Elite performance comes from being fully immersed in process; It’s what we call being in the moment, dialed in, or in the zone. But the challenge is that the external scoreboards of sport and life can consume our focus and distract our attention from the process. We all know the cliché, "focus on what you can control," but the problem is that it is a lot easier said than done. In fact, the root cause for most mental blocks stems from getting caught up in society’s definition of success - the external scoreboards. For example: Struggle with confidence? Then you probably tie your confidence to results. Get nervous & tense? Then you are probably worried about results. Struggle with resilience? Then you probably beat yourself up after negative results. To make matters worse, it’s hard to escape the external scoreboards. There are literally massive signs with bright lights in your face all game. Follow these 3 steps to develop your own personal scorecard and you will learn to focus on the things within your control, be immersed in the process, and achieve Consistent Elite Performance. STEP 1: What to Score The key here is clearly identifying what matters to you. These should be highly within your control and meaningful to your performance. The two main categories you should include are: Mental State Process STEP 2: How to Score It For mental state, we encourage using a percentage based on a contrast. For example, 70% attack vs. 30% fear mindset. The goal should be to hit 95%+. This is not about perfection, but doing your best to be fully committed to the mental state that matters to you. When measuring your process, you can use percentages as well, but the key here is that it depends on the standards you set for yourself. We call this EPS: Executing my Process to my Standard. We recommend using a three tier system to measure your EPS: Well: At or above you standard Meh: Close but not at your standard No: Not even close and was likely a mental mistake What most people get wrong here is that they start tracking the result, like successful plays made. This is not what we want to track here. Instead, it’s about how you actually executed your process. You could execute your process well but get an unlucky result, or execute poorly but get a lucky result. So on your personal scorecard, we want how you executed your process to your standard, not results. STEP 3: Get the Most Out of It All of this can be ruined if you don’t stop checking, let alone obsessing over, your stats or results. What we look at and focus on matters. That’s the whole point of the personal scorecard. So you can thwart the main purpose of it if you keep going online and filling your mind with external scoreboards and comparisons. [...]

Visualization can be a game changer for athletes. Unfortunately, most athletes are not consistently nor effectively using this simple but powerful strategy. The problem is you either don’t realize the impact or you don’t know exactly what you should be doing. The good news - that changes today. The Power of Your Mind There is an abundance of research highlighting the positive effects of visualization, but the story of Major James Nesmeth is by far the most compelling: Major Nesmeth was an average American golfer and generally shot in the 90’s. However, his golf game was put on hold as he left for the Vietnam war. Unfortunately things took a dark turn, as he was captured and became a prisoner of war. He was imprisoned in a small cage, 4.5 ft long and 5 ft tall - preventing him from standing or doing any physical activity. As you can imagine the conditions were less than ideal and took an incredible toll on his body and mind. At first, he just sat there and hoped he would be saved. But eventually he needed to do something with his mind to help dissociate from where he was and prevent his spirit from being completely depleted. So, he started visualizing playing 18 holes, and often 36 holes of golf at his favorite course. He would close his eyes and vividly imagine walking through each hole and playing every shot out in his mind. The more he practiced visualizing, the more real the sights, the sounds, and the feeling of playing became. It was like he was literally there playing. This went on for 7 years! This in and of itself is an amazing feat to survive for that long under those conditions. But the best part was after being released and coming home - all he wanted to do was go play golf at his favorite course. Of course, he took a week or so to get some proper food in him and get adjusted back to life at home. Then without actually swinging a real club in over 7 years, he plays his first round. He shoots a 74 - his best round ever and gets a hole in one! *Note this is based on a real person, but the story has been told so many times and is all over the internet with different variations. That is the power of your mind. By consistently mentally rehearsing, you can improve your performance without actual in-person practice. We see this effect with athletes returning from injury. They come back better than before they were injured - because they lean into consistent and effective visualization. To be clear, you will get the best benefits by combining visualization with actual practice. Here are the 5 key to effective visualization: 1. Vividness This is all about the five senses: sight, sound, touch, smell, and even taste. In addition, you need to tap into how you want to feel emotionally when you play your sport. You [...]

