Mental Toughness

It requires that an athlete re-program their mind with positive affirmations and high expectations. Athletes must focus solely on their performance rather than their performance relative to other competitors. Developing mental toughness is like training a muscle – you must train consistently and make improvements gradually.

to be done the right way. ‘‘I seen everything I do as a competition. I want to be better than the

Motivation is defined as the process that initiates, guides, and maintains goal-oriented behaviors. For an athlete, motivation can be the difference between waking up at 5:00 a.m. to go for a mile run versus sleeping in. It could be the difference between putting in an extra set of reps in the weight room versus going to the mall with friends. It could be putting in extra time at practice versus going on a date. Motivation is necessary to augment ability. It’s extremely important because one will face tests from fatigue, pain, boredom and outside desires that will challenge the athlete’s focus on becoming the best they can be. Motivation is the center of success, it can be thought of as a tree with the other factors being branches that stem from motivation. It will effect the mental aspects of game preparation, the physical aspects of nutrition, conditioning and sleep. Finally, it will affect the coaching side in terms of training. Some athletes can get through high school and college off size and athleticism.

Sports don’t just teach you to be aggressive and competitive. Sports teach you a lot about how to be ready for a life after college and after sports. People who are successful in sports have to have an insane work ethic,

Forces defenses to play against the unfamiliar; with limited practice time, they must prepare for new keys and new techniques; the defense must remain extremely disciplined regarding their assignments.

Mental strength and agility is just as important as physical prowess in sports. In the debate over the importance of physical prowess and mental agility in sports, Sanneh and Heinrich have similar views, with Sanneh supporting the idea that the ability to think while playing football is just as important as running in “What Could Be Better Than A Touchdown”, and Heinrich suggests that the ability to think while or before running a “race” is just as important as their physical strength and endurance.

Statistics shows that 90 percent of physical strength vs. mental strength is mental. I think the statistics came out this way because Your mind is the control center of your body and makes everything function. Without mental strength, sports are pointless! An example from “Confessions of a Doper” is, “ At 5:30 every morning, I popped out of bed with excitement and purpose. Into the freezing Colorado morning I rode. For the next 30 miles I pushed my heart rate and the pedals.” When the author had excitement and purpose, that came from his mind in mental strength to ride every morning and push himself. Another example from “Confessions of a Doper” is, “These early rides make up many of my memories from my teenage years during the 1980’s: the crashes, the adrenaline, and the discipline of training of every day.” This shows mental strength because for the author to carry on working hard he had to be mentally strong and mentally prepared. Sometimes it is better to work out your brain than your physical talents of the

Physical matureness by and large cause a normal growth in strength, quickness, and size which are significant traits for sport success but the only thing youth sports reveal to us is that some players are maturing more rapidly than others. At the youth level being bigger, stronger, and faster are typically all that is required to stand out in a group of less prepared underdeveloped athletes. But it is not a pure marker in terms of who is really the most gifted

Learning these character traits through athletic competition can aid someone later on in life. One of the first positive character traits learned is perseverance. For example, the Griswold girls track team must show perseverance by running pace at each practice to later achieve the team goal of winning the track meet. Without perseverance, the track program would not be as successful as it is today. Furthermore, another character trait developed from athletic competition is integrity. Jackie applied integrity when she told a ref during a basketball game that she was actually the last one to touch the ball before it traveled out-of-bounds. Jackie can take that character trait she learned and apply it to her everyday life. Along those lines, Payton learned sacrifice during the cross country season. She learned this trait when she saw one of her teammates struggling during a race, and kept pace with them to help her teammate finish. Although Payton could have easily gone on without her, allowing herself to place better individually, she sacrificed herself for her team. Additionally, I raised my self-esteem when Coach Gross made the guards shoot thirty three-pointers after practice. Since that was more that I shot all season last year, it raised my confidence. Also, another important character trait learned through athletic competition is goal setting. Without goal setting, no one has anything to strive for. However, the girls basketball team learned how to set goals because Coach Gross required each player to turn in three team goals and three personal goals. By doing this, it will give each player a reason to work hard in practice so they can achieve their ambitions later on in the season. All of these character traits are understood through the beneficial influences of athletic

I am currently a sophomore at Alter High School in Kettering, Ohio. So far I have two years of varsity experience in both lacrosse and wrestling. I am a captain of the wrestling team and my goal is to be voted a captain for the lacrosse team next year. My biggest goal as of now is trying to get in both an academically and athletically prestigious school. I would be a different candidate from most others because of two main characteristics I have; work ethic and toughness. My biggest advantage over others is knowing that I can out-work them no matter who they are and have the mental toughness to carry me through it. Thank you for looking at my profile and feel free to contact

To exceed expectations as a competitor you must be eager - hungry for accomplishment, for results - hungry basically to turn into the best competitor you can be. It begins with a fantasy, yet by one means or another you must be enlivened, or you will never have the capacity to achieve your objective. We frequently read about competitors overcoming physical inabilities. Spear Armstrong survived testicular tumor and won the Tour de France two times. Marla Runyan kept running in the 1500 meters of the 2000 Olympics while being legitimately visually impaired. It is out of these difficulties that competitors build up a wild, blazing longing to succeed. They have to demonstrate to themselves that they can accomplish their objectives. Through

According to James Loehr, a famous sport psychologist, mental toughness is defined as the ability to constantly maintain a perfect performance state during the heat of competition (Loehr, 1986). Since then, Goldberg (1998) has well-defined mental toughness as the ability to stand high in the face of difficulty, and being able to rebound from repetitive setbacks and failures. Fletcher and Fletcher (2005) defined mental toughness as the ability to manage with various

In earlier days sports psychology was mostly concerned with developing assessment methods that would identify those people with the potential to become serious superior athletes. Today the focus is on psychological training, exercises that strengthen the mental skills that will help athletic performances on the path to excellence. These skills include mental imagery and focus training. If an athlete is serious about becoming the best he or she can possibly be, the most essential ingredient is commitment to practice the right things. It takes incredible commitment to reach the top: a commitment to rest and train the body so it can perform under the most demanding conditions and a commitment to train the mind to

Confidence is a key of success in life and business. Confidence is that people believe

Mental toughness is not a new concept in sport, but is generally misunderstood. Coaches design programmes to develop mentally tough athletes, predominately in professional sport, to separate elite performers from good performers (Gould, Jackson, & Finch, 1993) as physical talent itself is not the only component that can lead an athlete to success (Gucciardi, Gordon, & Dimmock, 2008).