Preparation and Success

posted on: July 30, 2013
author: Brian Lomax, Ed.D.

“Before anything else, preparation is the key to success.”

-Alexander Graham Bell

Are you prepared to compete today?  Have you done everything possible to get ready?  If you answered yes to these questions, then you should feel confident going into your competition. However if you’re like most of us, your preparation could use some improvement.  One of the issues around preparation is that it’s not taught explicitly and there are few systems for developing preparation routines except at the highest levels of athletic competition.

When thinking about how to best prepare, consider the following 4 training areas:

• Motivation
• Mental
• Emotional
• Physical

Motivation

Why are you competing?  Do you know the answer to that question?  Write it on a piece of paper and read it on a daily basis.  Set some goals that help you achieve this motivation and connect with them daily.  This will help you bring intensity and purpose to your performance on the day of competition.

Mental

Mental preparation is all about focus and control.  While you’re competing, you want your mind to be quiet so that your body can perform at a peak level.  To enable this, you need to be able to eliminate distractions.  One way to handle distractions is by writing down all of the possible distractions that could occur during a competition and formulating a proactive strategy for dealing with them.  If something does happen, you’ll be ready for it and able to regain your focus quickly.

Emotional

For me, emotional preparation is about Optimism.  I want to cultivate positivity and optimism into my approach to everything in life including my training.  Specifically, I like to use guided visualization before I compete.  I recorded a guided visualization which induces progressive relaxation and then guides me through a performance.  It gets me relaxed physically and in the right emotional state for competing at my best.

Physical

There are many components to physical preparation:  strength training, practice, diet, sleep, hydration, equipment, warm-up, etc.  Some of these components are part of the overall training plan and some are more specific to what needs to be done prior to competing.  Make sure you’re considering all of these items so that you’re physically ready to compete.  If you’re not at your peak energy level, your performance will suffer.

To be successful, you need to excel at preparation.  Winging it doesn’t work.  However,  good preparation takes practice and learning.  See what works for you and what doesn’t, and then adjust.  Over time, you’ll settle into a routine that regularly brings out your best, and as I said in a recent tweet, the prepared competitor ALWAYS has the advantage.  Take advantage of the power of preparation and you shall be rewarded.