Say hello to my athlete Maddie, in her first World race competing for Canada at the Junior World Snowboarding Championships in Italy just over one week ago.

I started working with Maddie about 2 years ago now, and at that time she was extremely talented, yet she kept falling on her second run.  Through consistent mental toughness coaching and training, and learning how to manage her snowboard goals while taking a full university course-load, she received the news of a lifetime about one month ago: she was one of three Canadian women selected to the Junior World Snowboarding Team.

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Yes, you read me correctly: focusing on your goals doesn’t work, in fact goals don’t work unless you don’t focus on them.  Let me explain.

To get the most out of your performance, it’s imperative that you maintain present-minded focus.  If you’re not focused completely on the present moment, your opportunity for performance declines correspondingly.  So, if you are distracted by a thought about the future or about what you want (or don’t want) in the future – your “what ifs?” or “shoulds”, as I refer to them – you simply cannot play your best.

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I’m always amazed at the inspiration that comes from children’s movies. One of my favourites is Kung Fu Panda. In the movie, a food loving, out of shape panda named Po aspires to be a Kung Fu Master. After a funny series of events, he is accepted into the Kung Fu training program led by Master Oogway, a wise old turtle.

One of my favourite lines by the wise Master Oogway really gives some food for thought:

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I am reminded right now, as I keep trying harder and harder to figure out what profound message I’ll write right now (with less ideas coming the harder I try to think of them), of what my national team coach Lorne Sawula used to say to me. Lorne would proclaim ‘You make the easy look hard and the hard look easy!’. In other words, I suffered from analysis to paralysis – over-thinking to the point where I could no longer perform simple tasks, because with these easy tasks, there was space for me to think.

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I’m so excited to tell you about Erika. She is a young gymnast who has been working with Mental Toughness Inc. for eight months now. We have focused on coping with the stresses of high performance (lots of elements of risk) routines, and maintaining confidence as the competition-stakes get higher.

Last week at Provincials (the equivalent of a state championship, for those in the U.S.), Erika’s first of two days of competition had not gone as she had hoped. She completed solid, but not flawless executions of two of her four events. In the two events she did nail, floor and vault, Erika had to cope with feelings of disappointment, and still face the next day of competition. She knew she had to call on her mental toughness, and she and I spoke at length that night.

After putting the highs and lows into perspective I asked Erika about her disappointment. She embodied (remembered with all of her senses) the feelings and physical sensations of knowing her performance was good, but not her best. She accepted, rather than resisted, her reasonable feelings of frustration and sadness. She acknowledged her emotions and let go of what she ‘should’ feel, or what she needed to ‘make herself’ feel for the next day.

From that self-compassionate place of acceptance, and by being with her emotions rather than trying to control them, Erika could see that what happens tomorrow is not predicated on today. In other words, after really being with her disappointment she was able to clear the emotional deck, and create Day 2 from scratch.

Erika then embodied the exhilaration she feels when she knows she’s nailed a routine. Before she turned in for the night she committed to visualizing her best events performed flawlessly, followed by reliving the feelings of elation when she sticks her landings.

Erika says she awoke on Day 2 “impatient” to start the day, and she reports feeling “excited and jittery, in a good way”. Those new feelings set the stage for a great day of competition. Erika scored two personal bests in floor and vault, and came away with the gold medal for her floor routine.

Erika showed remarkable maturity as an athlete. She had the kind of day any athlete knows, the “less than she’d hoped for kinda day”. She had self-awareness that she was emotionally burdened by that. By reaching out to her Mental Toughness coach, she demonstrated resilience and determination to face the next day with psychological strength. Erika was courageous, and felt into her difficult emotions of stress and disappointment, without shying away from them, allowing them eventually to pass, or have less hold over her. And she used the power of embodiment and visualization to imagine, and then execute, a stellar performance.

Congratulations Erika!

If you are looking for a way to overcome fear that is holding you back from a maxed outperformance, then there are a lot of resources out there that can help. Here are a few good articles. You will see some commonalties between them.

