Once you’ve mastered the basic strokes and court movement principles, as an elite squash player, you need to get into “A Champion Mindset” as often as you can.

What I picked up from Winning Squash was Jahangir’s reliance on his cousin Rahmat Khan’s coaching skills and abilities. As a top squash player, reaching world #12 and a Khan, he understood and appreciated what it takes to be a champion.

Without a mentor, coach, friend and advisor, there is no doubt in my mind (or Jahangir’s) that his achievements would have been much less prolific than they were.

The key for any aspiring athlete is to get multiple points of view and then choose ONE that works. Listen, obey and respect that ONE voice. That ONE direction. That one FORCE.

Otherwise what happens is you get splintered into multiple, divergent directions and lose momentum and confidence. Confidence makes a big difference in a quick-response sport like squash. With mere fractions of a second to choose a shot (or return), the brain needs to feel it’s capable of pushing the envelope to select the best shot to make, instantly calculating the risk/reward ratios involved.

The second and almost as important revelation was Jahangir’s training regimen and mental focus. I expected this from the all-time-best squash player, but what I found interesting was how much of it was ‘trusting the coaching process’.

Even back then (the book was published in 1985), Jahangir noticed that young players had difficulty succumbing to authority (elders, teachers and coaches). I can attest to that with adults of all ages. There is something inherently arrogant with athletes who think “they know it all” even though they continue to languish in the “B” leagues.

Being coachable is a trait all champions possess. They recognise the need to have an outside perspective that focuses on them from a much more objective viewpoint with a set of skills designed and developed to extract the best from them.

You can’t be ON the court AND watch the game at the same time. Each has a role and responsibility to the process of creating and sustaining excellence. Today’s elite athlete has to invest in the best technology and training which now includes psychological training well beyond the traditional visualisation and pre-match preparation techniques.

Winning Squash is a classic – it captured the essence of the Champion Of All Champions – Jahangir Khan – at his apex of achievement.

Even though I am not a martial artist, the play-by-play analysis was beyond my interest, the self-analysis and honesty revealed was quite remarkable and refreshing to read as she let us into a champion’s mindset – especially when she failed or came up short.

She is a true champion with laser-focused concentration on the ultimate goal – the Olympic Gold Medal.

Thus is a must-read for anyone who wants to know the inner workings of the Mindset Of A Champion.

I highly recommend it.

All elite athletes face the dilemma: How much is enough versus too much?

Most athletes however it’s a case of too little and too infrequently.

Too often, there is a reluctance to going full-on with training when it’s the fastest and usually the safest way to create breakthroughs.

The challenge is knowing WHAT to do to push yourself beyond your current limits into a new realm of possibility. Unless you “up” the intensity, you’re simply not going to get those all-important quantum leaps you want.

Depending on your sport and level of proficiency, intensity can means doubling your on-court time, doubling or tripling your running or swimming distance, increasing your gym visits, yoga or aerobics classes to 2/day instead of 3/week…

You are the best judge of what ‘intensity’ means to you – one thing is for sure, you need to go beyond your comfort zone – ideally to total exhaustion (without injury or pain) or as close to it as you can.

What you’ll quickly realise is that you’re capable of much more than you’re currently doing.

What set Michael Phelps apart from all other swimmers is that he aimed to become the best swimmer HE could become.

Michael Phelps and his coach NEVER set any limits. His autobiographical book’s title reveals his and his coach’s mindset “No Limits“.

My message to you today is simple and straightforward – what limits have you placed on your training or playing?

What time limits?

What frequency limits?

What intensity limits?

Today’s blog post is short and sweet – for racket sport athletes as Chester Barnes, a table tennis champion said “get to it somehow and hammer it somewhere!”

There are two parts to this – Doing whatever it takes to get to the ball and then doing something with it.

Easier said than done!

Once you’ve mastered the basic strokes and court movement principles, as an elite squash player, you need to get into “A Champion Mindset” as often as you can.

