Competition has forever been at the heart of sports. Athletes compete to find out who is the best on any given day. It’s why we play the game…or is it? We have drifted far from the true meaning of competition. As a result, our society suffers greatly as we continuously compare ourselves to others. We believe we will never be good enough. What if we have competition all wrong?

Redefining Competition

In today’s win-at-all-costs sports culture, we are far from the roots of true competition.

If we trace the word “competition” back its Latin origins we can find a new foundation on which to build at all levels of sport. The root of competition is “petere,” which means to search or strive for something of value or excellence. The preposition “com” means together.

Competition means a mutual pursuit of excellence.

In essence, competition isn’t about winning and losing at all. It is about bringing out the best in one another. It is a symphony, not a solo recital. Competition is cooperative not adversarial. The winners are those who were challenged and rose to reveal their full potential.

True Competition

I’ve written before that the best competition lies within ourselves. This is especially true if we see competition in terms of comparison. However, understanding that competition is cooperative allows athletes to embrace the challenge of facing off against opponents that test one’s limits.

Here are just two ways redefining competition could impact your athletes and teams.

Respecting Opponents Builds Character

This renewed definition of competition encourages athletes to respect their opponents. A true understanding of competition leads athletes to understand that without stiff competition, they cannot and will not fulfill their own potential. Opponents, it turns out, need each other.

Minutes after the 2017 Australian Open men’s final, Roger Federer took the mic as the victor. While always a class-act, he truly took us to a new level.

“And here we stand in the finals,” Federer said looking back to Rafael Nadal. “I’m happy for you. I would’ve been happy to lose to you, to be honest. Tennis is a tough sport; there’s no draws. But if there was going to be one, I would be very happy to accept a draw tonight and share it with Rafa.”

The crowd gasped, audibly, prompting Roger to add, ”Really.”

When asked about the relationship between Federer and Nadal, Paul Annacone (once Federer’s coach) said, “They just get it.” He referred to how they view themselves, showing respect for one another and the game. It isn’t what we expect from rivals. Annacone says, “We’re like, Don’t they really hate each other, deep down?” But they don’t. In fact, they recognize the roles one another plays in the success of their own careers.

Coaches everywhere preach, “Respect your opponent.” But often this merely means not to doubt their skills. Truly, athletes ought to respect opponents, having empathy, compassion, and appreciation for one another. This is one way that sport builds character.

Together We Can Reveal Our True Potential

Opponents need each other. In my own experience as an athlete I played my best against the best opponents. Those are the people who challenged me, who brought out the best in my own performance. For them I am thankful.

Roger Federer felt this gratitude for his rival Nadal. Here is what he shared while attending the opening of Nadal’s tennis academy in Majorca, Spain:

“I’ve seen a lot of hard workers and inspiring players, but you’ve been the one who has been the most inspiring and most influential and make me the player I am today. Because you’re left-handed, because of your spin, because of the intensity you bring to the court, I had to reinvent and rework my game entirely.”

A renewed view of competition changes how athletes respond to the challenge.

When athletes view competition as win-or-lose it is easy to feel threatened. When athletes feel threatened they are likely to back down, pull away, or make excuses.

Alternatively, an athlete can view competition as a mutual challenge to bring out the best in others by playing the best he or she can play. This challenge (not threat) causes athletes to rise to the occasion, testing the limits of their potential.

Competition is a symphony, not dueling pianos.
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Reap the Rewards of True Competition

Competition isn’t us versus them. It isn’t a battle to be won. Opponents aren’t the enemy.

Redefining competition changes everything. We no longer compete against, but with one another. This allows athletes to focus on playing their best, rather than simply trying to be better than the person across from them. Sport becomes about striving to pursue our potential (process over outcome).

When we redefine competition, we reimagine what sportsmanship is all about.

Annacone sums up nicely what we can all learn from Federer and Nadal as competitors. “Why can’t it always be like that? You look at these guys and see that you can be a helluva competitor, work your ass off, spill your guts and then praise the person on the other side. It’s kind of how life should be. They do what you’re suppose to do.”

Question: What is one thing you would do differently if you adopted this definition of competition?

I’d love to hear from you in the comments below, or on Facebook or Twitter.

• Book: Inside Out Coaching by Joe Ehrmann
• Book: True Competition by David Shields and Brenda Bredemeier
• Post: 5 Reasons Athletes Should Focus On Improving Not Winning
• Post: Do You Want Your Athletes to be a Class Act?

The post Should Your Athletes Know the Truth About Competition? first appeared on The Excelling Edge.

Right or wrong, athletes tie their identities to being athletes. What kind of athletes do they see themselves as? Champions? Fighters? Head cases? Chokers? How an athlete views him or herself has wide-reaching effects on his or her identity.

Head Case

When I think of how I described myself as a college athlete, I’m horrified.

I saw myself as a “head case,” an “underperformer,” and “not good enough.” By identifying myself by these descriptors I was only making matters worse. It became a self-fulfilling prophecy. My on-court game suffered as I became less confident, composed, and consistent.

