What is Mental Performance?
When we think of performance, we usually think of a person or a group of people doing something at a very high level. The Oxford Dictionary defines performance as the capabilities of a machine…especially when observed under particular conditions. Although human beings aren’t machines, we do train ourselves academically, personally, and athletically to carry out our chosen tasks - to take action - under all kinds of conditions.
“I am building a fire, and every day that I train, I add more fuel. At just the right moment, I light the match.”
Performance under difficult conditions is one of the true marvels of human existence. We praise, reward, and admire those people whose capabilities seem to grow under difficult or challenging circumstances. This performance involves training, preparation, choices, and action. We can watch and re-watch, study and try to emulate, use it for our own training. We can be inspired, because we can see physical performance.
Mental performance is a little different. It’s what we can’t watch on YouTube, what we don’t see in the arena, what we only guess about when someone has a spectacular success or failure. Mental performance is strength and resilience under pressure, calm and focus under the bright lights, adaptability and the ability to thrive under changing conditions. It is also having compassion for ourselves, learning to engage in the present moment with curiosity and optimism, and embracing the challenge and possibility of failure as an opportunity to grow. It’s how we talk to ourselves, approach our training, and interact with our coaches, teammates, friends, family, competitors and fans. It’s learning from mistakes, growing from experiences, and connecting with the things that bring us joy when we’re doing “our thing.”
Mental performance involves controlling what I can and letting the rest go, figuring out what is truly meaningful to me and what peak performance looks like, and then learning how to achieve it consistently. It’s how we prepare, and how we handle losing and winning and everything in between. And, in the same way that physical flexibility and resilience, strength and endurance, and technical skills related to our activity take consistent training, mental performance requires practice, patience, devotion, and a sense of humor.
What are mental performance skills, and how do we train them?
“Everything starts with awareness.”
Skills for mental and emotional performance include: Mindfulness, self-talk, visualization, emotional regulation, motivation, relational (people) skills, determining core values, setting goals, directing focus, leadership, mindset, and preparation. The most important common threads through all of these skill groups are self-determination and personal choice. This means that we are learning to choose to talk to ourselves differently, putting energy into fulfilling relationships, developing our unique strengths and skills, and deciding where to direct our attention. Most importantly, we are setting the terms of our own engagement in an activity.
Just like physical or technical training, where a person will almost always use multiple muscle groups or multiple technical moves to complete a task, it is very rare to only use one mental/emotional skill at a time. Mental Performance Training involves conversation, writing, self-exploration, and practical, fun, sometimes challenging exercises that are designed to build resilience and help each person develop their unique combination of skills. For each of us, the practice of this skillset can lead to more meaning and joy, improved performance, and a more satisfying, engaged, curious and self-directed life.
Confidentiality
Mental performance training can take place in a lot of different venues. Sometimes it can be in an office, meeting room, conference room, over the phone, or via video chat; more often, though, our work takes place in or around the practice or competition arena. We might be on a pool deck, a ski hill, a sideline, in the stands, on a golf course, in a weight room, or even in a hallway. This flexibility provides critical opportunities to practice skills in the moment, when you need them.
Some of what we talk about will be sensitive; it may be that you aren’t ready to share your process with the world. In honor of this, I have a strict confidentiality policy, which is: What we discuss will stay between us unless you specifically choose to share it outside of our work together.
This goes for individual and team training sessions. I will always make the best possible effort to find us a quiet place to work. If anyone - teammates, coaches, parents, media, or anyone else - asks me about the work that we’re doing, I will not disclose any information that you have shared without your explicit permission. The only exceptions are if you are in danger or if you intend to endanger yourself or someone else.
It is my #1 goal to create a space that is safe and secure for us to work towards your peak performance and well-being goals; trust is the foundation of that space.