What I picked up from Winning Squash was Jahangir’s reliance on his cousin Rahmat Khan’s coaching skills and abilities. As a top squash player, reaching world #12 and a Khan, he understood and appreciated what it takes to be a champion.

Without a mentor, coach, friend and advisor, there is no doubt in my mind (or Jahangir’s) that his achievements would have been much less prolific than they were.

The key for any aspiring athlete is to get multiple points of view and then choose ONE that works. Listen, obey and respect that ONE voice. That ONE direction. That one FORCE.

Otherwise what happens is you get splintered into multiple, divergent directions and lose momentum and confidence. Confidence makes a big difference in a quick-response sport like squash. With mere fractions of a second to choose a shot (or return), the brain needs to feel it’s capable of pushing the envelope to select the best shot to make, instantly calculating the risk/reward ratios involved.

The second and almost as important revelation was Jahangir’s training regimen and mental focus. I expected this from the all-time-best squash player, but what I found interesting was how much of it was ‘trusting the coaching process’.

Even back then (the book was published in 1985), Jahangir noticed that young players had difficulty succumbing to authority (elders, teachers and coaches). I can attest to that with adults of all ages. There is something inherently arrogant with athletes who think “they know it all” even though they continue to languish in the “B” leagues.

Being coachable is a trait all champions possess. They recognise the need to have an outside perspective that focuses on them from a much more objective viewpoint with a set of skills designed and developed to extract the best from them.

You can’t be ON the court AND watch the game at the same time. Each has a role and responsibility to the process of creating and sustaining excellence. Today’s elite athlete has to invest in the best technology and training which now includes psychological training well beyond the traditional visualisation and pre-match preparation techniques.

Winning Squash is a classic – it captured the essence of the Champion Of All Champions – Jahangir Khan – at his apex of achievement.

For more outstanding books on the Champion’s Mindset and sport psychology books, click on the hyperlinks.

One of the reasons is that social (or club players) don’t overcome their current inertia. Inertia is defined as the predisposition for a body to remain in the state that it’s in. In sports psychology, it means doing the same things, over and over and over again. Reinforcing bad habits and preventing new skills and abilities to emerge on their own.

To overcome inertia, you need to create momentum. Momentum is best explained with the metaphor of the merry-go-round. The first pull of the merry-go-round is the hardest, then you can stand there and tap it to keep it spinning. Just like a BAD habit, a GOOD habit, once it becomes engrained, becomes your new default and effortless.

The hard part is creating that initial momentum, the catalyst or spark to start to make things happen.

The easiest way is to interrupt your existing patterns. For example if you’re a squash player, you could…

• Double the amount of time you play (in a week, or each time you play)
• Go to another club
• Increase the variety of players you play
• Do only drills and routines for the next week (or month)
• Register for a tournament
• Bet on a game with one of your regular partners to make it more meaningful (even $5 can make a difference!)
• Play at a different time – in the morning, lunch or evening – or weekdays versus weekends
• Buy a new racket, get new strings (change the tension in your strings)
• Play much better or much worse opponents
• Cross train to achieve fitness, agility, quickness or other ability that will help your game.
• Read a handful of books (more than just one to trigger your Reticular Activating System)

Once you’ve interrupted your existing pattern, as discussed in the crossing the Chasm Of Competence™ blog post, make a SHORT list of 2 or 3 REASONS you want to work on and set a SHORT timeline to resolve them.

Make sure the timeline is LESS THAN A MONTH. Create a sense of urgency – that’s the equivalent of the first pull of the merry-go-round.

If you don’t make it ‘urgent’ you’ll keep spinning your wheels, in the same place with no appreciable improvement or progress.

I will also be creating a new list of sports psychology books that go more into the general aspects of elite peak performance in sport.

Mental toughness is not just for sports athletes – it translates to all aspects of life.

