusiasm. Confidence is flowing through your veins. You feel like you can do anything with ease. Youre incredibly present and focused and yet youre relaxed, perhaps even smiling because youre enjoying yourself so much. Now... How are you breathing? Are you standing taller? What is the pace of your walk?

If you actually stood up and tried the above exercise, you noticed a significant difference. What is most exciting about this is that, rather than waiting for your performance to carry yourself as if you were in your peak emotional state, you can literally step into this state and help to trigger your best performance. A real world example of this is tennis star Rafael Nadal. If youve never seen him compete, the next time a major tennis event is on, look for an opportunity to watch him. You will see that right out of the gate, even in the warm-up, he is jumping up and down, sprinting, and locking in to his peak state. Now, this is just one leg of the table, so to speak, in terms of developing your mental skills, but its a great place to start.

Tip 4
Learn to Control Your Thoughts
Your mind is, ultimately, either your greatest detriment or ally. Thats why, if you were one of our clients, it would now be time to develop a cognitive-based Customized Mental Training program for you. This starts with Thought Control The core of cognitive-based mental skills development can be summed up in this way: Thoughts lead to emotions which affect performance. Any athlete who has experienced performance frustrations understands what its like to be in the heat of competition and to feel like youre on a train of negative thinking... "I hope I dont miss." "What if my stroke breaks down." "I wonder if hes watching me." "I hope my mom (coach, friend, etc.) didnt see that." "If I dont make this shot..." We could add another hundred negative, self-defeating phrases to the list, but the result is usually the same... Anxiety Struggle Plateau Choking Under-performing

Put another way... Only optimal thinking leads to champion results. It doesnt matter how great your technique is, how fit or quick youve become, or how tactically brilliant you are, if you dont consciously cultivate optimal thinking before, during, and after competition, youll have limited and sporadic success. So how do you generate optimal thinking? Its different for each athlete we work with and rather involved. To get you started, though, here are some things to take note of... 1. Limiting Subconscious Beliefs Outside of competition, pay attention to how you tend to talk about yourself. This is a window into your self-concept, which usually becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. 2. Excessive Outcome Orientation Are you focused too much on winning? In the heat of competition, its far more effective to focus on executing performance variables that, done well, will lead to the results you want. 3. Judgmental Self-Talk Take stock of how you talk to yourself while training and competing. A little tough love self-talk can sometimes get the juices going, but berating oneself is not the best way to do this. Do any of these sound familiar? If so, thats okay. Remember, mental skills must be developed, just like the technical aspects of your sport. In the end, where you want to get to before, during, and after competition is to be highly proactive about thinking in the way that you know leads to your best performance. This will generally include being: In the present Focused on what you can control Positive Thats optimal thinking, and thats what you need to cultivate if you want to realize your sports dreams.

Tip 5
See It and You'll Believe It
"Visualization was the key to my success." Jack Nicklaus Winner of 6 Masters and a record 18 Majors Sports Illustrated Greatest Golfer of the Century Weve covered a lot of ground already, and, hopefully, youre starting to believe that you can break through plateaus and performance frustrations. If not, this tip will help you get over the hump... Visualization and Mental Rehearsal Visualization allows you to see something that you might not yet have experienced yourself successfully doing and therefore do not believe. It's a critical skill to develop and integrate into your training and competition. Here are some of its key uses:

Accelerate learning proper technique Building your confidence to perform when it counts Flash imaging your ideal performance during competition Maintaining or improving form while injured

But where to start? When we work with our athlete clients, we foster skill in visualizing the way any good coach builds technical mastery or physical prowess... We start out with simple routines and build on success. Our general sequence includes learning to visualize...

Images related to their sports From the inside out vs. seeing an image of yourself Key sequences Desired short-term and long-term outcomes

The amount of time it takes to develop excellence at mental imaging varies from person to person, but whats important is to commit to a program. Be patient with yourself, and, if you lose interest, vary your routines, and remember that visualization has worked for countless sports champions. Give it a chance!

We recommend at least 5-10 minutes each day proceeded by a 5-10 minute relaxation sequence. So, plan on 10-20 minutes per day, minimum. Another key use for visualization, which is mentioned above, is in actual competition.

See an entire routine occurring successfully Flash image your desired result an instant before

You can even see yourself successfully performing something that did not go to your liking. This can keep your confidence in check as you move forward in your match or game. Its common for athletes to have heard about the power of visualization, but it is uncommon for most athletes to routinely be using it to help them realize their dreams. But youre not reading this to be like most athletes. Reading these tips shows that you're committed to doing what the average person isn't willing to do when it comes to developing your mental skills. So, if Jack Nicklaus credits his career success first and foremost to visualization, dont you think it would be wise to follow suit?

