The Art of Mental Toughness

What makes a great athlete and how do they overcome adversities to reach success?

~Quotes of Inspiration~

“Good work habits help develop an internal toughness and self-confident attitude that will sustain you through every adversity and temporary discouragement.” ~ Paul Fleyer

"The difference between a successful person and others is not a lack of strength, not a lack of knowledge, but rather in a lack of will." ~ Vince Lombardi

What is Belief?

"Confidence is contagious and so is lack of confidence, and a customer will recognize both." ~Lord Vince Lombardi

"Unless a man believes in himself and makes a total commitment to his career and puts everything he has into it-his mind, his body and his heart-what is life worth to him?” ~ Vince Lombardi

Mental Toughness Drives Athletic Talent

An athletes mental toughness defines their character. Attitude determines everything and is closely related to your character. Starting with the right attitude and mindset will determine many of the outcomes in competition. Confidence comes in knowing you’re prepared and having an unshakable belief in your abilities to reach intended goals. The question lies in what do you mine by prepared? Many athletes don’t understand that preparing mentally is just as important as preparing physically.

Program your mind for success ahead of time with positive affirmations and expectations, which helps an athlete focus, visualize, and feel the success throughout their body. What the body sees and feels it remembers and can react in an instant to create the same success with the correct amount of focus, confidence, belief, and attitude. Focus on those things that you want to occur, rather than things you’re afraid might go wrong. The Secret isn’t so far off on its message in that focusing on the positive things that you want and it occurring in a positive way can change an athlete rapidly. “Confidence is about who puts it on the line, who has the courage to compete like a warrior without fear of failure” ~Jerry Lynch (2002).

The Zone

How can an athlete harness this focus or zone in order to remain consistent and receive consistent results? The answer is routine. Athletes must create a routine of behavior, develop a systematic pre-performance routine that clicks on desired mental-emotional state of mind in practice or pre-game, competition. This routine give an athlete a starting point to center themselves in their mindset, focus, or zone that will be carried out during the game. Learning to ignore distractions is the recipe to holding on to this zone.

Practice is a big part of the whole picture in that once you walk through the gate, you commit yourself to giving it everything you have the entire practice which includes making a commitment to listening, learning, executing skills/drills with accuracy and full focus.

Pre-competition is the prep period that allows an athlete to create their zone. To cultivate a consistent zone an athlete needs to develop a systematic routine for engineering the environment and getting themselves ready.

During Competition once enter the competition area an athlete is committing themselves to being mentally tough and a great competitor throughout the entire game.

Keeping Poise and Composure

An athlete must learn how to let go of mistakes quickly if things do not go the way they want. The key part of mental training is about compensating, adjusting, and trusting. Athletes are not perfect nor are humans for that matter. Sometimes the use of a focal point can effectively help focus attention back onto task at hand. Be persistent and mentally tough, don’t allow frustration to undermine your confidence and focus. Take control of Negative Self-Talk or negative energy around you. Stay away from “stinking thinking,” the more you think the more frustrated and unfocused you become. Stay positive and gather yourself back into your zone. Becoming aware of situations that cause you to get frustrated, rushed, intimidated, lose focus, then reframe the negativity into positive, mentally tough self-suggestions. Courage to leave it all out on the athletic field, play with heart, determination, and full focus.

How Failure Can Bring Success

Look at failure as a stepping stone for future achievements. Many adversities or failures offer a lesson, furthermore, and opportunity to build character. Define your attitude and how you will cope with certain situations. Champions approach to overcoming adversity is to play to win as opposed to fear making mistakes. Athletes need to focus on the process of competing well, winning will take care of itself. Allow yourself the opportunity to be a difference maker, step up and have a peak performance when it matters the most.

By Jennifer Seward

Owner of True Cowboy