A few pointers before you embark on mental toughness training…

1. You need to know the context you’re dealing with (the more specific, the better)
2. You need self-awareness (or a coach to know you)
3. You need to be willing to change and test if progress is being made
4. You need to be honest with yourself because all the dialogue is internal (or have a coach who won’t let you off the hook)
5. You need to have a plan (1 Percent Improvements)
6. You need to be strong because it won’t happen immediately, but once it does – WATCH OUT!

Imagine if they weighed themselves DAILY?

I guess they need to learn my 1 Percent Improvement Doctrine!

I call that being on the wrong side of the Chasm Of Competence™.

It’s when you don’t have the skill or ability to overcome your adversary… but you know you’re close, so close in fact you feel you could reach out and touch it.

In my case, that watershed moment occurred at the 2009 Australian Masters Games when I lost the Gold Medal match to ‘win’ the Silver.

First, I believe we’re either REASONS or we’re RESULTS.

So when I was losing and then lost the Gold Medal match, I made sure to make a complete list of all the REASONS I was losing as it was happening.

I say while I was losing because I knew that with such a bad ref and an opponent who was exploiting the bad calls (not on purpose, but due to lack of ability on his part), the match was over early on.

At the time, I wasn’t good enough to overcome my opponent AND the bad ref. I had never contemplated the extreme role a bad ref can have on a match. I was totally unprepared.

So I made my list of REASONS and one by one, I solved them. It took two years to get the result (The Australian Masters Games are played every second year), but I knew I did everything to create the RESULT I wanted by removing all the REASONS.

The Chasm Of Competence™ simply means getting rid
of all the REASONS that prevent your desired RESULT from happening

Once you’ve crossed the Chasm Of Competence™, you have the skills, abilities and thus the competence to produce the RESULT.

I call it a chasm because it’s an obstacle most social athletes never cross. The discipline, perseverance and tenacity needed to cross it either pushes them beyond their comfort zone or the resources (time, effort, money, drive, ambition) they’re willing to devote to their sport.

One of the greatest misconceptions about excellence is talent. There is no such thing. Talent is an acquired skill or ability – NO ONE IS BORN WITH IT.

Some of us develop it, while others don’t. It’s as simple as that.

Malcolm Gladwell explained the various concepts involved in his bestselling book Outliers.

If you want to learn more about how to cross the Chasm Of Competence™, you can read Bounce by Matthem Syed and Flow In Sports by Jackson and Csikszentmihalyi.

Fundamentally though, the books don’t reveal what YOU need to do to cross YOUR chasm. Each athlete’s chasm is different and specific.

For one it might be movement, for another racket skills and for a third fitness and endurance.

The key to unlock what I call your Exponential Potential™ is  self-awareness. Without it, you can’t identify the REASONS for your non-success. With unfiltered, honest self awareness, the REASONS become self-evident and crystal clear.

The challenge is being honest with yourself – to see yourself as you ARE, not as you wish you were.

Easier said than done.

So in closing, if you want to excel in sport (or any other endeavour), all you need to do is figure out all the REASONS you’re not achieving, deal with each one and watch your RESULTS improve. To know if what you’re doing is working or not, you need to monitor your progress and development. In business I call that Management By Metrics™.

In sport, you use tournaments and other point-based rankings, but you also need qualitative and intermediary measures. One easy way to assess your progress is with video analysis. Record yourself playing and then watch yourself – assess and evaluate what you’re doing. Having a coach to give you insight helps a lot.

One final point – Before you start on your quest to cross the Chasm of Competence™, you need to have what I call a Decision Making Horizon™. A clearly defined timeline to make the transition, transformation and metamorphosis. It needs to be reasonable, but short enough to create pressure. Without a sense of urgency, you simply won’t create the momentum you need to overcome your current inertia – That’s a discussion for another day.

If you’d like to know more about how you can acquire the Mindset Of A Champion, <- Click here.

The question you have to ask yourself if you’re in any way competitive in sport (or other endeavour) is…

“How are you playing?”

How You Play Determines How Good You'll Get