Five Ways to Turbo Charge Your Goal Attainment

Falling short of your goals?  You’re in good company.  Most do, and the effect is cumulative— missed goals are de-motivators, and the reasons for missing them can quickly become reasons to give up the fight and flatline your progress. To keep today’s resolutions from becoming tomorrow’s disappointments, follow these five proven enhancers to your goal setting journey. Set better goals. The reasons for missed goals fall into one of two categories: there’s a problem with your goal or a problem with your process.  You can cut yourself a break by making sure your goals are reasonable, attainable, and within your control. Break larger goals into smaller pieces. Big goals give […]

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Positive Self-Talk and Flow

Close your eyes for a second and think of a time when you were at your best in a competition or performance. Put yourself back into that mindset and recall the feelings you experienced. Remember your thoughts from that moment. Did you know exactly what you wanted to achieve? Did you feel that you were equipped with the skills to achieve it? Did time seem to slow down? Did you feel completely in control? Were you concentrated solely on the task in front of you? Did you seem to stop judging yourself?  Were you enjoying yourself completely? If you said yes to most or all of these questions, you may […]

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Return to Sport-Post Injury

Lets face it, being injured stinks; especially as an athlete. If you’re a competitive athlete and have experience with injuries, you’re no stranger to the fact that the physical pain you feel is just a small part of the long-term pain that lies ahead in the path to a full recovery (Goldberg, 2016). We’ve all heard the phrase, “Just walk it off, you’ll be fine.” Coaches and parents may be unaware of how severe injuries may be, and at times push athletes to work through the pain (Groom, 2013). However, this unawareness can be detrimental to an athlete’s future – both physically and mentally. It is extremely important to educate […]

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The Importance of Deliberate Practice

Practice makes perfect. If you’re an athlete, you’ve probably heard this a few thousand times throughout your life. Practice is necessary to improve health, build confidence, gain a better understanding of rules and regulations, and also try out new techniques. But how can practice really bring out peak performance? When athletes partake in “deliberate practice,” they are more in tune with their bodies and see results. Deliberate practice relates to the quality of the practice time. It focuses on specific goals of improving performance by participating in highly structured activities relating to that sport (Barr, 2016). It may be easy to just “go through the motions” of practice, but if […]

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Be Confident! Ok, But… How?

It’s go time. This is where you need to perform at your very best. Your team is counting on you. Even you’re counting on you. But, you’re not exactly sure you can do it. Sure, you’ve practiced more than ever before and you really want to do well, but there’s always a chance you’ll fail. You’re nervous. So, what do people tell you? “Be confident!” And you probably respond with something like: “Perfect! That’s exactly what I need: to be confident. Awesome… but, how do I be confident, exactly?” There are actually many ways to build your confidence. As you’ll see in this video from TED-Ed, confidence is built upon body […]

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How We Show Up Matters

Seconds tick by on the clock like hours.  It feels like the game is already over.  You’re down – both in score and morale.  So what’s the point?  Why bother?  Why keep playing?  Well, as Yogi Berra once put it, “It ain’t over ‘til it’s over.” Thanks Yogi, but we all know how difficult it can be in these moments to maintain optimism and enthusiasm – especially when no one else around us is doing it either.  So what can we do about it? In any given event, our emotions are going to get triggered.  It’s natural to have an immediate knee-jerk (emotional) reaction.  In these situations, we tend to […]

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