Archive: Success
Mental Toughness and Encouragement
April 29, 2013It’s amazing what a little encouragement can do for a competitor. I was standing in the locker room talking to a fellow player after a grueling match in the National 45 and over Clay Court Tennis Championships in Ft. Lauderdale last week. My body was exhausted. My shoulder was screaming in pain. And my next […]
read moreMental Toughness – A Formula for Success
April 13, 2013Want a formula for being a successful athlete? Try this. Optimism * (Persistence + Resilience) = Success To understand this formula more completely, let’s define our terms starting with Persistence and Resilience as they are the base elements in the equation. Persistence is the ability to sustain effort throughout a performance. We often see this […]
read moreMy Journey to Mental Toughness
April 6, 2013When I was 6 years old, I failed advanced beginner swimming lessons, and thus my tennis career was born! At that time, my family had a membership at a swim and tennis club and my sisters and I went there on a daily basis. And as the name of the club implies, there were two […]
read moreWhat is Mental Toughness – Motivation
March 30, 2013Why do you compete? Why is your sport important to you? Your answers to these questions can be quite revealing in terms of your desire to succeed and achieve your goals, and whether or not you’re ready to do what it takes to reach your potential. That’s why motivation is one of the key ingredients […]
read moreWhat is Mental Toughness – Confidence
March 23, 2013A vitally important ingredient to mental toughness and performing your best is confidence. I know that isn’t exactly a profound revelation, but where many athletes struggle is in developing confidence so that they can compete at a high level consistently. We want to develop the kind of confidence that is unshakeable no matter the circumstances. […]
read moreWhat is Mental Toughness – Focused on Winning
March 16, 2013There are a lot of thoughts that go through an athlete’s mind while competing. Some are beneficial and others are not. A credo that I like to use is that all of your energy, both mental and physical, should be in the direction of helping you win. A great way to keep yourself on track is […]
read moreWhat is Mental Toughness – Positive Body Language
March 9, 2013Want a quick pick-me-up while you’re competing? Pay attention to your body language and make sure it’s positive, strong, confident, determined and shows that you’re willing to fight. The connection between our minds and bodies is very strong, and negative behavior in one area almost always results in negativity in the other. The good news […]
read moreWhat is Mental Toughness – Learning Through Pressure
March 3, 2013I’ve missed over 9,000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times I’ve been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed. – Michael Jordan This quote from Michael Jordan is familiar to most and […]
read moreWhat is Mental Toughness – Coaching and the Zone
February 21, 2013If you’re a sports fan, you have certainly witnessed a coach seemingly losing his mind on the sidelines. He’s yelling at his players, he’s castigating officials, or he’s just throwing a tantrum. Why do some coaches behave this way? Does this behavior motivate players? Does it help them play better? Does it help them get […]
read moreWhat is Mental Toughness – A Quiet Mind
February 15, 2013When athletes are in the “zone”, there are certain thoughts, emotions and physical indicators that are common to being in this state. Examples are complete focus, low anxiety, high confidence, energetic, fun, and the feeling of being in complete control. When I work with groups or teams on defining these characteristics of the zone, usually […]
read moreInformation vs. Transformation
August 29, 2012One of the missions of a coach is to help athletes transform their games so that they become better players in the long term. In order for this to happen, both coaches and students need to understand the difference between information and transformation. Let’s use a very simple example to illustrate this. Imagine that you […]
read moreThe Point of Competition
June 16, 2012What is the point of competition? Conventional wisdom tells us that winning is the end goal of competition, but I think that is debatable and possibly detrimental to performing one’s best. In one of the cornerstone works of Positive Psychology, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi states that the point of competition is to […]
read moreTalk on Mental Toughness
April 24, 2012On March 27th, I was the guest speaker at the Wellesley Rotary Club in Wellesley, MA and I gave a talk on Mental Toughness – what I think it is and a bit on my own personal journey of discovery in this area. Video of the speech appears below courtesy of Wellesley Media. The video […]
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