I worked with a middle-of-the-pack university team (won about as many games as they lost) who were preparing to go on the road to play the defending national champions, currently undefeated, and ranked #1 in the country. I asked the team what they thought their percentage chance of winning was. One of the team leaders said 10%, and the rest of the team agreed with him - with body language that suggested a loss was inevitable. I asked the players to imagine having a very close friend who was battling a very serious illness, and no medical treatment plan was working. I asked the players what their advice to their friend would be if a new medically-approved medication was discovered that had a 10% chance of curing their friend's illness. All the players, with passion in their voices, said "take the medication!" I then asked the players why, when they gave advice to their friend, they were embracing the 10% chance of success, but with their upcoming competition they were embracing the 90% chance of failure. The players initially looked at me with puzzled looks - but these looks soon dramatically changed to ones of inspiration and determination. When they embraced the fact that they actually had a chance to achieve their goal their training and in-competition investment elevated dramatically. They actually ended up winning the game! Dr. Steve Maier stated "You've got a lot of places in the brain that respond [problematically] to aversive experiences. Like the amygdala. In fact, there are a whole bunch of limbic areas that respond to stress...Now what happens is these limbic structures are regulated by higher-order brain areas, like the prefrontal cortex. And so, if you have an appraisal, a thought, a belief - whatever you want to call it - that says, 'Wait a minute, I can do something about this!'...then these inhibitory structures in the cortex are activated. They send a message: 'Cool it down there! Don't get so activated. There's something we can do.'" You can, in fact, modify your self-talk, and you can learn to not let it interfere with you moving toward your goals - but instead set you free to move toward your goals! 😀

When I start teaching my university classes this September it will be the start of my 40th year of high school/university teaching. After many years of teaching one thing I can say with certainty is that, at their core, every individual has the capacity to be a good person. This September also marks the start of my 30th year of first teaching psychology and then working as a sport mental training consultant. After all these years I can also say with certainty that, at their core, every individual has the capacity to pursue their best self and fully invest. When I intentionally see the capacity for good in another person - when I encourage, challenge, and support that person, the good person that is at their core emerges. When I see in another person their capacity to pursue their best self and fully invest - when I encourage, challenge, and support that person, their pursuit of their best self and their full investment emerges. Imagine how powerful this effect becomes when the person sees the good inside themselves, and sees within themselves the capacity to pursue their best self and fully invest! These conclusions are not just a product of my professional experiences - they are also consistent with significant research. Dr. Jim Afremow (2012) tells the legend known as the tale of two wolves. A grandparent explains to their grandchild that there are two wolves within each of us: one wolf is positive and beneficial; the other wolf is negative and destructive. These two wolves fight for control over us. The grandchild is curious and asks "Which wolf will win?" The grandparent replies, "The one that you feed." According to Dr. Afremow, "...thoughts determine feelings [and]...feelings influence performance... . Learn to think more positively...monitor what you tell yourself and always feed the good wolf... . This is one of the most important life lessons you can ever learn. Understanding that this choice is yours alone is very empowering and important." If we see good in ourselves and others; if we see in ourselves and others the potential to pursue our best selves and fully invest, these capacities that we all possess come to the surface. 😀

People think champions are the individuals holding the first place trophy when the competition is over. Anson Dorrance, the current head coach of the University of North Carolina women's soccer team, has won 21 championships at the NCAA Division 1 level, and yet the quote you see on this post is his. The vision of a champion is not the trophy someone may be fortunate enough to hold in their hands. The vision of a champion is the massive effort an individual puts into pursuing their best self in their sport (an effort that ultimately gives them the best chance to hold a trophy in their hands). Fully invest! 😀

Seems obvious - but think carefully about this statement. The horse doesn't care about how many races it has or hasn't won before. The horse doesn't care about how many races the other horses have or haven't won before. The horse doesn't think about the background of the other horses or their jockeys. The horse doesn't think about where the race is being run or how many people are watching. The horse just RUNS. As a high-performance athlete the ONLY two boxes you have to check are: 1) pursue your best self in your sport, and 2) fully invest in every training and competitive experience. This enables you to RUN free and actually maximizes the probability of you achieving whatever outcome you want to achieve. Remember, you are NOT defined by the outcome. All you need to do is check the two boxes (something every athlete can do regardless of their athletic ability). 😀

