Strengthen Your Confidence Muscle like a Champion
Confidence is the second mental “muscle” that I explore in my upcoming Prime Sport 101: Train Your Mind like a Champion online mental training course. I define confidence as how strongly you believe in your ability to perform your best and achieve your athletic goals. Confidence is the most important mental muscle because you may have […]
Read MoreMental Muscle #1: Motivation
My upcoming Prime Sport 101: Train Your Mind like a Champion online mental training course will explore five mental “muscles” that you must strengthen to perform your best and achieve your athletic goals. The first mental muscle and the one that acts as the foundation for the development of all mental strength is motivation. Without your desire and […]
Read MoreMental Training Works, says Research
A recent study has demonstrated that mental training, even when used briefly online, does, in fact, work. The study, involving more than 44,000 participants, found that both self-talk and imagery, whether focused on the process or the outcome, improved effort, intensity, the experience of pleasant emotions, and performance on a competitive online task. From the […]
Read MorePrime Sport 101 online mental training course begins Aug. 1st
The Mind is the Final Piece of the ‘Athletic Success’ Puzzle You spend a lot of time on your physical conditioning and technical development. How much time do you devote to your mental training? Get your mind in the best shape of your athletic life! I’m excited to announce the launch of my Prime Sport 101: Train […]
Read MoreHow Athletes Can Take Risks that Pay Off
In part one of my two-part series on risk taking (the good kind) in sports, I looked at what risks are for athletes, the upsides and downsides of taking risks, and how risk taking should be a choice that athletes incorporate not only in their sports lives, but also in their broader lives as well. […]
Read MoreTake Risks for Athletic Success
This article will explore the essential role that risk taking plays in athletic success. Before I continue, though, let me preface this discussion by saying that, when I talk about taking risks, I don’t mean taking stupid risks such as texting while driving, jumping off the roof of your house, or taking drugs. That’s not […]
Read MoreFour Reasons Why Your Kids Should Play Sports
As any sports parent knows, it’s often a challenge to get your kids to the practice field, court, course, hill, or what-have you every day on time and ready to go. I admit that I can be a bit of a taskmaster with my own kids (who’s main sport is ski racing) on those days […]
Read More3 Keys to Making Mental Training Work in Sports
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 […]
Read MoreMore Evidence That ‘10,000 hours’ is Wrong
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 […]
Read MoreDeliberate Practice is Overrated (Sorry, Malcolm Gladwell)
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 […]
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