What’s more alarming is that these attributes also affected my identity off the court. I wasn’t who I wanted to be.

Power of “I am”

In Head in the Game, Brandon Sneed explains the power of the words, “I am.” “When your brain hears “I am,” whatever follows registers as a statement about your very identity, compelling your brain to begin taking steps to make it permanent.”

Therefore, “I am a head case,” became a more permanent fixture of my mindset, my game, and my identity over time.

Athletes need to be careful with the words they use to describe themselves. “I am…” should be followed by positive attributes.

Research shows that shifting language from “I am” to “I feel” shifts the brain to a problem-solving mode rather than emotional response. Feeling angry, frustrated, or feeling like an underperformer triggers the brain to search for solutions rather than accept these descriptors as permanent.

What Coaches Can Do

Coaches can play a tremendous role in helping athletes overcome these self-sabotaging beliefs. Here are 3 steps coaches can take to recognize and assist their athletes in developing a more productive frame of mind.

1. Look

You’re already doing this. Coaches notice poor body language and emotional outbursts. You already know which athletes are more resistant to feedback.

These are all red flags – potential indicators for how any athlete views him or herself. This is especially true when you see trends over time.

2. Listen

This is the step I see some coaches skip. Rather than listening to the athlete, they are quick to direct the player to “stay calm,” or “get your head in the game,” assuming the athlete knows how to do that. I find that athletes who know how to regulate their emotions already do a decent job of it.

Instead, ask players about their behavior and listen for the hidden (or unhidden) messages. In my case I probably would have told my coach I thought I was head case. This opens lines of communication.

3. Empower

With open dialogue about how the athlete sees him or herself you can point to strategies, resources, or people that can help them get unstuck and revise their identity as an athlete.

My college coach didn’t need to have all the answers. That was okay. But unfortunately, he wasn’t prepared to point me in the right direction.

This is one reason I train (and write this blog) for coaches – to equip them to better serve their athletes.

Your athlete’s “I am” statements become self-fulfilling prophecies. Proceed with caution.
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Help Athletes Embrace a Positive Identity

How your athletes fill in the blank, “I am ____,” creates a self-fulfilling prophecy by programing their brains to embody their beliefs. Help your athletes embrace their positive attributes and troubleshoot their negative ones. Show them how to stop sabotaging their identities and find solutions to help improve their mindset, mental toughness, and even their lives off the field.

Question: How else can you help athletes develop a healthy self-identity?

I’d love to hear from you in the comments below, or on Facebook or Twitter.

• Book: Head in the Game: The Mental Engineering of the World’s Greatest Athletes by Brandon Sneed
• Post: 3 Reasons Your Athletes Ignore Your Feedback
• Post: How to Help Athletes Manage Emotions and Avoid a Meltdown

The post How to Help Your Athletes Stop Undermining Their Identities first appeared on The Excelling Edge.

Sven-Goran Eriksson is one of soccer’s best managers. Over four decades he’s learned that, “The greatest barrier to success is the fear of failure.” Keep your athletes from succumbing to fear by teaching them to funnel their fear into high performance.

Crippled by Fear

All I wanted to do was to help my team win and make my family, coaches, and teammates proud. In the end, I failed. I lost a winnable match.

It was the Virginia High School League State Tennis Championships. I warmed up like a champ and felt good, but was understandably nervous.

As the singles match unfolded, my worst fears came to life. I fell apart. I choked. The harder I tried, the more I wanted turn things around, the worse I played.

I wasn’t mentally prepared to handle the pressure. I didn’t know how to regroup and bounce back.

I beat myself.

Where Attention Goes Energy Flows

The truth is, we can’t control fear. When athletes try to fight against their fear, to stifle it, the fear grows stronger. Fighting fear only makes it worse.

Where attention goes energy flows. This one of my favorite axims in sport psychology. Athletes are going to get more of what they focus on. If she focuses on making solid contact at the plate, she’s more likely to get a base hit. If he focuses on NOT missing the free throw, he’s more likely to miss it.

When athletes try to avoid their fears the brain amplifies the fear rather than the task-at-hand. This stomps on the gas pedal for the body’s fight-or-flight response, putting all systems on overdrive. As I experienced first hand, this is a disaster for performance.

4 Strategies to Prevent Fear of Failure from Sabotaging Performance

The good news is your athletes can learn to channel their fear. This is what I needed in the state tournament and didn’t have.

1. Go All In

Athletes can reinterpret fear and nervous sensations as motivation and excitement. One key to this is helping your players understand that avoiding failure is entirely the wrong approach.

Playing scared means playing it safe. That’s when athletes play NOT to lose, rather than playing to win – meaning their focus is on losing.

When you compete, go all in. As Robert F Kennedy put it, “Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly.”

2. Failure Isn’t Final

Athletes often fear failure because they view a failure as a defining moment. Those in a fixed mindset view failure as validation of their worst fear, that they don’t have what it takes.

