If you haven’t read the classic bestseller the 7 Habits Of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey, well you simply must get it. As a squash player, it’s imperative that you use these same habits to improve your game.

The 7 Habits Of Highly Effective Squash Players

Number 1 – Be Proactive.

That’s almost self explanatory. It means you are taking the initiative. You are not just playing reactively, but are taking a proactive stance in your practice, training and competitions. If you wait for someone else to motivate you or ‘give you your next breakthrough’, don’t hold your breath. Champions make things happen.

Number 2 – Begin with the End in Mind.

The End is really your goal or your goals. Effectiveness is not just a matter of reaching a goal but rather of achieving the right goal. What do you want to win? A local tournament, a state competition or a national or world championship? The End in mind will affect EVERYTHING you do and don’t do.

Number 3 – Do first things first.

This means to focus on your most important priorities, your top priorities. There are four quadrants to consider:

Important and urgent
Important and not urgent
Not important and urgent
Not important and not Urgent

I explain in my book Get The Best Business Results With The Least Amount Of Effort how to determine which is which in business. For squash, it’s a similar task.

You want to plan each quadrant based on your tournament schedule. You can’t afford to change your grip or a stroke just before a tournament. You have to PLAN AHEAD… Did you know that the team that takes care of the timing for the Olympics ‘freezes’ all of their systems and technology for 2 years? That’s means they don’t introduce anything new as they make sure EVERYTHING works ‘just right’… Something to think about when you start to dabble with your game. We’ll talk a LOT about this in this blog.

Number 4 – Think Win-Win

I know it’s going to sound corny, but even in sport you have to think ‘win win’… You want to win as a sportsman – not at ‘any cost’. You still have your reputation and name to protect. Of course you must do whatever you can TO WIN, but not if that means injuring your opponent or in squash hitting him on purpose.

Number 5 – “Seek First to Understand, Then to Be Understood”

Communication is a two-way street. In respect of squash, this is about YOU understanding and learning the game, its philosophy, strategy and tactics. When you master these, you’ll be able to dictate the game to your opponent who hopefully doesn’t understand… That is when the game gets to be really fun!

Number 6 – “Synergize”

In my vocabulary, this is called creating a MasterMind Group, I wrote a book about how to do this and you really do need to have one to raise your game to its ultimate level. We will talk about this quite a bit. It’s an exponential mindset strategy that ALL champions use to get and stay at the top of the rankings. It’s much much more than just having a coach.

Number 7 – “Sharpen the Saw”

There’s an old story about a man sawing a log. The work is going slowly and the man is exhausted. The more he saws, the less he cuts. A passerby watches for a while and suggests that the man take a break to sharpen the saw. But the man says he can’t stop to sharpen the saw because he is too busy sawing! A dull saw makes the work tiresome, tedious and unproductive.

The squash analogy is that you have to take a break from time to time and you do need to cross train to improve your game.

Today’s blog post is to make sure we’re on the same page – there’s no use me blogging about this stuff if you have no idea. Go get the books I recommend, do your reading and let’s see how we can improve your squash game!

Don’t forget if you’re an athlete in another sport, the principles are the same… The Mindset Of A Champion goes across ALL SPORTS!