Sure-fire Ways to Overcome Fear and Anxiety Today:

If you find yourself becoming overly anxious, use the following steps to help you calm down and start to regain control.
http://www.uncommonhelp.me/articles/overcome-fear-and-anxiety/

3 Ways to Overcome Fear Immediately

If there is one thing that holds millions of people back each day from growing as an individual, achieving high levels of success and becoming the best version of themselves, fear is definitely at the top of the list.
http://www.artofliving.org/meditation/meditation-for-you/understanding-fear

Ten ways to fight your fears

Whatever it is that scares you, here are 10 ways to help you cope with your day-to-day fears and anxieties.
http://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/stress-anxiety-depression/Pages/overcoming-fears.aspx

Getting through fear is a skill that anyone can learn. The problem is that most people cling to their fears, because it’s part of who they are. If you aren’t ready to face your fears, you probably won’t. And there’s nothing wrong in that. Everything happens in its own time.
http://www.wakeupcloud.com/overcoming-fear/

I’m so excited that this day has finally come! The North American launch of our new home-study Mental Toughness Training Program for Champion Athletes.

Over the past five years, I’ve worked with athletes across North America on elevating their mental toughness to max out their performance and I’ve been surprised that there are so many athletes bumping up against the same performance barriers.

Have you ever wondered what sets apart the Champion Athlete from the rest of the pack – like, what has two athletes of equal talent perform at different levels?

Nine times out of 10, the champion athlete is able to mentally outlast their competitor: It’s that simple.

Yet, the majority of athletes do not train their mind, they bank hundreds of training hours each month, and they spend next to none of that time training their mind. Then they wonder why at clutch moments, when the pressure is on, they underperform.

I spent two years researching and writing my Master’s thesis on this very topic: What has athletes perform or underperform at the biggest competition in the world, the Olympics? What’s the experience of anxiety like for the champion vs. the second-string athlete?

You can read my full thesis on mental toughness here:  >> http://www.ruor.uottawa.ca/handle/10393/32295

The research was unanimous: Those who performed at the Olympics were those who placed a priority on training their mind, those who had specific mental practices that would have them shine when the spotlight was on.

Athletes like Kerri Walsh, 3x Olympic Gold Medalist (who took part in my study) were adamant about training their mind. In fact Walsh shared with me that she’s ALWAYS anxious – she simply has the mental toughness to combat any anxiety and to perform at her best.

Yet, so many athletes I spoke and worked with over the past five years did not have this mental discipline, they were super talented when it came to sport skill; however, they simply could not perform at their peak consistently at key moments.

I knew from my own sporting experience the true value of mental toughness training, as even with a dedicated sport psychologist by my side, I still found the mental game my most difficult opponent.

This lack of mental toughness training spanned all sports, all ages, all provinces, all states. I could see it was really a North-American-wide phenomenon, the next unchartered frontier in sport performance.

I knew we at Mental Toughness Inc. had to do something about this cross-continent mental toughness epidemic, but how could we possibly reach millions of athletes to transform the North American mental toughness culture.

That’s when we turned to modern technology and created a mastery series of three Mental Toughness Training Programs for Champion Athletes: the Kickstarter, the Fear Buster, and the Results Booster.

How the Training Program works:

These programs in our Mental Toughness Mastery Series, spanning 16 weeks in total, will give any athlete of any discipline and any age all the tools s/he needs to rapidly expand their mental toughness.

And the best part: Athletes can train their mental toughness using the downloadable MP3 files whenever and wherever they want! We know how busy it is to be an elite athlete, so we wanted to make this program as easy as possible for the busy athlete to use!

So for only about 30 minutes of dedicated study time per week, we guarantee the athletes using our program will see a dramatic increase in their mental toughness!

I couldn’t be more excited and proud of the opportunity these three mental toughness training audio programs provide for all athletes, worldwide. I’ve literally poured my heart and soul and all my wisdom – every single mental toughness tool we use with our private clients are included – into these audio programs.