Turn this misconception around. Teach your athletes to interpret their failures in a more productive way. Try this excerpt from Winston Churchill, “Success is not final, failure isn’t fatal: It’s the courage to continue that counts.”

3. Breath Into Your Fear

Rather than running from fear, athletes can learn to channel it into motivation. By using diaphragmatic breathing, athletes can pull back the reigns on their fear and steer that emotional intensity into the task-at-hand.

If athletes let fear run wild, it will ruin them. By channeling their fear it can work for them rather than against them.

4. Let Failure Be Your Teacher

Fear of failure is such an achilles heel for high performers that John C. Maxwell wrote a whole book on it titled “Failing Forward: Turning Mistakes into Stepping Stones for Success.”

In the military, every training exercise and mission is followed by an After Action Review (AAR), part of which is focused on what mistakes were made and how to learn from them. Mistakes and failure are assumed and the process exists to turn them into lessons learned.

Help your players analyze their failures and learn from them. As Henry Ford put it, “The only mistake is the one from which we learn nothing.”

A new perspective on failure prevents athletes from being sabotaged by fear.
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Empower Your Athletes to Face Their Fear

I hope you leverage these four strategies to help your athletes perform in the face of fear. Yet, I would be remiss not to mention one additional note. As a coach, you have enormous influence in the lives of your athletes. Your words are powerful, as you well know.

Allow me to pass along a final word of wisdom from legendary Duke men’s basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski. He advises, “I believe in you.” These four words can mean the difference between a fear of failure and the courage to try.”

Empower your athletes with courage and the tools to face their fear and fulfill their potential.

Question: What other tips do you have in helping athletes overcome fear?

I’d love to hear from you in the comments below, or on Facebook or Twitter.

• Book: Failing Forward: Turning Mistakes into Stepping Stones for Success by John Maxwell
• Post: Is the Word Don’t Sabotaging Your Communication?
• Post: How To Prevent Your Team from Beating Themselves
• Post: How To Reach Athletes Who Are Not Coachable
• Post: Juice It and Toss It: How To Redefine And Grow From Failure
• Post: Why Should Every Athlete Practice Diaphragmatic Breathing?
• Video: How To Help Athletes Embrace Nervousness

The post How to Prevent Fear of Failure from Sabotaging Performance first appeared on The Excelling Edge.

Athletes face a lot of pressure in sports today. They feel pressure to play at a high level and to earn playing time and scholarships. They feel pressure to recoup the investment their parents have made in travel ball and specialized coaching. Unfortunately, many athletes don’t recognize where the pressure is coming from or how to handle it.

Pressure Cooker

As a high school and collegiate athlete, one of my biggest frustrations was how I handled pressure.

My response was very inconsistent. Sometimes I rose to the occasion and performed well. More often I got frustrated and acted out in anger on the court. I wanted to play better, but didn’t know how to handle the pressure.

Basically, my frustration built up like a pressure cooker until I exploded – sabotaging my own performance.

5 Sources of Pressure

In a word, pressure boils down to expectations. Those expectations create tension. The bigger the gap between an athlete’s current performance or abilities and what is expected, the greater the pressure.

Pressure in sports comes from expectations.
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Before athletes can begin to learn to perform in face of those expectations, it is helpful to identify where those expectations are coming from.

Expectations typically come from 5 sources:

1. Self 

Athletes expect a certain level of performance from themselves. They expect to look a certain way, play a certain number of minutes, score a certain number of points, etc.

2. Coaches

Coaches, like the athlete, expect athletes to play to their potential, carry themselves with composure, and behave a certain way on the competition surface and on the sidelines.

3. Teammates

Similarly, athletes expect their teammates to play to their abilities, treat each other to a set standard, and abide by team norms.

4. Loved Ones

Parents, family members, friends, and significant others may also have expectations for an athlete. They may expect certain attitudes, communications, or behaviors from the athlete.

5. Media

Media expectations aren’t relevant at every level. For the levels at which they are present, media outlets may tote an athlete to have a breakout year, earn an individual honor, or lead their team to a championship.

The bottom line is that athletes don’t want to let anyone down, including themselves.

Is Pressure Bad?

No, pressure can be great for an athlete’s development, motivation, and performance.

The problem comes when athletes don’t believe they are living up to what’s expected of them. This is when pressure negatively impacts performance due to high stress, frustration, or embarrassment.

How Athletes Crumble Under Pressure

When athletes believe they are falling short of expectations, they often behave in 1 of 4 counterproductive ways:

• Act Out – on or off the field
• Isolate – pull away from teammates, friends, and coaches
• Play it Safe – causing hesitation, second guessing, and choking
• Quit – walk away from the team or maybe the sport altogether (these are your perfectionists as well as athletes in a fixed mindset)

Left to their own devices, most athletes will crumble under pressure. Many simply don’t know how to handle it.

Learning to handle pressure comes from learning the mental skills to manage emotions, control the controllables, and perform even in pressure situations.

