I see the same mental mistakes pro athletes make repeat themselves time and time again.
These mental mistakes made consistently over time turn into a bad habit.
Bad habits turn into lackluster performances and create doubt and a lack of belief in oneself.
You’re about to learn the top mental skills mistakes pro athletes make and how to avoid them yourself.
1. Lack of Setting Training Intentions
Are you training to check a box or to make some gains?
Too many athletes become complacent when it comes to their training regimen.
“Where you place your focus, energy, and attention determines your reality.”
What’s one thing you can focus on during your next practice to make gains?
One effective technique for setting powerful training intentions is to choose a feeling you wish to experience during or upon completing your training.
- “I want to feel accomplished.”
- “Today, I’m going to feel strong.”
- “My intention for this session is to get hyper-focused.”
- “I will feel I gave it 100%.”
- “My intention is going to be to feel I got outside my comfort zone.”
Setting powerful feeling-based intentions is powerful because they focus on the process and not just the outcome.
2. Poor Clarity on Defining Goals
This is a systemic disease I see with many pro athletes that can easily be avoided.
The issue with not getting granular enough is you’re unable to determine if your goal has truly been attained.
Let’s say for example you state that you want to give it 100% on your next workout.
How will you truly know if you did?
Imagine if instead, you state that you want to complete each and every set to complete failure.
TITLETo go even one step further you state exactly what that will look like so it can be recognized by you, a coach, or a training partner.
“I’ll push until I cannot get an extra rep and the weight starts to move in the opposite direction.”
Now we have a crystal clear goal that can be clearly identified when reached.
3. An Inability to Maintain an Intense Focus
What if you shifted your perspective on your training?
Imagine it is the most critical training session of your career.
“How you do anything is how you do everything.”
Challenge yourself to take your training more seriously than you already do.
Prime yourself and get excited on the car drive to your training facility.
Start thinking about what you want to experience and how you intend to feel on that drive.
Avoid having difficult conversations the hour before your training.
- Avoid the frustration of traffic or sitting on hold on the drive when possible.
- Only converse with people who lift you up ahead of time.
- Listen to music that raises your vibe and primes you for an intense and focused session.
Becoming a top athlete takes looking for that 1% in everything you do.
Become 1% more focused during your next training session.
4. Unable to Let Go From The Past
Letting go from the emotional attachments of past experiences is a huge opportunity for you as a professional athlete.
Start at the beginning by managing the meaning and emotional value you place on your mistakes and failures.
“The greater the emotional value you attach to the mistakes of your past, the greater chance they carry into your future.”
Letting go starts with accepting that what happened, happened, and cannot be changed.
Choose to focus on what you can control which is how you respond.
Learn from the past and view it as an opportunity to become a more mentally tough athlete.
5. You Believe Mistakes and Failures Are Bad
One of the top 3 limiting beliefs some professional athletes develop during childhood is, mistakes and failures are bad.
This couldn’t be any further from the truth as they are a necessary part of the process.
“Professional athletes become great by overcoming thousands of mistakes throughout their careers.”
Shift your perspective on mistakes and failures and start realizing they are a ticket to growth and opportunity.
Change your beliefs and you change your life.
6. You Avoid Challenging False Narratives
The story that plays in your mind all day long can be based on truth or fiction.
Challenge the stories that no longer serve you.
Identify a narrative you’ve bought into that brings you down and start questioning its legitimacy.
Ask yourself some revealing questions such as:
- “What evidence do I have to support this story?”
- “What evidence do I have to deny this story to be true?”
- “What belief do I have that supports this narrative?”
- “How can I start discrediting this story?”
The stories you choose to believe influence the thoughts, feelings, actions, and decisions you make daily.
We tend to act in ways that are consistent with our beliefs which in turn feed into our narratives.
“When you challenge and destroy false narratives be sure to reflect on the belief that created them as well.”
Better manage your beliefs and cut off the evidence that keeps them alive.
Believe in a better you!
7. You’re Not Using Your Imagination Properly
What makes us unique when compared to other species is our greatest gift, our human imagination.
Most of us use our imagination to consider worst-case scenarios and forecast what could go wrong.
“95-99% of the negative things we imagine never come true.”
Start to imagine the things you wish to become your reality.
Imagine them in detail activating all 5 of your senses when possible.
Close the gap between that which is real and that which is imagined as best you can.
Imagine to the point that you feel as if what you desire is already yours.
What To Do Next
You now have 7 opportunities to improve and end the mental mistakes pro athletes make.
“Will you take action right now or put this off for another day that will never come?”
Want some guidance, accountability, and additional tips to improve as an athlete?
Shoot me an email and let’s talk about our one-on-one coaching program or our private online group coaching program.
Our one-on-one program fills up 6-12 months in advance so start planning now!
Thanks again.