Mental Strength In Sports. Success is created in the mind. Maybe you’ve already experienced that, you’ve set yourself something, you’re trying incredibly hard and still don’t achieve what you wanted to achieve. Athletes in particular are not unfamiliar with this experience.
The reason is simply that your body is absolutely fit, but you miss the goal you have set due to a lack of mental strength. Here we show you how you can improve your mental strength and thus be more successful in sports.
Set Yourself A Challenging But Realistic Goal
Of course, in order to be able to organize your training properly, you need a goal. You should stick to this in such a way that it challenges you fully but remains realistic. Only with a goal in mind are you able to motivate yourself at all. A goal spurs you on and it gives you the inner strength to torment yourself in training, to go to your physical limits, and, if necessary, to go beyond them. However, a goal only has this effect if it is realistic.
For example, if you’re a marathon runner with a previous personal best of just over three hours, trying to run the next marathon in two hours and thirty minutes would be a rather unrealistic goal. It has been proven that only small increases are possible in this power range.
Of course, you could try it, but your motivation would quickly drop because you realize during the preparation that you will not reach your goal. A more sensible goal would be to aim for a time of just under three hours, especially since the three-hour limit represents something of a magical barrier even for ambitious runners.
Mental Strength – Don't Fear, Just Hope
Experience shows that you are more successful when you adopt a positive attitude. There is a saying that whoever fears failure will suffer it, but whoever hopes for success will achieve it. So always try to think positively, use your strengths in training, and try to turn your weaknesses into strengths.
This procedure is also called autosuggestion or self-influencing. Before each workout, tell yourself that you will achieve your goals. This increases motivation immensely and strengthens your will to succeed.
In order to become a person who always thinks positively, you also have to deal with your fear of failure, because it prevents you from being successful in the sport. Get to the bottom of your fear, because knowing it well is one way to not let it control you.
Visualization – Take A Look At Sporting Success
Perhaps you have already observed that B. High jumpers, javelin throwers, or shot putters stand with their eyes closed before their exercise, visualize the entire exercise, and do it in their heads. This is called visualization.
Try it and imagine e.g. For example, imagine the moment when you run the last few feet to the finish line in a marathon and then cross it. Also, try to feel the emotions in those moments. This method is so important because just imagining certain actions or movements activates the same areas of your brain as the actions or movements actually performed.
Focus - Only The Next Step Is Important
Especially with world-class tennis players, it is often easy to see that in a very long game their performance drops as soon as they lose concentration. All of a sudden there’s quarreling, you get upset about the referee or the heckling from spectators, and bang, you’ve lost the next point. For this reason, it is important that you focus and collect yourself again and again, that you only concentrate on what is really important in training and competition.
In the case of a marathon, for example, B. the starting gun, reaching for the ready drinking bottle, the correct and steady pace, or the timely reaction to speed increases by the competition. Always stay focused on what’s coming up, then you can be even more successful in the sport.
Leave The Stress Of Work Where It Belongs
Very few athletes have the privilege and opportunities to focus solely on their sport. As an ambitious recreational athlete, on the other hand, you will probably complete your training after your daily work. In order to have a clear mind, try to leave the stress of the job where it originated, namely at work.
You could think up a suitable ritual for this, maybe at the end of your working day, you form a bowl with your hands, put all the stress of the day into it, and then place it e.g. B. on a desk drawer. Then you close the drawer and consciously say goodbye to the deposited stress until the next day. It doesn’t matter how you leave the stress behind, what matters is that you don’t bring it with you to training because it inhibits you and distracts you from what’s important.
Rest Periods Without A Guilty Conscience
You probably know that the path to sporting success is not only about hard training, but also about the necessary recovery phases. If you train non-stop, constantly pushing yourself to the limit of performance or even beyond, you will eventually run out of strength and motivation.
Therefore, it not only makes sense that you go into your training highly motivated, but also that you keep to the rest days without a guilty conscience. Force yourself not to exercise on the designated days, do what makes you happy, and don’t think about exercise. This not only gives your body the opportunity to regenerate but also your mind.
Mental Strength - The Most Important Muscle Of All
Just think of your mental toughness as the most important muscle you have. If you train him regularly, he will get stronger, if you neglect his training, he will get weaker. The tips above achieve exactly the same effect. In sport, it is primarily your head and not your body that wants to convince you that you cannot achieve your goal. With the exercises, you can convince him otherwise and become mentally stronger.
Always remember that sporting success is largely a matter of the head, where you ultimately decide whether you are more sportingly successful or not.
