When I speak to athletes and coaches, I ask them how important the mind is to sports success. With few exceptions, the response is that the mind is as or more important than the physical and technical side of sports. I am obviously biased given what I do for a living, so I won’t take [...]
I guess I'm on a bit of a rampage providing evidence that some of our achievement culture's most cherished beliefs about performance, specifically, grit and the '10 years, 10,000 hours' rule, are not all they are cracked up to be. To add further fuel to the fire, here are two articles that provide persuasive arguments [...]
I've never been a big fan of either grit or deliberate practice. Of course, they make intuitive sense and have a lot of appeal because they send the message that if we do the right things, anyone can be a champion. Unfortunately, as I describe in my Prime Performance System (and those are just the psychological [...]
This post is the last of my five-part series describing my Prime Performance System which encompasses everything I know about the psychology of sport. This post will introduce five practical mental tools you can use to get the most out of your competitive efforts. These five mental tools are the final piece of the prime [...]
You have certain muscles in your body that are absolutely essential for sports including your quads, glutes, abs, and hamstrings. The simple reality is that if you don’t actively strengthen these muscles, you will not be capable of performing your best. You should think about your mind as made up of ‘mental muscles’, the same [...]
A recent study just demonstrated what I have always believed, that grit is overrated. Grit has become a buzzword in education and child development as an attribute that is highly predictive of success and is easily developed. But, as with most 'solutions du jour' for the challenges our children face, grit is simplistic and has [...]
Practice is the practical foundation of sports success, meaning it’s what you do that determines whether you do or do not achieve your sports goals. In this post, I will describe why practice is so vital to sports success and the specific mental areas where your efforts in practice must be directed. For you to [...]
In my last post, I introduced you to my Prime Performance System that is comprised of the five essential mental areas that most influence athletic performance. In that post, I described the first of the five mental areas—attitudes. In this post, I will explore the second of these mental areas, namely, obstacles, and their make-or-break [...]
My Prime Performance System explores five important areas related to the psychology of sports: attitudes, obstacles, preparation, mental muscles, and tools. This article will introduce you to the first essential area—attitudes—and explain why they are so important to sports success. The dictionary definition of attitude is “The way you think and feel about something…a way [...]
The conclusion of a sports season can be a time of excitement, relief, and suffering for parents of athletes. The excitement comes when your young athletes have just concluded a season that exceeded their (and your) expectations. The sense of pride and satisfaction can be palatable and reinforces why you have your children involved in [...]