Seven in ten kids drop out of sports by age 13 - primarily because they aren't having fun (Jones, 2023). In fact, most of the world's sport participants participate in sport for some combination of the following reasons: fun, fitness, social benefits, and to scratch the "competitive itch." These reasons are also all embedded in high-performance sport participation, but high-performance sport orbits around two core principles that are not part of the non high-performance sport world: 1) in training the priority is to pursue your best self in your sport (individually and collectively if on a team), and 2) in competition an added priority is to pursue the win. Some people love high-performance sport. They love the challenge, the energy, the drama, and the passion involved in pursuing a goal. For others, high-performance sport is not a good fit. They love the fun, fitness, social, and competitive elements of sport, but they are not interested in pursuing their best self in the sport or making winning a prioritized focal point. Take the time to sort out what realm of sport you want to be a part of. If you prefer high-performance sport and are participating in non high-performance sport you will feel like a bird under water (not desirable). If you prefer non high-performance sport and are participating in high-performance sport you will feel like a fish in the air (also undesirable). The fit makes all the difference! 😀

Scaffolding is essential for athlete development. Psychologist Dr. Carol Dweck recently demonstrated that a growth mindset does little good without scaffolding to support it. Rigorous experiments with over 15,000 students revealed that nurturing a growth mindset among high schoolers boosts their grades only when their teachers recognize their potential and their schools have cultures where students are encouraged, supported, and challenged to pursue their best selves. The scaffolding quote and commentary in this post, by Grant (2023), has direct application to athlete development. Part of my professional world involves helping young athletes sort through difficult decisions around which post-secondary school to attend (these are often athletes who are being recruited by multiple schools). My message to the athletes is always the same: assuming the family, financial, and academic boxes have been checked satisfactorily, select the school where you will be encouraged, supported, and challenged to pursue your best self in your sport. Effective scaffolding makes a massive difference in helping athletes progress toward their athletic ceilings. 😀

This sentiment provided by organizational psychologist Adam Grant has direct relevance to the important role individual athletes play when they are part of a team. When you are on the court, field, ice, etc. as a team sport athlete what can you do to help your team be better? Without question high-performance coaches are interested in the proficiency level of individual athletes. But they are equally interested in the influence those individual athletes have on their teammates. 😀

In high-performance sport good times and tough times come along for the ride. The same mindset that maximizes your probability of experiencing the good times helps you weather the tough times. When you are passionate about something you will feel disappointment when outcomes don't go the way you want them to. Look deeper than the outcomes. Trying to become the best you can be at something is about the TRYING not the outcome. When outcomes go your way you will naturally feel good (and enjoy those moments), but don't lose sight of the fact that you are defined by the TRYING. Moments of hardship are inevitable in a high-performance athlete's pursuit of their best self in their sport. As Grant's (2023) quote implies, attaching your athletic self-worth to the degree to which you are PURSUING your best self in your sport (not the outcomes) enables you to cross those hardship valleys and continue working toward the peak of your potential. 😀

So, you've decided to try and become as good as you can be in your sport - now what? The answer to this question has two parts: Part 1 is on you and Part 2 is on the people who are helping you. First, you need to fully invest in every training and competitive experience in your pursuit of your best self in your sport, AND second, you need to connect with people (e.g., coaches) who are fully investing in helping you pursue your best self in your sport. Who you are coached by makes a significant difference in your ability to reach your athletic ceiling. It's not just the knowledge of the coach - it's the mindset of the coach. Coaches who embrace a growth mindset see the potential in their athletes, and fully invest in the development of their athletes to the same degree the athletes are fully investing in their own development. This isn't just a sport reality. Growth mindset expert, Dr. Carol Dweck, demonstrated through recent research with more than 15,000 high school students that a high school student's growth mindset only elevates their grades if their teacher embraces the student's potential and the school embraces a culture where students are encouraged and supported to take on the challenge of pursuing their best selves. The quote by Carroll (2010) at the start of this post emphasized that discipline and effort must be present for an athlete to maintain their vision. Athletes, this is your responsibility. But, it is also essential that you connect with a coach who, by encouraging you, challenging you, and supporting you, demonstrates they want you to get as good as you can get as passionately as you want you to get as good as you can get. This type of connection is a powerful combination! 😀