And, given you are are reading this post, we’ve decided to give you a deep discount on the program price. We want to make it a no brainer that all athletes purchase this program, and we definitely don’t want cost to get in the way.

We made it a no-brainer for you:

This is reserved for our email list subscribers but since you read this article you can have the special deal too.

Your special discount on our first program – the Mental Toughness KICKSTARTER Training Program for Champion Athletes – is available here. You may notice it is regularly $97 (see here).

Today, for you, it is almost $60 off. Learn more

So that you too can MAX OUT your performance by elevating your mental toughness.

Thank you so much for the inspiration and motivation to fulfill on my life’s work through the creation of these programs, they really are my legacy. I’m so excited to share in your success as you too become a Mental Toughness CHAMPION.

Until next time, train tough!

Coach Kara
…and the Mental Toughness Team

P.S. Don’t forget to access the Kickstarter training program -including your special $37.50 pricing from this link: CLICK HERE

P.P.S If you want a free tool from the program to see how effective it is, click to get it here.

What would it take for you to win more than 100 regular season games in a row? To be the winner in over 100 straight competitions?

Imagine that! Talk about mental toughness!

Few athletes or teams have accomplished this in their career. The first team that comes to mind is 3x Olympic Gold Medalists Misty May-Trainor and Kerri Walsh: The most winningest team in sport history.

I am proud to say that a team that I’ve worked with for the past two seasons – the Humber College Hawks Volleyball Team — did just that as they completed their regular season by capturing the (Ontario) provincial gold medal.

At the end of their gold medal victory, the Hawks had won 105 straight games and won 9 straight Provincial Championships. Tomorrow (March 11 2016) they start their run towards a national championship gold medal.

Two of their graduating athletes were live on Breakfast Television last week. Check out what they had to say about the accomplishment: click here

When I asked Hawks 5th Year Captain, Thalia Hangman, what wisdom she wanted to share with you, she shared the following:

"Don't strive for what's acceptable. Always strive to be great!"

Having worked with the Hawks, here are the Top 3 reasons why I say they’ve achieved this result.

Top 3 Reasons for Humber’s Success:

1. Expert Coaching and Training Environment

The Hawks bench is very deep: Anyone could play on any given day. This has created an intense practice environment that’s sometimes more competitive than their games. Combine that with expert coaching by Chris Wilkins and his crew, and you’ve got a hotbed for talent production.

According to the The Talent Code: Greatness Isn’t Born. It’s Grown. by Daniel Coyle, these sort of training environments where you’re pushed to the edge of your ability are the breeding ground of the best athletes in the world. By pushing yourself outside of your comfort zone, you are more rapidly able to develop new skill patterns in your brain.

2. Tough Love

The Hawks are a family. And like families, they have it out every once and a while. They are willing to speak their mind and have tough conversations because of their love and commitment to their team, to their family. They hold each other accountable for their performance. At the end of the day, it’s all for the betterment of the team.

3. A Commitment to Mental Toughness

Led by their coaching staff and captains, the team has embraced their mental toughness training.

The captains were on weekly mental toughness calls, they had monthly mental toughness workshops, and in between they tested out the different mental toughness tools to determine what worked best for them.

One of the hardest things for any team is playing against those teams who are less skilled than you – what you tend to do is to play down to their level. It takes even more mental toughness to compete against lower ranked teams and win, then it does to do so versus those teams at your ranking. This wasn’t always easy for the Hawks, yet they came up victorious each time.

Next week, I’ll share with you one of the top mental toughness tools I taught the Humber Hawks this season, so stay tuned . . .

Congratulations Hawks. We’re all rooting for you this weekend as you go for gold!

Sincerely,
Coach Kara

PS. Keep tuned to your email as we have just finished creating some amazingly effective tools, products and programs to boost your mental toughness, so you can have the same success as the Humber Hawks. You might have seen a couple of message from us already. If you missed it, check out this new performance ebook.

