Success is Attitudinal
I don’t know about the rest of you, but I feel like I am not getting much work done since the Olympics began.
What a thrill to see our first Gold Medal on Canadian soil. Less than 30 seconds to get the job done and Alexander Bilodeau did it up with style. Then, he shone even more brightly when he refocused the spotlight on all the people who helped him achieve this dream!
No one would fault Alex for taking his moment to SHINE after all he has so earned it! No one would think any less of Alex had he not mentioned his brother, his family, his coaches…Yet Alex, even in his most glorious moment as an athlete states his inspiration to the world… WOW!
A person’s true character and integrity is apparent by the actions they take when no one is watching. So what is the message when EVERYONE is watching?
Alex said this ” You can’t win the OLYMPIC gold alone you have to share it with your family and friends!”
We know it is true -= success is built and achieved with a team of people who both lift and inspire us along the way, but having the right mental focus and attitude plays a huge role as well. If you watched the skaters yesterday: Jeremy Wotherspoon and the Canadian dance couples, you may already be aware of what I mean by this. With so much pressure to bring home a medal on Canadian soil, in front of home town crowds, maintaining cool calm focus is paramount to avoid choking in the seconds that matter the most.
To train the body to the limits of its capabilities without simultaneously training the mind is to invite, at best, mediocrity. Sports psychologists have claimed that, for Olympic teams, 80% of an athlete’s performance is in the mind. Such belief has been echoed by championship players in virtually every form of competition. Mental rehearsal, also termed visualization, can create and reaffirm the confidence necessary to achieve top performances. What your mind can conceive, you can achieve.
Our minds have the awesome capability to reduce our heart rates and minimize physical fatigue leaving us with more endurance and motivation. Pro Athletes have learned to harness this power enabling them to achieve consistently higher outcomes. Athletes use this power of the mind to stay calm, relaxed and focused on their goal. Through positive self-talk and coaching, they are able to maintain a strong personal belief in their own innate abilities. But this same attention to focus has to be applied in the final competitions as well. Without the benefit of a calm mental state, even the best athletes will fall on the ice.
Athletes face the same stumbling blocks that we all face in promoting excellence in our lives. The biggest block of all is fear, and fear comes in many forms. According to research done by psychologist Shirley Winslow, PhD, of the University of Alberta, we ALL have four fears. They are:
• Fear of failure
• Fear of humiliation or embarrassment
• Fear of losing power
• Fear of rejection
Usually one of these fears is the strongest. This is the one that influences your behavior most often. To perform well, an athlete must be relaxed enough to allow the natural timing and coordination to flow with the movement of the sport. When he or she is in the flow, every movement feels right. The critical and doubting mind can be bypassed to allow the athlete to experience their fullest potential.
Through the use of Hypnosis (Guided Imagery), one can practice new skills and allow themselves the opportunity to make necessary changes away from the highly competitive arena. Utilizing these techniques, it is possible to reduce stress levels and increase recovery times, easily and effortlessly. We can fine-tune our concentration just as we would fine-tune our automobile to get it to running at peak performance. We are learning, at an inner-mind level, to adjust our attention to our desired objective. As we gear up our energy level, we learn to shift ourselves into overdrive when the need arises; shifting back down to cruising speed once the event is over. Mentally rehearsing at an inner-mind level gives us an added edge, the winning edge. As we learn to center our thoughts, we also learn to control our actions.
If mental performance coaching has such a desirable impact on athletic performance, imagine what it could do to help you accelerate into your personal best? Mental focus is not just for athletes; each of these skills and techniques can be incorporated and utilized to create astounding results in other areas of your life – testing, interviewing, business, recreational and relationships…. success is all about attitude, so what are you focusing on?