Sometimes in competition you don't execute to the level that you want to. Sometimes in competition your opponent executes at a higher level (former professional football general manager and coach Adam Rita famously said "you have to remember they also pay the other guys"). When these scenarios occur you will naturally feel disappointed, maybe even discouraged. In terms of your sport experience, challenging scenarios like these have the potential to hijack the motivational centres of your brain, but this hijacking cannot occur if you embrace a mastery mindset. As the quote by Grant (2023) implies, instead of beating yourself up because things didn't go the way you wanted them to, simply look the challenging scenario in the eye and ask "What can I learn from this experience? How can I use this experience to help me in my pursuit of my best self in my sport?" Embracing this mastery mindset allows your positive energy to return - you know you can handle whatever happens because you will learn and grow from every experience. 😀

To pursue your best self in your sport you have to be willing to make mistakes. Learning can be uncomfortable. Becoming comfortable with the discomfort of learning is the way forward in terms of personal growth and development. Though it may seem counter-intuitive, lean into the discomfort of learning. Seek out opportunities to train and compete with individuals who can challenge you and help you improve. Former Paralympian sprinter Aimee Mullins told an interviewer how uncomfortable she was training with the Georgetown University track team. Aimee was running on artificial legs, and all of her teammates were running on their natural legs. Aimee said that initially she was hesitant to train in this environment because all she could think about was constantly seeing the backs of the other female runners' track singlets (because she knew she wouldn't be nearly as fast as they were). But Aimee came to the realization that training with these athletes was going to help her pursue her best self in her sport - it was going to make her faster. As the quote by Grant (2023) at the start of this post supports, when pursuing your best self in your sport, challenge is not something to be avoided. Challenge is something to be embraced because you will learn and grow regardless of the outcome. 😀

"Pursuing my best self in my sport" are not just words on a page - they are you committing to take on a challenge. The psychological power of words is significant. Coach Anson Dorrance's University of North Carolina women's soccer team won 22 national championships in 31 years (even though they were out-recruited by five or six schools every year). Anson Dorrance insisted that his team embrace twelve core values all pointing them toward pursuing their best selves individually and collectively. Dorrance provided the team with a significant quotation that accompanied each value and insisted that the first year players be able to recite three selected quotations on demand. By the players' final year of eligibility (their fourth year) they were expected to be able to recite all twelve quotations on demand. Anson Dorrance's goal was to move the values from their head to their heart. This isn't just a sport thing. The United States military, in hoping to safeguard its soldiers from being misled by rogue presidents or government assemblies, teaches its recruits that they are defending one thing - the American Constitution (words on a page that represent clear democratic values). As the quote by Sara Maria Hasbun, at the start of this post, implies, when you commit to "pursuing my best self in my sport" it doesn't mean you are fully prepared. It doesn't mean everything will go smoothly and you won't encounter adversity. But what it does mean is that you have moved these words from your head to your heart, and, consequently, you are maximizing the probability of achieving what you want to achieve. 😀

Washington Post reporter Sally Jenkins was so impressed with the shooting ability of NBA star Stephen Curry that she asked to feel his hands. Here is her description of this experience: "Curry obligingly held out his palms. I placed mine on top. Shocked, I felt slabs of rough, coarse, flaking callouses. Somehow, I had expected his hands to be soft. Curry's...shot is so effortless seeming. But these were the hands of a logger. In that moment, I understood that Curry's ease with a basketball wasn't easy at all. It was produced by two thousand practice shots a week, a labor that rubbed his hands raw." Jenkins went on to say: "If you're ambitious about something, why wouldn't you behave half as committedly about your ability as any athlete does? That simple shift in perspective caused me to go back over years of experiences with coaches and athletes and reframe them, revise my opinion of what matters about them. Too often we're overawed by them for the wrong things. We celebrate their glamour and ascribe all kinds of idealized qualities to them they don't really possess, while ignoring those they do, such as perseverance. The laziest-seeming pro athlete works much harder than the average person, day in and day out, to get better..." Developing the grit and resilience to make "pursue the best you" your foundational goal takes discipline and effort. As Super Bowl winning coach Pete Carroll stated, "...if you create a vision for yourself and stick with it, you can make amazing things happen in your life...once you have done the work to create the clear vision, it is the discipline and effort to maintain that vision that can make it all come true. The two go hand in hand. The moment you've created that vision, you're on the way, but it's the diligence with which you stick to that vision that allows you to get there." 😀