Do your players have the mental skills required to perform under pressure?
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Empower Athletes to Adapt to Pressure

Coaches, help your athletes learn to handle pressure and manage expectations. Encourage them to discuss expectations with parents, coaches, and teammates. Show them how to adapt by developing mental skills to elevate their game. Your most mentally tough and resilient athletes will learn to apply new skills and adjust their level of preparation to perform up to the high expectations set for them.

Question: What helps your athletes respond well to pressure?

I’d love to hear from you in the comments below, or on Facebook or Twitter.

• Post: How to Help Athletes Manage Emotions and Avoid a Meltdown
• Post: How to Help Athletes Keep Cool When Emotions Run High
• Post: Do Your Athletes Know the Risks of Frustration?
• Post: How To Help Athletes Focus On What They Can Control
• Post: 4 Characteristics Describe How To Be a Clutch Player

The post How Do Your Athletes Handle All That Pressure? first appeared on The Excelling Edge.

Athletes can have a short fuse. When the game doesn’t go their way they get frustrated. Unfortunately, this frustration gets taken out on opponents, teammates, fans, officials, and equipment in aggressive ways. Depending on the team, this may be okay. What isn’t acceptable is letting frustration degrade performance. Help your athletes keep their emotions in check to perform their best.

Unglued On Court

I’ve shared before about my hot-headedness on the tennis court. At the time I wasn’t familiar with mental training and consequently lacked the mental skills to perform my best.

One aspect of this was frustration. I was very susceptible to losing my temper and imploding.

My attention became consumed by the uncontrollable factors of the match. These were mere distractions that I allowed to get under my skin. I came unglued emotionally, and so did my game.

Frustration is a Detriment

It turns out I wasn’t alone. Over the years I’ve seen it again and again. While the factors that lead to a frustration response can be quite complex, I want to hone in on the repercussions to your athlete’s performance.

Frustration is an obvious symptom of stress. Though competition is stressful, excess stress will deteriorate an athlete’s performance…fast.

According to the Inverted-U model of activation, too much stress (or too little) inhibits athletes from performing their best. Based on the graph below, activation improves performance, but only to a point. Once an athlete crosses the peak of the curve, activation starts to interfere with optimal performance.

3 Side Effects of Frustration

Frustration interferes with an athlete’s performance in 3 specific ways:

1. Increased Muscle Tension

As in most circumstances, moderation is good. Muscle tension is no exception and it interferes with performance in numerous ways:

• Slower reaction time
• Decreased dexterity
• Decreased flexibility
• Decreased range of motion
• Interrupted fluidity of movement

This may be why a golfer’s swing path changes under pressure. It may be why a goalie is slow to react to a shot on goal. I’m confident you can identify many other connecting dots.

2. Decreased Cognitive Functioning

Frustration is an emotional reaction to what an athlete is thinking, how he or she is interpreting what’s happening in the game.

When highly stressed, the brain operates differently. The well-trained thought processes (i.e., sport IQ) go untouched. The mind and body’s fight or flight response system takes over, meaning that the more primitive parts of the brain take control. Self-preservation, both physical and psychological (i.e., saving face, protecting one’s ego), become the priority at an unconscious level. The executive functions of the brain, responsible for higher order processing, are left out.

Simply put, the athlete no longer thinks at a high level. Consequently, performance suffers because of:

• Poor decision making
• Slower information processing
• Hesitation
• Poor working memory
• Misguided focus
• Limited vision

3. Ineffective Communication

As you’d expect (and have likely witnessed), communication crumbles under stress. When frustrated, athletes (and the rest of us) don’t verbalize with clarity or listen for understanding.

Specifically, frustration impedes communication due to:

• Increased volume
• Increased rate of speech
• Complaints, not solutions
• Lack of listening
• Me centered, not we centered

In a nutshell, frustration and stress disrupt your team’s ability to communicate effectively. This disrupts play calling, prompt tactical adjustments, chemistry, and much more.

Frustration sabotages your athletes’ performance physically, mentally, & relationally.
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If some of your athletes struggle with frustration (and getting over-activated), like I once did, here are a few resources to help:

• Diaphragmatic Breathing
• Progressive Muscle Relaxation
• Reframing Uncontrollable Stressors
• Shifting to Task-Focus

Keep Frustration in Check

Educate your athletes about the 3 ways frustration degrades their performance. Show them examples of how this has happened on the competition surface. Then point them to tips, tools, and resources (like Mental Training with me or the links above) to learn to keep their emotions under control. The bottom line is to keep frustration from sabotaging your athletes on and off the field.

Question: What do your athletes get frustrated about the most?

I’d love to hear from you in the comments below, or on Facebook or Twitter.

• Post: Put Yourself in the Driver’s Seat and Take Control of Stress
• Post: 5 Proven Reasons to be More Positive With Your Team
• Post: Why Should Every Athlete Practice Diaphragmatic Breathing?
• Post: How to Stay Loose Under Pressure by Practicing PMR
• Post: How To Help Athletes Focus On What They Can Control
• Post: Let Go Of What You Can’t Control And Reap Massive Rewards
• Post: How to Coach Athletes to Focus on the Right Thing

The post Do Your Athletes Know the Risks of Frustration? first appeared on The Excelling Edge.

