The best of the best athletes can choke. No matter what sport you play, how many miles you run, how many targets you break, at some point, you may choke. It really does happen to the best of us. The main reason this happens is that you have left a gaping hole in your mental game. Let me be completely honest, even if you work with a mental trainer and sharpen your mental acuity, failure is still an option. Unfortunately, there is no pill you can take to make you perfect. But what you can do to achieve peak performance is learn to use the power of your brain. There are five (mental) keys to achieve peak performance from a mental training standpoint. If you can understand and implement these five (mental) keys, you are well on your way to becoming a more successful athlete.
The five (mental) keys to peak performance are: Relaxation, concentration, imagery, monitoring their self-talk and developing a mental routine. These keys unlock a world of possibilities to your conditioning, enabling you to reveal your true potential. The beauty of these skills is they transfer to all parts of life. So even if you start training your brain for sports, it will have a ripple effect into other areas of your life.
“Letting go” of unsatisfactory performances is a key skill for athletes to develop. Letting go of mistakes involves segmenting skills into parts, whether it’s taking one lap at a time in the pool or letting go of the first target you missed. The reason this is so problematic for most athletes is that they do not know how to control their sympathetic neural pathways. Learning how the mind works and how you can control it, is a big part of mental training. Mental control skills become more important as athletes move up in levels of competition.
I have heard many athletes before complain about concentration. Here is why: Concentration is a method to talk to your own body, and most of you can’t do that…I know it seems too simple an answer, but for whatever reason, it is becoming increasingly difficult for athletes to do. Maybe it is because there are too many distractions in the arena. Athletes need to be able to control the width of their attentional focus and the direction of their attentions. Peak performance occurs when athletes are able to voluntarily concentrate on the cues in their environment and perceive them to demand an action that is within their ability to execute.
If you would like to know more about the 5 (Mental) Keys to Peak Performance please don’t hesitate to contact me. I have helped many athletes realize their dreams through the mental training I offer in my private sessions. Thanks for reading. InJoy your day!