To give themselves the best chance to get to where they want to go, athletes need to know how to get there. Coaches - please show athletes the way. Athletes - if you are uncertain or confused, please communicate with your coaches to seek specific guidance. When athletes "understand" what to do, and how becoming proficient at it will help them, it becomes a game-changer in terms of igniting the athletes' passion to improve. The quote on this post by Grant (2023) is completely consistent with the growth mindset findings of Dr. Carol Dweck. Dweck found that when individuals realized that their brains physically change as they learn new things, and that they can facilitate this change, they became inspired knowing that they could elevate their current level - no matter what area they were working on to improve. The sky is the limit for an athlete when they know what direction to travel. 😀

This statement by Grant (2023) captures the error some coaches and athletes make in assessing potential based upon beginnings. In life, just about anything new we learn is hard before it is easy. As an athlete, all that is required of you to pursue your best self in your sport is your full investment in your training and competitive experiences. Don't stop yourself from doing this just because it may be challenging (research has shown that there is no direct correlation between how long it takes an athlete to learn a motor skill and how well they can eventually perform it). Keep pursuing your best self and you will be amazed at the progress you can make! Coaches - give your athletes the time and opportunity to pursue their best selves (even if they struggle along the way). 😀

Hall-of-Fame National Football League head coach Bill Walsh described his dislike of bully coaches in the following way: "There was this religion of 'toughness' in coaching circles...and all coaches were trying to be like marine drill sergeants and scare people into playing well...It was a kind of mass delusion. All the coaches thought the players loved them despite how badly they treated them and all the players were doing was putting up with the coach so they could play football. Instead of loving and revering the coach, they couldn't stand the coach and were disgusted with the coach but they wanted to play football. The players only put up with the bullying because they had to. Most played football in spite of the coach... I...decided that if you taught people to play the game better, that was real coaching - being a teacher rather than a thug." As a coach, helping athletes pursue their best selves in their sport means combining building connections with the athletes and imposing demands on the athletes. The connections must be genuine and sincere, and the demands must never creep into the territory of bullying. If bully coaching is occurring not only will athlete performance decline, but more importantly athlete emotional and mental well-being will be at risk. Be a coach, not a bully.

These words of former all-star National Football League player Earl Thomas captured the approach to sport he valued immensely. This is not about striving to be flawless. High-performance athletes who reach or get close to their athletic ceiling don't ask the question "Can I be perfect?" That answer is no. They ask the question "Can I be better?" That answer is yes! 😀

A former basketball coach would always have his players line up at the baseline (outside of the court) prior to the beginning of practice. The coach would essentially insist that before practice began players needed to psychologically commit to fully investing in the practice, and then signify that commitment by stepping over the baseline on to the court. What seems to the casual observer as just a pre-practice routine actually possesses considerable psychological validity - it is called the power of intention. When we psychologically commit to doing something it elevates our level of engagement in the doing of it. Think about your past sport experiences - particularly ones where you played hard but you felt something was missing. Did you psychologically commit to fully invest in the sport experience before it began? If you didn't, try doing it in the future - the power of intention can be quite powerful! 😀

On the first day of high school band practice the band instructor spoke to the class about the piece of music they were going to attempt to play that day. The instructor knew that the band was made up of members with diverse levels of ability and experience. That didn't matter. The band instructor said to the band members "somebody took the time to write this piece of music, and regardless of our ability level, we are going to 'honor the music' - this piece of music is going to get our maximum effort." According to psychiatrist Adam Beck, the same objective event can lead to very different subjective interpretations, and it is these subjective interpretations (rather than the objective event) that dictates how people feel and act. How do you, as an athlete, interpret a competitive experience prior to beginning it? Do you commit to fully invest in the experience - do you "honor the music"? It doesn't matter who you are competing against, it doesn't matter where or when - if you choose to participate in a competitive experience, compete, battle, honor the music! 😀

This Japanese saying captures the mindset necessary to effectively respond to adversity. When you are pursuing something in sport, or in any other aspect of your life, you will inevitably encounter adversity. When this happens, firmly root yourself in what it means to "Fall seven, rise eight." As Dr. Angela Duckworth emphasized, don't just hope for a better tomorrow - work for a better tomorrow (and let people help you)! 😀