Transitions are hard. Moving from the known to the unknown is scary. Yet the stats show that only 6% of high school athletes will play in college. Fewer than 0.5% of high school athletes will become professional athletes. Even if they do go pro, every athlete has to transition to life after sports one day. In working with Wounded Warriors over the years, I’ve learned that athletes can learn a lot from these resilient individuals.

If the term Wounded Warriors is new to you it refers to wounded, ill, and injured military service members and veterans. Allow me to introduce you to one in particular – Christy Gardner.

You can watch the ESPN SC Featured special on Christy and her dog Moxy here:

Showing Toughness in Transition

Christy Gardner was a dual sport scholarship athlete in lacrosse and field hockey before joining the Army in 2005.

One life-threatening incident changed her life forever. Twenty-two surgeries and two below the knee amputations later, Christy found herself in a dark place. Not only had she lost her career and her ability to walk, she had lost her independence.

While in treatment, Christy recalled the doctors going through a “3 page list of things I would never do again.”

She was no longer an athlete, no longer a Soldier, and no longer self-sufficient. In her mind, she’d lost everything. She was “at the bottom of the barrel.”

Then something happened. With a little help, Christy began to look through the windshield rather than the rearview mirror of her life.

When athletes face the end of their careers in sport they must do the same thing – focus on what’s ahead, not what they’re leaving behind.

3 Lessons for Successful Transitions

Athletes transition out of sports for countless reasons. Some are forced out by injury. Some no longer make the cut. Others simply choose a different path. Either way, the process of transitioning into life after sports can be a difficult challenge.

As we look to Christy Gardner’s story, here are 3 lessons coaches can share with athletes transitioning to life after sports in order to help them succeed.

1. Embrace What’s Ahead

With the help of a Vietnam veteran named Neil Williams, Christy was able to refocus on her abilities rather than her limitations. He helped her focus on what she could do, not what she couldn’t.

Transitioning athletes may often struggle with what they’re leaving behind as an athlete. For years their identity has been wrapped up in being an athlete. They mourn the loss of a clear purpose, close relationship with teammates, the familiar rigors of training, and the tempo of the season.

While these losses are real and may be painful, it is more productive to focus their energy on what lies ahead. What goals is she pursuing? What difference does he want to make in the world? Help your athletes to see what they have to offer to their employers, teams, and communities because of their athletic experience.

2. Identify Your Team

Like Gardner, athletes often draw motivation, inspiration, and drive from their teammates. She said, “I thrive on the energy of a team.”

As an athlete, this was true for me. Athletes transitioning into life after sports need to identify their new teams. Who will they draw their energy and purpose from? Who can they lean on and count on to have their backs?

Encourage them to use their sport experience to build teams and make their new teams better.

3. Leverage Your Competitive Spirit

Neil and her service dog, Moxy, helped bring out Christy’s dormant personality. She had lost the passion and determination that defined her – that helped her be a successful athlete and Soldier.

The competitive spirit is what gives prior athletes a leg up in the job market. Some organizations choose to hire athletes over non-athletes because of their work ethic, teamwork, and drive to win.

Challenge your athletes to channel their competitive juices toward the hurdles ahead of them. Get competitive about out-working your competition in the job market, boardroom, or sales team. The mindset that has afforded an athlete success on the court will benefit her in the workplace and community.

To transition well to life after sports athletes must adapt their athletic mindset to new roles.
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Empower Your Athletes To Transition Well

Successfully transitioning to life after sports is all about adapting. Help your athletes to adapt the skills that helped them be successful on the competition surface to their new roles in workplaces and communities around the globe. Show them how to look in through the windshield of life rather than the rearview mirror.

Question: What other challenges do athletes face when transitioning to life after sports? 

I’d love to hear from you in the comments below, or on Facebook or Twitter.

• Video: SC Featured on ESPN – Christy Gardner 
• Video: Christy Gardner Interview with Jon Stewart

The post What Can a Wounded Warrior Teach Athletes About Life After Sports? first appeared on The Excelling Edge.

If you are like most coaches, you’ve probably told your athletes, “Think before you act.” It is parental wisdom that applies on and off the field of play. Unfortunately, we continue to see athletes who react impulsively, rather than respond thoughtfully.

A Lifesaving Response

A few years ago my wife and I were on vacation in Alaska. While hiking we turned a sharp corner and found a large mama brown bear and her two cubs 40 feet away. The recommended safe distance is 100 feet.

We’d seen numerous warning signs aimed at educating people how to respond and how not to react to these beautiful beasts. The tough part was choosing the right response in that critical moment as anxiety and heart rate spiked. If we followed our instincts to turn and run, we’d likely initiate a game of tag that we could never win.

Fortunately, we kept our cool and responded calmly…and lived to tell about it.

