From my experiences as an athlete, coach and sport psychology consultant it has become more and more obvious to me that high performance is in the middle. The zone that some many athletes take about getting into involves a twecking mentality to find the right balance. So many times athletes are changing aspects of their performances that ultimately cause them to jump over the zone without ever really finding the zone. The main cause for jumping over the zone is focusing to much energy on what the athlete is doing wrong. When an athlete pays the majority of their attention to what is not working it often results to changes. Here are is some food for thought. What happens when an athlete over trains? What happens when an athlete under trains? What happens when we sleep to much? What happens when we don’t sleep enough? Etc etc. The best performers whether athletes, business people, professionals, parents appear to me to find a nice balance in everything they do. I really can’t think about anything that is better when we do it to the extreme.

The other day I had a high performing athlete come into my office with feelings of helplessness. After a great fall season this athlete got injuried towards the end of November early December. The trainers doing everything they could were having a hard time diagnosing the root of the problem. It was decided that this athlete should take the month of December completely off. When the athlete came back to start the new year, eager to get back into training and into competition, was rocked when trying to complete a simple workout and realizing the injury had not healed if anything it was worse. After a couple of weeks of worrying about all the possible negative outcomes of what this injury was causing this athlete started to experience some mild depression and moderate anxiety. When she came to me this athlete had just experienced another setback when a supposed light workout on a machine in the training resulted in more pain than ever.  When talking with this athlete it seemed obvious that the thought processes was one of woo is me. The focus was on all the things that are wrong and had pretty much stopped trying to problem solve. Simply, in a mental state of focusing on what was wrong. When we started talking about rechannellling the athlete’s focus to what can be done, simply a “can do” athlete. We talked about how when the mind is sending messages to our body that something, the body will naturally try and protect itself evern more, thus tightening the muscles around the concerned area likely only contributing to worsening the injury. I suggested a couple of power phrases to help rechannel her energy and focus, “I am going to over come this, I don’t know how but I am going to over come this.” “I will get back to 100%.” The athlete was eager to test this approach out and went to work out on the machine in the training room. This is what this athlete relayed to me. “I got on the machine with the frame of mind that I was overcoming this injury. I could still feel some pain but in my opinion it was half as sore as it had been. I was amazed and started to see some light at the end of the tunnel. After the longest workout I have had in months I got off the machine and turned to notice our massage therapist. I thought, wait I used to see her all the time when I was healthy, I haven’t seen her in months and now I hurt maybe there is some correlation. I set up an appointment and low and behold our massage therapist finds a cluster of knots high in my leg. I get off the training table when she is done and I can’t believe how good the injury feels. The therapist tells me that if I should be 100% in a week.” Notice how when we focus our energy on what we can do, what we need to do, we are more likely to THINK and problem solve. We end up playing the game of life with an approach tendency, simply we play to win. When we allow interference into our mindset we are playing the game of life with an avoidance tendency, a play not to lose mind set. This particular athlete went from deep feelings of helplessness to significant feelings of empowerment and control over achieving what is desired.

I have noticed, like I sure every parent in the world has noticed that when my kids spend time in unproductive ways it nearly always results in a complaining, whiny frame of mind. The opposite effect is also true—when my kids spend time being productive they develop a happy, positive, can do, frame of mind. So what is productive use of time and what is unproductive use of time? Productive use of time is when we are either learning, doing, or relaxing. Unproductive use of time is obviously the opposite—when we are not learning, doing or relaxing. Here is an example, if I were watching TV but allowed my mind to consistently worry about getting home work done. I am not relaxing because my mind is worrying, and I am not getting the home work done. If I were to watch the TV and keep my mind there and not let it wander off to the homework I would at least be resting and rechanneling my energy for future activities. When we engage in extended periods of unproductive behavior we are essentially buring the candle from both ends. in conclusion the biggest point I want to make is when resting, really rest. Don’t allow your mind to wander off to things that you can’t do anything about at that moment. Keep your attention directed to what you are doing, throughby enoying your relaxtion time.

Snow snakes is a concept I learned from one of the athlete’s I work with on the US Ski team. I believe it has implications in other areas of our life as well. A snow snake is a small patche of snow that looks normal to the eye but is softer or just different than the surrounding snow. When a skier runs into it it can throw them off balance. This is critical as every split second makes a difference in the world of professional skiing. If a skier is holding on too tight, meaning if a skier is mental too intense or is over-thinking (worrying), they will not be able to adapt to the momentary lose of control and may even panic often resulting in over compensating and the loss of valuable time or even crashing. However, if an athlete is in the correct frame of mind—meaning if an athlete has worked to develop a Fearless Mind they are more likely to be free to the moment and naturally adjust to the uncertainty and temporary loss of control. Resulting in moraculaous saves that are often the differences between first and last place.

Going into the third last Nascar race of the year, Jimmie had a 184 point lead. Moving towards an unprecedented 4th straight title. On the third lap he is taken out by a driver who was a non-factor in the championship. Jimmie was basically blindsided. After his crew got him back out on the track after an hour, Jimmie did everything he could to preserve as many points as possible. At the end of the day he lost 111 points of his 184 point lead. Now only ahead by 73 points the media interviewed him after the race. Of course the reporter starts with, “so Jimmie you must be frustrated with losing that many points,” a typical media response to always focus on what is wrong. Jimmie responded with, “well we are still up by 73 points—yes we hate giving up all those points, but we are still in a good place.” This response is what separates the good from the great performers. Jimmie’s focus on the reality of the present is not normal, nor is it natural. It takes a lot of work to train the mind to stay focused on reality—on keeping it real. The majority of us what have been overwhelmed with the negative consequences of what went wrong. Following Jimmie’s statement he continues to talk about how he hates giving up all those points but then brings his attention back to the positives of how his crew did a great job to get the car back out on the track, how they still have two races left and they are both on tracks they like and that he felt like if they stay focused he was confident they could perform well there. Again, Jimmie has created a powerful mental tool through the years that always stays attuned to what he needs to do, what he can do, what he is going to do. No wonder this guy is the first to win four nascar titles.