Next item on our list is CONSISTENCY.
Consistency is the gold of performers. You have done something once successfully, you want to that again and again. Too many athletes are so deep in the,
“I need to fix what’s wrong!”
Coaches talk about this all the time. That’s fine, but it needs to be balanced in 10-1 with,
“I want to repeat what I do well and I know how to do.”
That is how you are going to compete. That is how you are going to perform your best in competition.
Again, I just want to give you another concept about the unconscious mind. The unconscious mind is the power source of consistency, it is a robot! What is the most consistent thing you do from the time you are born to the time you die? Your heartbeat. The unconscious mind regulates that. It is so consistent! Some people would say breath, but we can all hold our breath underwater for a certain amount of time depending on our capacity to do it.
Your unconscious mind is what you want to tap into for consistency. And it is all about the connection I have been talking about with my previous articles, videos, trainings, etc.
For example, I am a golfer. Whenever I make a mistake out there like whenever I hit the ball wrong, a lot of golfers would say,
“Well I did this wrong with my elbow.”
“I made this mistake.”
“I did this movement wrong.”
No, I don’t say that. Whenever I make mistake I say,
“Oh! I did not connect with my unconscious mind at that moment.”
And ask your unconscious mind to call up the perfect movement that it has done before from the past, that you were trained to do.
The unconscious mind has the instruction for the correct movement and it also has the instruction for the wrong movement. The way to tap in the correct movement is through routine. You should be consistent up to a certain point where you need the performance to occur and then you are triggering a flow of consistency.
So for a golfer, we have what is called the pre shot routine. We go up there, we wag off, we get our feet straight, we take a target, we do this, we do that, etc. And then boom, your unconscious mind will be like,
“Oh! This is the thing we do all the time right before we swing. I know that!”
And then of course I send the message that I want the perfect drive.
Every sport has got the ability to do routine, even if it is just doing a routine before game time. I highly recommend a routine. Then when it is time, then you go into the trusting state. You trust your body to do what you know how to do and what it was trained to do. So it is routine and then trust.
Another benefit to routines is it is something you can go to and occupy your mind when things are:
- coming at you
- when you are nervous
- when your mind is going crazy
- when you are in the fear of state
You can direct your mind on just doing your routine. It could be a routine of just how you dress before a game. Consistency and routine is going to help you trigger that in your actual performance.
I’m Craig Sigl,
Your Mental Toughness Trainer