Emotional Reactions

Too often athletes retaliate to an opponent’s actions and get called for the foul. Or worse, an athlete allows his emotions to “get the best of him” and overreacts to an aggressor when he’s out on the town.

When athletes let emotions drive impulsive reactions the results are never good.

The list of examples over the last few years is quite long. On the field, Jose Bautista’s controversial slide into second base sparked a clearing of the benches between the Rangers and Blue Jays last season. Bautista said it was in response to being hit by a pitch earlier in the inning.

Video of Ranger’s Rougned Odor and Bautista bench clearing brawl:

Off the field, the assault by NFL running back, Ray Rice, is one of the worst examples in recent years.

A reaction is impulsive, but a response is thoughtfully calculated.
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Respond Rather Than React

Help your athletes choose a thoughtful response, not an impulsive reaction. Here is a way to break it down for them:

1. Stuff Happens

Athletes can’t control everything that happens to them. Sometimes things happen they don’t like. An opponent calls them out on social media. Someone talks bad about their mom. Maybe a girl at a party is talking smack.

Regardless, things will happen that get under your athlete’s skin.

The point is that athletes don’t have control over what happens, but they can control how they respond.

2. Mental Time Out

Coaches call time outs to reset the team’s focus, make tactical adjustments, and set up the next play.

When adrenaline is running high, encourage your athletes to call a Mental Time Out. This is simply a momentary pause to give their brains time to do the next step – think.

During the time out, they need to take a diaphragmatic breath. It helps control emotions and improves problem solving, among other benefits.

3. Think

Thoughts drive performance and behavior. Athletes need to analyze the situation. They need to identify the high-road response.

Taking a moment to think is all about recognizing that the first impulse may not be the best. The Mental Time Out Helps bring athletes to their senses.

I often tell people “life is a bundle of choices.” By taking a pause and analyzing the options, athletes will be more likely to choose a thoughtful response rather than an impulsive reaction.

4. Respond

Now it’s time to live out a high-road response. Be the better person – the better version of yourself.

Walk away. Act unfazed. Let it go. It just isn’t worth it.

Acknowledge to your athletes that the high-road response may not be the most popular choice. Often peers antagonize athletes into impulsive reactions even though that doesn’t help the situation. It may be more entertaining in the moment, but when an athlete is ejected because of an impulsive act, no one wins.

A momentary Mental Time Out can save athletes embarrassment & costly consequences.
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Bonus Download

To help you remind your athletes that its how they think about a situation that will dictate their performance and behavior, download a copy of my Thoughts Drive Performance model.

It is a great visual to hang in the locker room or pass out to your team.

Promote a Better Response

Impulsive reactions get us all in trouble. Athletes are no different. Today’s athletes are under a microscope in our viral media culture and many people are simply trying to push their buttons or waiting for them to make a mistake on or off the competition surface.

Teach your athletes to take a Mental Time Out, breathe, think, and respond thoughtfully in the heated moments they face. You’ll not only keep them on the field, but be teaching them a valuable life skill in the process.

Question: What else can help your athletes choose a wise response in heated situations?

I’d love to hear from you in the comments below, or on Facebook or Twitter.

• Post: Why Should Every Athlete Practice Diaphragmatic Breathing?
• Video: How to Improve an Athlete’s Performance: A Proven Model

The post How to Help Your Athletes Avoid Costly Impulsive Reactions first appeared on The Excelling Edge.

Why do 92% of people fail to reach their New Year’s goals? They don’t have the commitment, resilience, and determination to see their resolution through. Perhaps they just lack an effective plan. Avoid becoming a statistic in 2017 and set yourself up for success. Set big goals. Make 2017 the best year ever – in sports, work, or life.

There is a big difference between a dream and a goal. Author and speaker Willie Jolley said, “A goal is simply a dream with a deadline.”

Think Big for 2017

However, a compelling goal, one that inspires us to fully commit to it, has a few additional qualities.

The following 4 qualities of compelling goals greatly increase our chances of turning our dreams into our reality.

Values-based. Your goals should stem from your WHY – why you do what you do the way you do it. Connect your goals to your fundamental values to maximize determination. Goals rooted in values are the goals that get accomplished when the going gets tough.

Incentive. Your goals should have an exciting pay off. What do you stand to gain once you accomplish the goal? Career advancement, healthier body, peer acknowledgement, personal satisfaction, more money…? A compelling goal has a defined upside.

Deadline. This separates a dream from reality. There is just something magical about deadlines. They are a catalysts. We want to meet them. We don’t want to fail. Setting a deadline creates the urgency you need to begin making progress today!

Specific. You can’t cross the finish line if you don’t know what the line looks like when you get there.  I don’t know what “lose weight” looks like. But you’ll know without a doubt when you’ve lost 15 lbs. and kept it off for 6 weeks. Now that’s specific! A compelling goal is well defined with no wiggle room for a participation trophy.

Truly compelling goals are more likely to get achieved because they share these 4 qualities.
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Make 2017 Your Best Year Ever

Stephen Covey nailed it when he coined the phrase, “Begin with the end in mind.”

