It’s all mental

It’s mostly mental!

“Success is all mental” ~ Maury Wills

That quote is very true think about it success is all mental. In order to succeed in life at anything your mental game as to be intact and strong. You can build yourself up with your mental game and you can hurt yourself with your mental game. Sports psychiatry is becoming more and more of a thing looked at and used to keep to level athletes performing at a high level. In order to achieve great success you have to believe you can accomplish it you have to see yourself doing it and then you have to keep the drive, dedication and focus to overcome obstacles and reach it. The same goes for having your mental game hurt you as you can play mind games with yourself and say you’re not worthy or your doing poorly and thus turn what should be a positive affect into a negative one and then the outcome can be dangerous and defeating.

Endurance athletes have to have a very strong mental game but they also in today’s world of technology and competition can take that mental game and turn it against them. I know a number of athletes who have become obsessed with using all the gadgets these days they must know how far they ran, what pace, and while they are running they stare at that screen to make sure they are running a certain pace and if they can’t hit that pace they get down on themselves and start to go into the panic freak-out mode. This is that negative affect I’m talking about with the mental game as if the athlete nailed their paces during that workout and finished the workout looked at their watch and realized they ran better than they were suppose to that can become the positive mental affect we are looking for. So as much as I love my data and looking at my Garmin GPS watch I know that it also can have a negative effect on me. So be careful and don’t get too wrapped up in this and focusing on your pace and for sure don’t let it mess with your mental game.

Confidence is the main key in all of this. When we are confident we can rationalize away any potential problems and not let that bad workout get into our head too much and keep our focus on the next workout. But if we lack confidence then the mind games start and that bad workout can really play a negative effect on us. Without confidence everything gets magnified and seems worse than it really is. So to begin a journey you must first build up the confidence and believe in you. This is where a good coach can really come in handy one that is positive and always keeps you motivated and believing. To me one major element in a coach is just this, they need to have that way of connecting with you building believe in you and then you as an athlete have to have complete trust in them and then complete trust in yourself. Thus building confidence and achieving success.

Concentration is another key element to this entire one must be able to have complete concentration eliminate outside distractions and keep their mental game looking ahead. During a race, a hard workout if you let your mind wander and drift away from the task and your plan it can hurt you. You need to listen to your body and it’s natural rhythms you need to understand your breathing your stride rate and what that comfortable pace feels like. This is why as a coach I spend a lot of time working with the athletes on pacing and teaching them to feel and listen to their body and what an actual sustainable race pace for them feels like. When I figured this out in myself it was a huge turning point in how I performed at races and now I try to teach it to others.

So as you prepare for the 2012 season to begin as you begin to ramp up workouts and focus on your “A” races and your “B” races think about your confidence and your mental game. Is it strong? Does it need work? Do you have a motivating coach one that gives you confidence and keeps you on task hitting your goals believing in yourself and always improving.

Keep that mental focus and use it as a positive not a negative.

Have a great New year!!

Coach MB