"Desire is the key to motivation, but it's determination and commitment to an unrelenting pursuit of your goal - a commitment to excellence - that will enable you to attain the success you seek."
- Mario Andretti
Developing Excellence in Sport: Part 1
Athletes, to become the best version of yourself takes awareness. Awareness is the key to developing positive habits that help you to master your sport both mentally and physically.
If you are going to develop new habits or change old ones, you need to identify moments when you’ve performed at your best and when you’ve choked.
If you don’t know what your strengths and weaknesses are, you won’t be able to adjust your attitude, effort, technical, and tactical approaches.
Tips for building Self Awareness:
1. Get a sheet of paper and fold it in half vertically. Mark one side as best and the other side as worst performances.
2. Answer the following questions as it relates to best and worst performance mindsets before and during practices and competitions:
a. Thoughts, are your thoughts encouraging, distracting, or belittling?
b. Focus, what were you focusing on before and during competitions and practices? Were you focused on the game, on winning, past successes or failures, or maybe something else?
c. Emotions, what emotions do you remember experiencing?
d. Energy, how were you feeling? Were you lethargic or energetic both physically and mentally?
e. Level of Confidence, rate your level of confidence during competition on a scale from 1 (not confident) to 10 (confident) in the following areas: self-confidence, preparation, teammates, and coaches.
3. Controllable vs Uncontrollable, look at both columns and identify things that are in your control vs not controllable as it relates to focus, emotions, energy, confidence, and mindset.
Awareness is built on reflection and learning from past experiences so that you can improve performance and build consistency. So use your past experiences to learn and move forward, not to dwell on and regret.