If you want to make 2017 your best year yet, you’ve got to begin with the end in mind. You have to focus on a compelling goal – one that meets the 4 qualities above.

Envision what you want to be true for your life, your team, your family at the end of 2017.

Get clear on what it will be like, feel like, and look like to achieve it.

Maybe your goal is to…
– win a conference championship.
– turn battered program around.
– have a winning season.
– establish a dynasty.
– get a better job.
– grow your income.
– improve a relationship.
– be debt free.

Whatever your goal is, I want to help you get there.

Start now and make 2017 your best year ever!
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Take Control of 2017

If you are tired of not achieving your goals, or you really want to accomplish something special – making 2017 your best year yet, you definitely want to sign up for this free webinar.

Reserve you spot now. There are several options to fit your schedule. The first one is today!

It is called 7 Steps for Taking Control of 2017.

In it you’ll discover:
– The one overlooked strategy that will increase your success rate by 43%.
– How to “quit-proof” your goals and finally achieve what you set out to do.
– The secret to making it through the “messy middle” when the going gets tough.
– One commonly toted best practice to goal setting that may be sabotaging your success.

New York Times bestselling author, Michael Hyatt, will be leading the way and sharing these 7 steps with you. When you register, you can even submit a specific question for Michael to cover during the webinar.

I’ve attended many of Michael’s webinars over the last few years and they are always action-packed with tons of practical tips and strategies to set me up for success. This one is no different! You don’t want to miss it.

You can reserve your spot here.

Make 2017 Your Best Year Ever

I’ve personally taught goal setting to thousands of people and continue learning better ways to set, plan, and achieve goals.

One thing I’ve learned is that now is the time to start planning for 2017. Christmas will be here before you know it. And soon, it will be January and you’ll be back at the grindstone wondering when you’ll have time to slow down and be more intentional.

Now is the time! Do yourself, your family, and your team a favor…sign up for the free webinar and make the most of 2017.

P.S. If you’ve got too much to do, too little time, and don’t want to leave your success up to chance, click here and sign up for the best goal setting course on the planet – 5 Days to Your Best Year Ever! The price goes up this Thursday at midnight. Check it out.

Question: What is your greatest obstacle to achieving your biggest goals? I’d love to hear from you in the comments below, or on Facebook or Twitter.

• Free Webinar: 7 Steps For Taking Control of 2017
• Course: 5 Days to Your Best Year Ever

The post Why Not Make 2017 Your Best Year Ever? first appeared on The Excelling Edge.

One reason I love watching athletes receive awards is the acceptance speeches. In them athletes thank God, their mom, their Little League coach, their teammates, the fans, and on and on. They express tremendous gratitude to all those who helped them along the way. What if we encouraged athletes to express gratitude more often?

I try to practice what I preach. I’ve written posts about cultivating gratitude daily and giving thanks to others. Since being more intentional about gratitude, I’ve noticed more of the benefits found in research. It is awesome stuff!

Why Should Athletes Cultivate an Attitude of Gratitude? 

As I thought about teams and athletes I worked with I thought of six reasons athletes should cultivate gratitude. It would benefit their character, attitude, teamwork, and performance.

Cultivating #gratitude improves an athlete’s #character, attitude, #teamwork & #performance.
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Here are six reasons coaches should encourage more gratitude in their locker rooms:

1. Gratitude encourages humility. When athletes express gratitude they move further from the entitlement epidemic so prevalent in our society today. It is a small way athletes can demonstrate a we not me mentality.

2 .Gratitude deters arrogance. In what some call the “ME-llinial” generation some athletes are focused on their individual stats, highlights, and successes regardless of their team. Expressing gratitude to those who have contributed to each athlete’s journey acknowledges that other people matter. No one became successful alone.

3. Gratitude facilitates emotional control. Athletes who experience gratitude are likely to experience more positive emotions. This lowers stress, promotes problem solving, and greater self-regulation.

4. Gratitude fosters contentment. Not to be confused with complacency, contentment helps athletes to be grateful for what they’ve already received (playing time, involvement in a team, a scholarship, a platform to impact others, etc.). So often the focus is on what we don’t have, we forget to be grateful for what we do.

5. Gratitude stewards stronger teams. Research shows that when people cultivate an attitude of gratitude on a regular basis they act with more compassion, generosity, and kindness. This has a positive impact  on their relationships. A team with better relationships performs better.

6. Gratitude enhances athletic performance. Cultivating a consistent attitude of gratitude benefits athletes mentally, physically, and socially. Grateful athletes take better care of their bodies and they tolerate aches and pains easier. They sleep 10% more and feel more alert and focused. All that translates into better performance in competition and the classroom.

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Use this poster to encourage your athletes to cultivate an attitude of gratitude on and off the playing surface.

