Category: Mental Toughness

MRR Wins Pan Am Games Silver

8/15/2019

Last week was a big deal for one of my athletes, as Guatemalan international racquetballer Maria Renee Rodriguez earned a silver medal at the Pan Am Games with her doubles partner Ana Gabriela Martínez!

This was the first Pan Am medal won by any Guatemalan racquetball player, and, as you can imagine, it meant a lot to MRR.

I encourage you to spend a couple of minutes to read her blog about the nerves, pressure, excitement, and joy of standing on the podium in a major event.

This is why I do what I do: to see athletes and coaches achieve their potential.

Invictus by William Ernest Henley

1/22/2019

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate,
I am the captain of my soul.

Sustained Effort and Winning

1/7/2019

Winning, Effort, and Sustained Effort - I discuss a passage from Tim Grover's book Relentless.

What Makes Us Successful?

9/21/2018

In this short video, I discuss a quote by author and performance coach Tim Grover about abilities, skills, and how best to use them. I also discuss what does and does not make athletes and coaches successful.

Mental Toughness - Dealing With Difficult Conditions

6/28/2018

In this short video, I use a quote from tennis legend Helen Hull Jacobs to explain how to overcome adverse situations in sports.

Mental Challenges are for professional athletes too

5/30/2018

It's great to see professional athletes recognizing the mental battle that goes on between their ears. In this situation it's tennis pro John Isner. Yet, I can only imagine how he could have been helped throughout his junior, college and young professional career to change some of his failures into successes.

"As a professional athlete, you want to feel so strong and impervious to everything, but that wasn't the case for me and I let him know that," Isner told me in Houston at the U.S. Men's Clay Court Championships last month. "I let him know what I was feeling in the big moments. I let him know sometimes how scared I was."

"I'd find myself seizing up, not freeing up," Isner said. "And just wanting to win so badly that I didn't want to go after it myself, I was a little afraid of that. With how I'm built, it's the absolute wrong thing to do. When other players get nervous and get tight, say, be it a Nadal, a Djokovic, a Murray -- they can rely on their wheels. I can't. I'd just find myself hoping my opponent would miss. I knew what was holding me up was myself."

Tim Grover - Relentless - quote

5/14/2018

I discuss a quote from Tim Grover's book Relentless. He highlights how important mental training and toughness in and external to sport is.

learning From presidents

11/21/2017

I break down USA President Teddy Roosevelt's famous quote about daring greatly. I explain the importance of giving everything and understanding that winning is sometimes achieved even if an athlete loses. I also highlight that losing and failing is a natural process.

What is Mental Toughness?

11/1/2017

What is Mental Toughness? Jones and colleagues said THIS is what makes a mentally tough athlete:
1. having self-belief in one’s ability to achieve goals;
2. being able to recover from set backs and having an extra determination to succeed;
3. having a high amount of self belief that one has better abilities and more qualities than their opponents;
4. having a high amount of motivation and desire to succeed;
5. being fully-focused on the task even when there are distractions;
6. having the ability to regain psychological control following uncontrollable events;
7. having the ability to overcome emotional and physical pain;
8. being able to accept and cope with the anxiety experienced in competition;
9. thriving on pressure;
10. having the ability to not be affected by good or bad performances;
11. having the ability to remain fully focused even in the face of distraction;
12. the ability to switch the focus on your sport on and off.

Of course, this is all easy on paper. It takes training to be able to do it. That's my job!

Jones, G., & Hanton, S., & Connaughton, D. (2002). What Is This Thing Called Mental Toughness? An Investigation of Elite Sport Performers. Journal of Applied Sport Psychology .. 14. 205-218. 10.1080/10413200290103509.