Performance DNA 3-2-1

I wrote this after fixing my sink. Nothing gives confidence like feeling capable.

3 Ideas

1

The typical mental skills training program rarely considers order. Like physical skills, there’s a right order to train:

1. Arousal regulation

2. Attentional control

3. Cognitive strategies

You need this order to maximize the ability to use the skills in the moment.

2

Nothing will debilitate performance faster than low expectations and low self-belief. This combination is the killer of all ambition and excellence.

3

Take a look at what makes LeBron one of the GOATs. His basketball IQ is off the charts. Intelligence, across domains, is one of the best predictors of performance. This carousel explains it all:

2 Performance Tips

Here are the two tips I’m teaching this week to the teams I’m working with:

Release-reset-refocus

After a mistake or setback, this 3-step sequence is what I teach performers to be resilient.

1. Release: a physical movement to acknowledge and “let go” of the mistake.

2. Reset: typically a breathing or grounding movement to come back to the present moment

3. Refocus: answer the question “What’s important now” to guide your next action (WIN)

Ideal Future Self

Based on positive psychology, this exercise allows athletes to examine the discrepancy between who and where they are today, and who and where they want to be by the end of the season.

I wrote about it more here.

1 Quote

“When smart people say, ‘you make your own luck,’ what they’re really saying is that luck is less mystical than it seems.

The best way to be lucky is to persevere, because luck overlaps with longevity.

If luck is by definition unpredictable, you have a greater chance of being lucky the longer that you push.”

- Adam Alter, The Anatomy of a Breakthrough