Cultivate an Attitude of Gratitude in Your Locker Room

Help your team and your athletes to cultivate an attitude of gratitude this week. But don’t stop there. Make it a mainstay in your locker room or facility by designating a space (like on a white board) where players can write at least one thing they are grateful for each week. It could be an opportunity they received, a class they worked hard to pass, kindness shown by a teammate – anything. Cultivating an attitude of gratitude will better your players as athletes and as people and also improve your team.

Every coach should add a #gratitude board to their locker room.
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Question: How will you encourage an attitude of gratitude this week? Leave your ideas in the comments below, or on Facebook or Twitter.

• Post: Give Thanks: How to Share the Gift of Gratitude 
• Post: The Entitlement Epidemic: How You Can Be Part of the Cure

The post Did You Know Gratitude Improves Athletic Performance? first appeared on The Excelling Edge.

Aristotle said, “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” I love this quote. It is a reminder that success comes from doing the little things, consistently, over time. I’ve written before about 11 habits that cultivate excellence, but many people struggle to develop habits in the first place. 

We Run On Habits

The truth is, we all have habits. Some are good for us and others aren’t. According to a study published in 2006, nearly 40% of our daily actions are a result of habit, not conscious choice. Whether we like it or not, our habits form a large chunk of our behavior, decisions, and performance.

In his book, The Power of Habit, Charles Duhigg  explains a habit as formula that our brains have learned to follow: “When I see CUE, I will do ROUTINE in order get a REWARD.” Ideally, our brain develops these pattens to make life easier by putting certain behaviors on autopilot.

How I Became A Morning Person

I used to sleep in as long as I could. After hitting the snooze alarm two or three times, I forced myself to put my feet on the floor. Then I’d spin around like the Tasmanian Devil getting a shower, eating breakfast, and whirling out the door.

I wanted to do more, be more, accomplish more. I decided to become a morning person. My wife didn’t think it would last a week. It was going to be tough. But I did it – for a week. Then another week. More recent research says it can take 60 days to form a new habit. Now, five years later, I’m a morning person. I get up at 5 o’clock every weekday morning (with rare exceptions of course).

Understanding the Habit Loop

In my case, I needed to change a habit. Hitting the snooze button and dozing off was the old habit. Getting up for self-development was the new habit. Let’s explore 3 components of Duhigg’s habit loop to help you learn to establish a new habit and help you cultivate excellence.

There are three parts to every habit:

1. Cue
2. Routine
3. Reward

To understand our habits (good or bad), we need to identify the components of our habit loops.
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Going back to my early riser example, the alarm was my cue, hitting snooze was my routine, and the reward was the joy of rolling over for a few more z’s.

How to Create a New Habit

“You’ll never change your life until you change something you do daily. The secret of your success is found in your daily routine,” according to John C. Maxwell.

What habit do you want to change? What habit do you want to develop? What habit have you tried and failed to start? Dissect the habit loop and finally make the change you want to see in your life.

1. Routine

As Stephen Covey taught us, we have to begin with the end in mind. What is the routine (read habit or behavior) you want to create?

Do you want to exercise more consistently? Do you want to skip dessert? Do you want to respond differently to your kids?

What do you want the new behavior to look like?

2. Reward

In The Power of Habit, Duhigg encourages us to experiment with rewards. Every habit has a reward, even if it is to avoid the pain of getting up off the couch to exercise. The reward is enjoying your favorite TV show or just relaxing instead of doing the hard things that lead to success.

To reinvent a habit, you’ll need to find a suitable reward. Rewards can be tricky. For example, do you struggle to get off the couch because you just hate running, because you need to elevate your blood sugar with a snack, or for some other reason?

Remember that we often trade short-term comfort for long-term success. It feels good in the moment but we regret it later.

For your new habit, experiment to find the reward that will work best for you. It may be tangible. Or it may be the personal satisfaction of knowing you’re getting better everyday.

3. Cue

Lastly, you need to identify the cue to kick off your new habit. It turns out that we’re wired for certain types of cues.

Use these 5 types of cues to set yourself up for success:

• Location
• Time
• Emotional State
• Other People
• Immediately Preceding Action

For example, I’m much more likely to exercise if my immediate preceding action is changing into my running clothes. And that is more likely if I’ve had a snack and bottle of water in the past hour. These cues can work for me or against me when it comes to getting my workout.

Together, an intentional cue and a compelling reward vastly increase your chances of executing your habit. Now put the habit loop to work for you day in and day out until it becomes automatic.

Leverage the Habit Loop

In order to cultivate excellence in sports, work, or life, you’ll need excellence building habits on your side.  Legendary Packers coach Vince Lombardi said, “You don’t win once in a while, you don’t do things right once in a while, you do them right all the time. Winning is a habit.”

Leverage the habit loop to cultivate excellence in your chosen arena. What separates the good from the great is often consistency. Habits build consistency. Excellence is a habit.

Question: What is the hard part of creating a habit? I’d love to hear from you in the comments below, or on Facebook or Twitter.

• Book: The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg
• Post: Cultivate Excellence Daily

The post How to Create a New Habit first appeared on The Excelling Edge.