The fire inside us can be complicated. One minute it’s on and the next, it’s off. When my clients develop their most optimal mental skills, they get to reunite with the enjoyment and happiness of playing. They find their passion again for this thing they love.

Generally, with this passion comes the fire inside – a drive to succeed – but lately there can be another phase. What I find is that some athletes find immediate success with their mental skills, expect those skills to work 100% of the time and when they don’t, performance flattens out a bit. They still do well but the flame that was ignited never quite turns into a fire. Why is that?

Mental skills

Mental skills make a huge difference in how a performer performs. You work so hard physically and if you don’t train your brain, you leave yourself open to a lot of inconsistent performances and a decline in performance. But just like your physical skills, mental training takes practice and time.

Once you have the necessary mental skills, you start to think and perform more optimally. For over fifteen years, I’ve had the pleasure of watching the results time and time again. Clients learn how to deal with mind moments in ways that facilitate versus debilitate performance. For the first time, they have control over the thinking that ‘just pops up’ and sabotages their performance.

These skills are the basic necessity and from them come enjoyment and happiness that many people haven’t felt since they were younger.

100% success rate

Once clients have the mental skills they need and are performing really well, one of the things I see is a sense of invincibility – I am now working hard mentally and physically so I should be able to win against everyone.

Seeing such great success makes clients think they should have more and more success and that now, there will never be anything challenging. The problem is that’s never the case mentally or physically for a wide variety of reasons:

• There is always a winner and a loser.
• You will have off days.
• Injuries happen, big and small.
• What you eat might not agree.
• You may not be hydrated enough.
• The weather creates an off day.

Outcome orientation

I work with all clients on moving away from their focus on the outcome, but it seems as though mental training can tend to lead some clients to thin they should have a 100% success rate and this leads them back to their focus on the outcome – success and winning. So, we have to revisit this often to help them refocus on the process. After all, the process is what gets you to the outcome you desire.

Ignite the fire inside

The second phase in the process of developing mental skills is igniting the fire inside. Clients build good, solid mental skills but regardless of whether or not they are feeling a bit flat because they are not succeeding 100% or aren’t succeeding as much as they’d like to, they have to turn the flame into a raging fire.

The fire within looks different for each athlete, but it starts by helping athletes figure out their why. Why do you do what you do? You know what you do and you know how you do it. But the real fire, the real determination comes from your reasons why you choose to spend a lot of time and energy training and performing.

The fire inside comes from your why.

“The two most important days in your life are the day you were born and the day you figure out WHY.” Mark Twain

Feel the magic happen

Your why must come from inside of you. It doesn’t work if you are doing it for someone else. Once you are clear on why you are doing what you do it makes things clearer. It’s part of you. It’s something you want to do versus something you have to do.

Why do I do this work? I do this work because I love to help elite performers discover their ultimate potential, their best performance, their chi. I get to help people develop skills and mindsets to effectively deal with emotions that ‘just pop up’ and then perform to the nth degree!

Clients get an opportunity to learn life-changing mental skills, they focus on the process not the outcome, and they get to decide how they want to play. They get to control their environment, perform more consistently, and be more successful.

They discover the magic that happens when the mind and the body are in sync. I love that!