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 [...]
My new 12-week online mental training program will explore five important areas related to the psychology of ski racing: 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 ski racing success. The dictionary definition of attitude is “The way you [...]
The race season is almost over. For every racer, it is a time of reckoning in which you look back and evaluate what kind of season you had: one to be proud of or one to reflect back on with disappointment and perhaps regret. One of the primary criteria that racers use to judge their [...]
Thankfully, not me and not that bad! What you are about to read is based on a true story. And apologies in advance for its length. I had a feeling that the other weekend wasn’t going to go as planned. My wife, Sarah, had just left for ten days in Cambodia, so I was [...]
One of the most frequent comments I hear from the athletes I work with is: “I had a lousy day of training.” This statement was almost always accompanied by a variety of emotions that are neither pleasant nor helpful including frustration, anger, worry, doubt, and disappointment, and, occasionally, despair. Moreover, I saw that this assertion [...]
Just read a wonderful commentary about having ski racing children by former Burkie, Jesse James. If you have kids in ski racing, you'll nod knowingly and perhaps even shed a tear (as I did). If you're not a ski racing parent, but rather a parent of an athlete in another sport, you'll still relate to [...]
Mitchell Gunn with permission Mikaela Shiffrin is truly a gift that keeps on giving. And during this holiday season, Mikaela (without realizing it) gave ski racers the world over three gifts from her World Cup races in Aspen. Today, I’ll talk about Gift #1: Disappointment. As most of you know, Mikaela was three [...]