Tip 6
How to Anchor in Certainty
For most athletes, actually performing at the upper levels of their abilities often seems random. Sometimes its there, sometimes its not. Of course, thats the reason why many athletes look to sports psychology...to make peak performances more certain and predictable. Hopefully, by now, with all that weve covered in this MTI Tip Series, you realize that there is a whole lot you can do to actually make performing at a high level more predictable, almost like following a recipe. In this tip, were going to add another vital ingredient... Performance Rituals These are routines that support you in cultivating a calm, confident, focused mindset. New parents quickly learn the value of rituals.

This includes routine ways of waking up, going to bed, spending quality time together, etc.. It helps children to have a sense of certainty in a world of dizzying stimuli, making them feel safer and more secure. Take the rituals away, and their behavior becomes more sporadic, unpredictable, and unruly. Why? They feel more stressed and uncertain. Their emotional well being is compromised. What is the relevance to you as an athlete? Lets put it this way...what works with children never changes, not off the court or on the court. Sure, you can get results through fear and intimidation, and some coaches still do this, but its inferior to inspiration and safety. When people feel safe, they naturally perform better, personally and professionally. In the words of psychologist Dr. Joyce Brothers, "Science now tells us that the primary function of the brain is to keep us safe, not to think." Now, consider some of the potential threats to this sense of safety that sports competition can elicit... Pressure you put on yourself to win Pressure from parents, friends Pressure to make the cut, attain a certain ranking Pressure of new environments Pressure of the public watching you Pressure of making good for sponsors etc. In terms of your sport then, what you want to do is nurture your internal sense of safety to counter and, ideally, exceed any perceived, self-created pressure. Performance rituals before and during competition are one of a handful of excellent ways to do this. Performance rituals are like anchors in rough waters. All sorts of things can be happening around you, but you perform your rituals. It facilitates you having a calm, confident, and focused mindset. So, take a look at your current rituals before and during competition. Study the rituals of great performers in your sport, and experiment to find what works for you. Just make sure to use them.

Tip 7
Use this Tool to Perform "Off the Charts"
Weve outlined some of the core aspects of developing your mental toughness. As with any valuable insights gained, knowledge is only the first step. Results come from implementing that knowledge intelligently and consistently. At MTI, were very aware of this with our athlete clients, and we dont leave their success to chance. We use a specific, customized tool to facilitate this intelligent integration... The MTI Monitoring Chart (M-Chart) Athletes who embrace this tool instantly boost the quality of their training and therefore their results. A monitoring chart does just what the name implies. It helps you to monitor your training. Specifically, we isolate the habits and practices that are critical for our clients' progress. We emphasize their mental skills development but it includes nutrition, physical training, and technical practice, as well. Here, for a tennis player, is a sampling of what you might track: Mental Skills

Relaxation/Meditation Visualization Managing emotional state Thought control Use of rituals

Well Being

Diet Water intake Hours of sleep Sugar intake

Physical Training

Intervals Core work Agility drills Weight training

Technical Development

Serving to targets Live ball drilling Match play

This is a simplified version. The Monitoring Charts we create for our clients include more elements, ratings, and goal-setting. Weve talked about taking the randomness out of peak performances by knowing the necessary ingredients. This chart supports you in making sure you are following through related to each one of them at the appropriate levels, leading to the results you are seeking. Besides being an excellent tool for your training, being able to rate and check off items each day gives you an increased sense of accomplishment on a daily basis. This fuels your motivation. Can you see the value in using a Monitoring Chart? Our clients love them! They can go back weeks or even months all online and see the effort theyve invested and the progress theyve made. If you want to instantly boost your training, stop dreaming and start charting.

SUMMARY
"I wish I could say someone taught me my mental toughness, it would have been a lot less painful." Kurt Warner By now, you have a heightened understanding of the mental skills that are a MUST for you to become the sports champion performer that youre committed to being. It really is a must. You wouldnt expect to peak as an athlete if you didnt master the technical elements of your sport. You wouldnt expect to reach your potential if you only gave a half-hearted effort to maximizing your fitness and movement. The same applies with your mental skills development. It may be true that some sports champions are more prone to excel in pressure situations, but it is not the norm. By and large most learn the hard way, through trial and error. They endure

the choking, the plateaus, and persist until they get through. Its the slow, frustrating, more costly way. You, on the other hand, now know some of the critical elements of mental toughness. Theyre critical in that, to the extent that you don't master these skills, your chances of being a peak mental performer and thus realizing your dreams with your sport are greatly reduced. Now, if you really want to speed up the process, just as the quote by Kurt Warner suggests, skip the trial and error and plug into our Customized Mental Training programs with Online Mental Trainer. Let us take our years of experience and positive results working with adolescent amateur athletes all the way to Olympic Gold Medalists and share it with you. Is there a cost to it? Sure. Its definitely an investment. But the greater cost, if youre deeply committed to realizing your sports dreams is that you spend a great deal of money and time on the technical and physical aspects of your sport but never truly learn to perform your best in competition.

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