mental Skills

If you think you could improve your mental skills – focus, toughness, or learning to deal with pre-race anxiety – I hope you’ll read this.

Responding vs. Reacting

"Responding vs. reacting” is a key distinction.

Mental skills is the idea of expanding your window or capacity for effective responses in challenging situations. So just expanding one's zone to respond effectively.

We all have a zone of response and you’re trying to widen the zone where you're more likely to have a better response. A response you'd be proud of and a response that is effective.

There's a lot, obviously, that goes into expanding that zone and increasing the likelihood of that positive response.

Expanding your window or capacity for effective responses in challenging situations.

This is what coaches need athletes to do.

This is what athletes need to learn to do.

You're not really dying when you're hurting in a race or workout. ‘I feel terrible’ are thoughts we try to eliminate.

We want to replace them with what we call effective problem solving. We want to develop the ability to regulate ourselves.

There's a big difference between responding versus reacting.

Are you just reacting to that feeling and allowing it to control you? Do you have a response?

The easiest way to have a good response is to preplan it - to know what it's going to feel like.

There is a crucial part of our sport that we all take for granted.

We are in the most predictable sport.

In football they don't know the play the other team has drawn up. Other athletes would love to be in our predictable situation.

I was talking to the baseball team last year and they're like, ‘Oh yeah - in your sport, you can just try harder and you have a better outcome. That doesn't work for us.’

I said, ‘Yes - isn't that great.’

Even for a sprinter that doesn't work as well. Trying harder in a 100m dash really doesn't work.

We have this huge, awesome opportunity where we have a lot of control over the outcome of our race and it's very predictable. We know it's going to hurt at various points.

We know generally what it's going to feel like. You may not know exactly what your competitors are going to do, but you have a ballpark.

Talk to yourself about that beforehand and then be ready to be adaptable. 

If you're having a terrible day - and we all have them - how are you getting ready to respond?

How do you stay out of the Red Zone? The Red Zone is where you lose control. This would be anger - you're really angry at yourself. Or feeling sorry for yourself. Or giving up.

How are you going to stay in the Green Zone? How are you going to stay positive, focus on completing the race to the best of your ability, doing the best for your team and banishing negative thoughts.

Two key takeaways:

• We are in the most predictable sport.

• If you're having a terrible day - and we all have 'em - how are you getting ready to respond?

Respond – don't just react! Reaction is instantaneous and not necessarily performance enhancing. Response is anticipated and pre-planned. Responses are directed and you control them. You can plan and prepare to respond positively and effectively.