The Mindset Of A Champion Blog

In a previous post, I discussed how much you should train and introduced the concept of overtraining with Olympic training anecdotes. I got quite a bit of feedback with one common question: How can I tell if I’m over training? From The Sport Psych Handbook, here are the physical and psychological symptoms you should look out for. Over course if you see these symptoms in your training partner(s) – let them know!

Overtraining - Don't do it!

Physical Symptoms Of Overtraining Read More »»

I don’t know about you, but I never thought I’d see the day when Mark Spitz’s record of 7 Gold Medals would ever be broken. Primarily because athletes today are so specialised that it would take a super-human to win THAT many medals against the specialists… But Michael Phelps did it with 8 Gold Medals – all in World Record Time in Beijing in 2008.

Sports scientists are suggesting that training loads are increasing by what some estimate as 10 to 20 percent every five years!

Mark Spitz, won his seven gold medals in the 1972 Olympics by swimming 9,000 meters per day. Within 20 years, the average COLLEGE swimmer was swimming more than this and by 1995, Olympic hopefuls were swimming a whopping 36,000 meters PER DAY.

That’s no wonder why elite athletes are complaining. 28% and 10% of 1996 Summer and 1998 Winter Olympic athletes cited overtraining as the reason for their sub-optimal results. Trying too hard didn’t work.

Michael Phelps 8 Gold Medals

It’s not a question of poor sportsmanship, winging or sour grapes. Read More »»

Today’s post is an inspirational half-time speech by Al Pacino in the movie Any Given Sunday. It needs no introduction. The YouTube video says it all – life and sport (football in this case) is a game of inches – whoever is willing to fight for those inches will win the game of life. Enjoy this courtesy of Andrew Powell of Montreal, Canada who forwarded this to me.

In a previous post I discussed the perspective of champions, what gives them the winning edge and ended with an example of Mike Tyson, promising to explain what’s happened after his championship years ended.

The word is accountability. In sport, competitors are held accountable to the sports rules, regulations and rankings. The higher the level, the more exacting and demanding the accountability becomes.

If you don’t hold yourself to that standard, guess what? You lose, you fall in the rankings, game over.

Accountability

It’s brutal and harsh. Read More »»

In a previous post, I discussed the concept of Competitive Performance Mentality. I got a lot of positive feedback from people saying that it was a simple and easy way to ‘extract’ themselves from the self-analysis process. Today’s topic is perspective. Champions have a different perspective than their non-champion colleagues.

Perspective is in the eye of the creator of that perspective!

3 Components Of A Champion Perspective Read More »»

Since I started talking about orientation several months ago, quite a few people have been asking – is this something I can change or is this something that I am plagued with? The answer is YES, you can change your orientation. It’s one of the many things I teach in my Personal Mastery Programs because via a blog like this, all I can really do is inform and educate. To really influence your performance, I need to be much more interactive and involved with you.

But this is not a commercial for my products and services. If you want to get the Mindset Of A Champion, you can click the hyperlink and get it – it’s electronically delivered.

This blog is all about introducing you to the concept of the Mindset Of A Champion. I try to fit in at least one blog per week into my busy schedule, so as a subscriber you’ll get as many as 50 tips and ideas – ALL FREE.

If you don’t want to wait and want to win sooner, just contact me and join one of our programs or start with a product and go from there.

Today, I just wanted to let you know what my clients know that YES! you can change your orientation – if you are ego involved, it’s going to be a struggle, but it’s a battle worth fighting – the war for your mind.

That’s a war you want to win.

It’s an on-going battle for all of us – casual, social, competitive and professional athletes alike.

That’s because we’re HUMAN.

Once we understand and embrace that, then we can start to USE and LEVERAGE that to our advantage. Therein in lies the Mindset Of A Champion – learning to think, perform and win like a champion, by using everything that’s available.

Often it’s one little thing that will make a BIG difference. Stick around and I’ll prove it to you in future blog posts.

If you want to purchase an inexpensive product and you’re a squash, tennis or badminton player, you’ll really enjoy Squash Lessons For Marketing.

In previous posts, I introduced the concepts or orientation, attributions and other psychological variables to help you think, perform like a champion. The next step is to assess your mentality. Your Competitive Performance Mentality to be precise. It’s a concept I picked up in a great book called The Sport Psych Handbook.

Read More »»

I found this lying around a squash club recently, I don’t know who the author is other than his first name is Phil. I thought it was worth sharing because (1) it’s pretty good prose and (2) I respect people who put themselves out there for other people’s fun and enjoyment. Thank you Phil!

We all come to hit the little black ball
some like to smash it against the wall
Others are so gentle
using angles and the feel.

We extend our bodies beyond their range
and in the mornings feel quite strange
for when the feet first hit the floor
us oldies stagger in pain to the dunny door.

The game is played indoors from the sun
but rain, hail or shine we do have fun
squashies are all very sincere
at the end sharing a beer.

Squash players come from far and wide
on a court there is nowhere to hide
the swing of the racquet heralds the start
throughout the rallies they try and stay apart.

At the front a drop shot squatting so low
as the opponent races in they’re struck by a blow
line an invisible wall
they crash in and try not to fall.

You miserable cad they let fly
tears running down their cheeks they cry
“Let please” the appeal to the referee
that is cheating as it all wafts free.

In a previous post, I introduced the concept of orientation. Today, I want to take the discussion a step further and explain how it affects what you do and don’t do in respect of your sports training. First and foremost, we have to discuss success and failure. I use the word outcome since it’s the first of the 4 Keys To Success that I teach in my Personal Mastery Programs.

From the previous post, how task-involved athletes primarily differ from ego-involved athletes is that with an ego orientation, the athlete will show (off) their ability at the expense of effort.

Owch! if you have an ego orientation, but KNOWING you have this orientation is more than half the battle.

Read More »»

We’ve all experienced it – being ‘in the zone’… What an incredible feeling it is. Today, I thought I would clarify a few things about the ‘zone’ or as experts call it, the concept of ‘flow‘ which I think was coined by Mihály Csíkszentmihályi, author of the book Flow. What you might not know is that flow is achieved when you experience a balance between external demands and internal skills.

Flow - Being In The Zone

When this relationship is 1:1 between difficulty and ability, the door opens and you can step into the flow. Because this is a balancing act, it’s a fleeting and rare experience. When the balance tilts with external challenges surpassing aptitude, anxiety is usually the result and conversely, when the balance shifts to your talent outpacing the demands made of you, you get bored, even sloppy.

You know you’re in the zone or flow when:

Read More »»