You are an athlete, a high performer, and you don’t have time to waste, right?  And, I’ll bet that’s not all you do.  You likely balance family, education, work, daily chores, making meals (you’ve got to eat don’t you?), and recovery tasks like massage, physiotherapy, and more eating!  So, how can you make more time to focus on your passions?  The following 8 ideas will make you more productive so that you have more time for your other passions:

Start your day out right!
Self-control has been shown to be highest in the morning.  By making good choices early, you can take your morning energy well into your day.

• Begin by drinking lemon water.  It improves nutrient absorption over time, which can result in a steadier level of energy over the course of your day.
• Exercise to get yourself going.  This may not be your primary work out, but even one short vigorous activity will set your body up for a productive day.
• Stay away from screen-time.  Practice self-awareness at the beginning of your day (some people choose to meditate).  This kind of awareness is critical to high performers, so spend some time with yourself, and let the others wait.

Set goals for your day!
As in sports, so in life.  Daily goals help you focus your energy.  The completion of these specific goals/tasks over the course of the day helps you have a sense of accomplishment.  Setting training goals for each training session gives meaning to each workout.  The sense of achievement refuels your energy tank.

To-Do Lists CAN work!
What are the tasks that need to be tackled in order to meet your goals for the day? Go ahead, make a list, but do this one critical thing:  ASSIGN DATES and TIMES to each item on the list.  Scheduling the tasks holds you accountable to yourself, has you avoid distractions, and ensures that you create quality time (both physical and mental) for your training.  You can use the same technique as a structure for your training time.  For example, before your workout decide what, and for how long, and then give it all you’ve got!

De-clutter your critical spaces!
By this I mean not just your room or your office, but your workout spaces.  In what state of order is your gear?  Can you grab it and go?  Is it washed and ready, just waiting to be put to good use?  If it’s not, then get on top of it.  You lose time looking for things, so make sure your gear is ready for the day, if not the night before, then as a part of your morning routine.  Declutter your training space too: No cell phones, make it ready for the work you must do, and then you can stay focused on the task.  Remove the obstacles in your way.  Clear your space, clear your mind, and keep your goals and objectives in sight.

90 minutes is the magic number!
Whether it’s for chores, schoolwork or training, 90 minutes has been shown to be the maximum time you can work hard at one task.  What is even more efficient is to break the 90 minutes into 20-30 minute chunks.  Take intentional short breaks, change your visual focus, alter your posture, and then get back at it with gusto!  Envisioning your workouts in parcels like this will also have you more focused and working with more intensity.

Do the hard things first!
Tackling the toughest tasks at the beginning of your day, when your energy is highest, will pay off with a sense of achievement that will refill your precious well of energy.  And, getting started on the hard things first trains you out of the trap of procrastination.  This freedom from procrastination fires you up and frees you to do the things you really want to do.

Say NO, and say no to multi-tasking!
Multitasking doesn’t work.  Your brain can only focus on one thing at a time, and that’s a skill you want to perfect for training and competition.  We coach our athletes to know that “performance only happens in the present”.  So, why not practice focus all day long.  Saying NO to distractions honors your commitment to your goals and to yourself.  It’s time to channel your inner toddler and say ‘No!’ to the things that you from what you really want to achieve today.  Keep an inventory of what distracts you (put away your phone!) and avoid it.

Sleep more and sleep better!
It goes without saying that if you are well rested, you’ll have better energy during the day.  Better energy leads to more impactful actions, and ultimately to higher performance.  n evening routine provides the foundation for the kind of sleep a high performer really needs.  Bedtime is another place to practice discipline: Keep regular hours, avoid food just before you hit the sack, and no screen time for at least 30min before its lights out.  (More on the importance of sleep another time!)  Go to bed with discipline, wake up with discipline, and start all over again to maximize productivity all day long!

Have a great day!!