Elite athletes make winning and training look easy. Often we think these stars are born with supernatural ability, and we could never match their skills. While natural talent may play a role in an top tier athlete’s success, another ingredient plays a vital part, writes Gina Kolata in a New York Times article. “I was given a body that could train every single day,” said two-time New York Marathon winner Tom Fleming. “And a mind, a mentality, that believed that if I trained every day — and I could train every day — I’ll beat you.”

Could you compete at the same level as Tom Fleming and other elite athletes? At the very least, writes Kolata, you can train yourself to work at the very edge of your body’s abilities. You’ll need to use mental tools to master your full athletic potential. If you really don’t believe your body is up to this task, the good news is that you can change your mind. First know that training hard always hurts, no matter how high your ranking is. Accept this, and you’ll find those difficult workouts a bit easier to accept.

Kolata unleashes a few more helpful ways to prepare for your next race or competition. Practice the race course ahead of time. Becoming familiar with a course makes it possible to race faster. The more times you practice on this playing field, the better your ability becomes to pace yourself on this exact space. Secondly, use association. Some athletes disassociate, thinking about anything but the race they are competing in at the moment. But association, or focusing intensely on the race as you participate in it, helps athletes motivate themselves and figure out how to push hard but not too hard, says Dr. Jeroen Swart, a sports medicine physician and exercise physiologist. Achieving our optimum success level is not just about physical strength, endurance or work, it’s also about understanding and working through the mental challenges that face us as we simultaneously push ourselves physically.

If you have ever played on a losing team and hated it, you probably just needed a coach trained in sport psychology. Caltech Coach Oliver Eslinger makes good use of his sport psychology doctorate from Boston University, says a recent article online at timesunion.com. Eslinger begin coaching at Caltech three years ago, taking on a basketball team with a “deeply embedded culture” of losing, with not one winning season since the year 1954.

“Last year we had 11 freshmen on the team, we were 0-25, and we got absolutely hammered in conference,” Eslinger says in the article. “You gotta have good heads. Luckily, that’s where the psychology background comes into play. It’s tough to keep losing. That can get at you.”

This season, Caltech won a Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference game, marking the first time the team scored a conference victory in 26 seasons. Eslinger always tells his team to stay in the moment, which is helpful during so many defeats and a great feeling when you finally win.

This “in-the-moment” philosophy helps players put losses behind them. Eslinger admits that he is encouraging the team to reveal in this conference win for longer than a mere moment, and he is busy helping his team envision a fantastic future. “We are going to win the league,” Eslinger says in the article, “and we are going to win the league and go to the NCAA Tournament year after year.”

Why is golfer Bernhard Langer so successful? Senior Writer Randall Mell asks this question on a recent blog post online at Golf Channel.

Along with the usual answers such as hard work and excellent health, Langer lists a reason people don’t often mention: a lack of personal tumult. “I haven’t had marital problems, or a divorce. I’ve had the same coach for 35 years. I’ve had the same manager for 35 years. I’ve had the same wife for 27 years. Obviously, I’ve had to work hard on my game, but I think if other areas of your life are not right, you will have a hard time concentrating and performing,” said Langer.

Langer has won 83 professional titles and trophies over a career spanning more than 30 years. Mell writes Langer is proof that emotional stability is as helpful as good golfing technique and years of dedication. Divorce, defiant teenagers, money problems, and dying relatives all are hazards for professional athletes. This type of tumult is why people ponder Tiger Woods’ performance so closely these days.

Mell also writes about three-time major champion Larry Nelson, who admits his lack of focus after caring for his dying father for 21 days in a row. “I was fine going to play, I was excited about getting to play, I was ready to play, but I was just mentally exhausted,” Nelson said.

The next time you compete in your favorite sporting endeavor, take a moment to ponder your personal life. Do you live your life in a calm and supportive setting, or are events unfolding that create a lack of balance right now? Now look at how your game played out and think about how tumult or serenity affected you.