If you want a sure fire way to quickly transform your mental game - you need to develop a personalized Alter Ego. This strategy is not about putting fixed labels on who you are as a person. Rather it is about creating a narrative about how you want to show up on the field of play. The Power of Simplicity and Creativity Credit to my coach and mentor Todd Herman for writing the book: The Alter Ego Effect and helping bring more simplicity and creativity to the mental game.Unfortunately most sport psychology strategies are: Dry Boring Overcomplicated As an athlete you don’t want to be out on the field of play trying to remember to use positive self talk, thought stopping, breathing exercises and re-framing situations.These strategies won’t get you repeatable and reliable results, instead they just give you more things to think about, when what you need to do is think less.You want to keep it simple and just play your game.Therefore, you need practical and personalized strategies that work for you.That’s exactly what you get in our 1-2 punch of the Reset Routine and Alter Ego.Here are the 3 steps to creating a personalized Alter Ego: STEP 1: Develop a Contrast Think of the Alter Ego strategy as creating two contrasting narratives.On one side you have your worst self, your shadow self, or your comfortable self. This is the self that holds you back, that plays safe, and that worries about what other people think.On the other side you have your heroic self, your best self, or your courageous self. This is the self that embraces the moment, that is confident in their capabilities, and attacks the game.My favorite way that Todd Herman explains these contrasting narratives is that the Heroic Self is the true-self while the Shadow Self is the false-self.True-Self vs False-Self A common misconception is your shadow self is the real you and you need to become your heroic self.This is very limiting because you are seeing yourself and the real you as less than, and you need to add traits and become something you are not.However, the reality is you have the heroic traits already within you and that is the true you.Todd uses Superman and Clark Kent as an example. Who is the true-self vs the false-self? The reality is that Superman is always there and sometimes he ‘holds himself back’ to fit in or play small.This is an important frame when doing this exercise. This makes your Alter Ego more about letting go of the limiting beliefs and the narratives holding you back so you can allow yourself to be the true version of yourself.The next important part of developing this contrast is to identify the field of play and specifically the moments of impact. The Moments of ImpactIdentifying your key moments of impact is crucial to making your Alter Ego simple yet powerful.You should pick 3 to 5 moments that have the [...]

The ability to block out the ‘noise’ is key to having a clear mind and playing free. But this is easier said than done - many athletes have trouble blocking out the ‘noise’ and end up:  Overthinking Doubting their abilities Worrying about things out of their control When you lack alignment within your thoughts, feelings, and actions, you end up losing the ability to play in the flow state. The best strategy to clear and block out the noise is a Reset Routine. The problem with blocking out the noise and clearing your mind is that it is not tangible. You can’t just hit a switch, throw away the distracting thoughts, or just forget about your worries. It doesn’t work that way. However, the Reset Routine provides a repeatable and reliable solution by pulling together three crucial psychological concepts to feeling free and in the moment. The magic is not in the routine itself, but in what the routine represents. Here are the ABC’s to creating an effective and personalized Reset Routine:  STEP 1: Accept This is the most important step, yet it’s the most misunderstood. For example most athletes get caught in the ‘need to, have to, and shoulds’ of performance - this leaves them: Feeling the burden of expectations Distracted by the results that are not in their control Primed to be frustrated if they fall short of their expectations The key to letting go of this noise is acceptance, but the problem is our society thinks acceptance is a weakness. It’s misconstrued to be this fluffy lovey dovey concept best reserved for hippies. However, if properly understood and effectively used it is one of the most powerful tools to getting centered, grounded, and becoming the hero of your own story. That is why this step is the most important - without it your Reset Routine will not be effective or reliable. The Pink Elephant and the Bubble One of the analogies we like to use is the pink elephant and the bubble. If I say “don’t think of a pink elephant.” What do you think of? A pink elephant… This is not an effective strategy, yet that is exactly what most advice is for athletes: Don’t worry about it Forget about it Be positive These might be the results we want but they do not tell us how to get those results. Think of your focus and awareness as a bubble, and what we want is to have a clear bubble - where you are dialed into the process. But the problem is pink elephants show up - aka distracting thoughts and feelings.   You can’t run away from them, they stay with you. You can’t ignore them and look away, they are still there and you will feel them weighing on you. You can’t fight them off, they will just get bigger and louder. The solution is to go to them, to understand them, to embrace them, to accept [...]