Athletes develop mental toughness with a variety of specific positive psychology techniques. Take a moment to consider adopting some of the following strategies to improve your performance at work, public speaking, your marriage, as a parent, musician or athlete. Borrowing from Sports Psychology elements, you can achieve anything you put your mind to. Take a moment to review these 7 dimensions that can transform you. Once you have your purpose, meaning and goals, you can use these principles to make them a reality.
1) They develop empowering and successful beliefs
Olympic athletes believe they can be, do or have anything they want in life. They change attitudes and create habits, which help them in making them world-class performers. They reprogram or recondition their mind for achieving gold medal(s). Unlike most of us, they are not controlled by their fears. They challenge ideas and opinions, rather than just accept them as fact.
2) They know thoughts become reality
They take responsibility of what they dwell on in their mind. They consciously choose to focus on successful, healthy and happy thoughts. They think big unlike majority of people who think about just getting by. They are aware of the fact that what they repeat in their mind will become a belief and affect their success/performance. Their actions are congruent with their thought processes.
3) They understand the power of emotions
They know managing emotions is crucial for achieving success. Thoughts and beliefs trigger emotions so they make sure they have positive and fruitful thoughts as much as possible. They do things which make them feel content and proud. They motivate themselves by emotions related to their dreams and passion rather than by just money and/or fame. They have the ability to put aside anything else going on at that very moment and focus only on the task in front of them.
4) They have coaches and mentors. They are ever-ready learners
They believe in working smarter so they learn from the mentors or role-models that are the best in their fields which also helps them accelerate their performance. Unlike an average person, they invest time, money and energy in getting better. For them failure is an opportunity to learn and grow. They spend hours practicing, studying their competitors, watching videos of their performances and session after session with their coaches/mentors. Champions are known for being open to world-class coaching.
5) An unfailing attitude to win (succeed)
They are determined to win whatever it takes. They are, mentally, prepared to pay the price and to stay committed no matter how much burden and fear they feel inside.
Olympians are fearless and focused on manifesting their ultimate dream of bringing home the gold.
6) They have a clear purpose/vision
They have a very clear mental picture of what they want, why they want it and how to move closer to their target objective. They spend time on setting goals and creating action plans which will help them achieve their dream. They are bold and daring visionaries. Their accountability is measured very often unlike a common man who has no system in place for it.
7) They expect adversity and failure
They are driven to succeed, but unlike the majority they don’t avoid mistakes, risks or failure. They don’t seek security or comfort. They are criticized but are persistent. They choose discipline over pleasure. Unlike others they don’t believe that compensation should instantly follow any effort. They know it can take years to manifest their ultimate vision/dream.