Why is it important to train your mind to be strong? Many young athletes are still not brought into why the mental game is so important for them when they play their sport.
Get Craig, the mental toughness trainer’s perspective on the importance of mental training from a talk he gave to the Lady Big Dogs basketball team…
The Significance ofMental Training in Sports?
But what is being mentally fit?
Before you train your mind, you need to know what you are training to be, being mentally confident is being focused, confident, determined, and resilient. Resilient means that you have the ability to bounce back from difficulty, losses and mistakes. It means to never, ever, ever, ever give up!
I’m here to give you some tools to assist in mental drills that will help you in your next game, your life, and beyond. So let me start out by explaining how having mental toughness will help you play better. And that’s what we are here for.
The Mental Drill
Let’s just start off by the thinking about the best game you have ever had for a second here. Now for that moment didn’t that just feel great thinking about it? You know while playing, and even now, while you are just thinking about it, didn’t that get you somewhere thinking about your best game?
I’ll bet before that game that you weren’t down and depressed – right? And thinking about losing, now weren’t you? What were you thinking about before and during that game? How did you feel before that game? Confident? Ready to go? Excited? That’s what we are talking about.
Isn’t it true that you are most likely going to play better when you feel great? Feel Confident? It’s the objective of the game for us here in learning mental drill; it is to get ourselves to feel, think, confident, before and during the game. This is how you are going to play your best. Pretty simple.
So here’s the deal. I want to talk a little bit about winning for a moment here. Winning is a good thing. I want you to win. You see, far too many young athletes worrying way too much about winning and losing. That’s how you put pressure on yourself.
That pressure doesn’t feel very good – does it? And that makes it harder to play your best when you’re feeling that kind of pressure and nervousness. Also, too many young athletes, they think that they can only feel good after they play well or their team wins. And that’s not true.
What you want to do is work with yourself so that you feel great before you start and you’ll keep it going during the game. That’s what allows your best performance to come out. Mental training will help you stop thinking about winning and losing so much. Get this, winning is almost like an accident. Winning should be a byproduct of feeling so great about yourself and your abilities to go out there and do your best. Some people call that type of playing in the zone.
So now you might be saying to yourself, “Well, if I am not thinking about winning this game,what should I think about that will get me to feel great so I can play my best as you say? Well, you have the answer for that right inside you. I want you to get you started by thinking, ”Would I play even if I knew I weren’t going to win and why?” Think about all things you love about playing your sport.
So to wrap this Mental Training, start by creating a list of all the things you love about your sport. These are the things that you will be focusing on and thinking about before and during the next game. Do comment if this mental drill brought about a change in your performance!
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Welcome to the Winner’s Circle!
Craig Sigl, the Mental Toughness Trainer