“I don’t know what happened, but it all came together and it was so cool.” Mental strength allows the athlete to access their untapped potential.
In the world of sports, mental strength is crucial for the athlete to perform better, gain more percentages from their untapped potential and win. These three things are something that all elite athletes aspire to achieve. But what is mental strength?
Being under pressure puts pressure on the athlete
Being under pressure for an athlete is when the athlete feels that their performance is impacted by thoughts or emotions. Often it is negative emotions that interfere. It can be irritation, frustration, nervousness, sadness or anxiety. The negative emotions interfere and prevent the athlete from thinking clearly and staying calm.
Being under pressure also happens when too many thoughts are present in the athlete’s consciousness. Meaning, a new thought crops up, and then a new thought, and then a new thought. The thoughts that have cropped up are never really thought through and ‘planted’ in the consciousness. The thoughts are spinning fast and unstructured without reaching a final destination. By the end, there are so many thoughts present that they almost trip over each other. The result is a flood of thoughts or even thought chaos.
Being under pressure can happen when the athlete experiences that an action fails. The bad result becomes the starting point for an inner dialogue for the athlete. The first thought is: “That was really bad.” Next thought: “I am really bad.” And then it is a steep downward spiral towards bad things like: “Why am I so bad?” – and in the very worst case, all the way to the abyss and crucially away from the peak performance: “I am a bad person.”
In this way, thoughts spiral in a negative direction. The athlete experiences more and more pressure. The thoughts interfere with performance and the athlete gets further and further away from their own automaticity.
The most difficult is performance zone 1
The most pressure for an athlete can occur in performance zone 1. It is precisely when the athlete most needs to enter the magical place and perform automatically that it becomes the most difficult.
Performance zone 1 is the athlete’s place of work. It is where the athlete competes or the match takes place. Meaning, on the field, in the pool, on the ice, on the mat. This is where the athlete’s hard work in training must pay off. The pressure is massive.
Therefore, mental training in the world of sports is first and foremost about making the athlete mentally strong in performance zone 1.
Mental strength is the ability to deal effectively with being under pressure and overcome it. This is also true during training – but especially in performance zone 1. When mental training is successful, the athlete is a big step closer to being able to perform optimally and perhaps even push the limits of their performance.
Well-trained thoughts
Mental strength is achieved through persistent mental training. The goal is to be able to bring oneself mentally to the point where the athlete has “well-trained” thoughts – or just a few thoughts.
A well-trained thought is a simple and concrete thought that is about the present moment and what the athlete wants to achieve. Well-trained thoughts are when, due to systematic mental training, the athlete does not get trapped in negative thoughts, but instead and without resistance, is totally focused on the situation and what the athlete can influence themselves.
Well-trained thoughts can be brought forth when they have been repeated over and over and over again. It is therefore possible with systematic mental training to make the well-trained thoughts emerge automatically – and thus the athlete gets into their own automaticity and zone. Some call the condition “the magical place”.
Getting into the zone so the body performs automatically
Automaticity and the zone are characterized by thoughts that are few and well-trained and a high quality of movement.
We can talk about the athlete just acting without much thinking.
In more popular terms, when the athlete is in their own automaticity and zone, they are in the “magical place”. In the magical place, the athlete experiences access to all of their well-trained potential – and some of their untapped potential. We talk about 2 + 2 = 5.
It is after such a performance, where the athlete has been in the zone and experienced that the body has performed automatically, that they will say: “I can’t describe what happened, it all came together like it never has before – it was just awesome!”
It can sound mysterious and a bit vague. And we have to accept that the experience cannot be described precisely. But there is no doubt that the athlete’s mental strength and ability to focus on the present moment is a crucial element. And there is also no doubt that the way to mental strength is through mental training.
