The process of achieving your goals is filled with Challenges.
The quality and the strength of your Response to those Challenges determines your ability to overcome them quickly and effectively.
If you are unable to overcome Challenges effectively, your improvement efforts cause your wheels to spin instead of propelling you forward to your Goals.
There are three main types of Challenges:
● Mental Challenges – Distractions that hinder your ability to be present and play your best (pressure, expectations, results)
● Psychological Challenges – Negative Emotions that hinder your ability to focus clearly and positively on your play (doubt, anxiety, fear)
● Physiological Challenges – Movement Paralyzers that hinder your ability to access your best Skill Patterns (excess tension, shallow breathing, low energy)
The reality of striving for Goals is that every athlete will struggle to overcome Challenges at some point.
However
“Tuning Your Mindset” and “Strengthening Your Self Belief” will optimize your “Challenge Response” and help you speed the process of moving toward your Goals.
What is Challenge Response?
Challenge Response is your immediate, authentic, unfiltered response to a challenge.
Here is a brief analogy:
Imagine yourself standing over a challenging golf shot you have never hit before.
Do you Love the Challenge?
Do you Tolerate the Challenge?
Do you Fear the Challenge?
Your Response triggers “feelings” that influence the quality of your shot.
Love Triggers “Curiosity” – This triggers the “Play” performance mentality.
“This looks fun… I can’t wait to do this.”
Tolerate Triggers “Task” – This triggers the “Work” performance mentality.
“This looks tough… I will try to get through it.”
Fear Triggers “Paralysis” – This triggers the “Panic” performance mentality.
“This looks bad… I can’t overcome this.”
Imagine your Challenge Response is a “volume dial.”
The more you turn toward Love on the “volume dial,” the more likely it is that you will “play well” and successfully Overcome the Challenge
Love of the Challenge is called Autotelic Action by researchers and it is proven to play a significant role in Peak Performance. (1)
One of the foremost researchers on Peak Performance is Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. (2)
Here are two of his quotes relative to Challenge and Peak Performance:
“High performers, the ones who stand out against the backdrop of everyday life, are motivated by the enjoyment that comes from confronting Challenges.”
“An Autotelic activity is one we do for its own sake because to experience it is the main goal. Applied to personality, Autotelic denotes an individual who generally does things for their own sake, rather than in order to achieve some later external goal”.
Love of the Challenge/Autotelic Action is a powerful, positive trigger for Zone/Flow State performance in 3 key areas:
Focus – calm, clear
Neurochemicals – enhanced, engaged
Physiology – muscular efficiency, optimized breathing
The Bottom Line for Challenge Response
The more your Challenge Response “volume dial” is tuned toward Love, the better your chances are for accessing a Peak Mental Performance State consistently and progressing toward your Goals.
You can still “play well” and Overcome Challenges at the Fear end of the Challenge Response “volume dial” but your chances of doing this consistently are dramatically reduced and your chances of Peak Performance disappear.
Reflect on your own experiences.
When you have been confronted with a Challenge and felt a powerful sense of “Fear… how well did you play?
Now let’s explore the two keys that can give you control of your Love/Fear “volume dial.”
The first is “Tuning Your Mindset.”
Why is Tuning Mindset Important for Mental Performance?
Tuning Your Mindset gives you the ability to minimize Fear (paralysis) and maximize Love (curiosity) BEFORE you encounter the Challenge.
How?
By “tuning” the perceived outcome of any Challenge.
Let me give you an example:
The traditional fixed Mindset for Challenges is that there are two potential outcomes.
1. Success – You overcame the Challenge
2. Failure – You did not overcome the Challenge
When Failure is a possibility there will always be some degree of Fear.
Changing to a Learning Mindset completely transforms the dynamic of a Challenge.
The Learning Mindset replaces the Failure outcome with a Learning outcome.
1. Success – You overcame… Increase your Self Belief
2. Learning – You didn’t overcome… Increase your Self Knowledge
This creates a win/win situation for every Challenge.
You Succeed at overcoming the challenge.
You Learn how to better overcome the Challenge in the future.
There is no Failure.
There is only Success and Helpful Data for your “Goal Process.”
In other words… what can you learn to overcome the Challenge next time and how does this help you get to your long-term goal?
The Learning Mindset also helps minimize feelings of pressure before the Challenge and frustration after a “failed” Challenge.
As with any meaningful change… It takes time, energy, and INTENT to switch from a Failure mindset to a Learning Mindset.
The key is to Set A Goal of making the Learning Mindset YOUR dominant Mindset for ALL situations and strive to move closer to the Goal a little bit every day.
Helpful Hints for Implementing the Learning Mindset
Over the years helping athletes optimize their Mindset I have found two helpful concepts to focus on during the process:
Context – Tuning Mindset using multiple Environments
Intensity – Tuning Mindset using increasing Challenge
Challenge Context
When making a change intended to improve performance, we tend to ONLY work on the change in the situation we want to improve.
For example:
Golfers will practice changing Mindset exclusively when on the course and dealing with a common and troubling challenge.
Experiencing an undeserved bad lie is a common challenge.
Implementing the Mindset change in that circumstance is certainly helpful.
However
I have found that practicing the Mindset change in multiple situations on and off the golf course imprints the new pattern quicker.
This is because the variety of situations stimulates multiple memories of the new Mindset creating more context for the new pattern which speeds Recognition that you have a Mindset “choice” presented to you.
You cannot change what you do not Recognize.
Exercising a “muscle” using one specific movement will help.
Exercising a “muscle” using multiple movements in multiple situations will increase the strength of the “muscle” more effectively.
Challenge Intensity
One of the keys to making effective change is to make sure you are experiencing consistent success in the process.
If you are making a change and not experiencing ANY success frustration sets in and often the Goal to change is abandoned.
Have you experienced this before?
When you make sure to experience small successes on a consistent basis the change process becomes less frustrating and much more effective.
The key to achieving small successes is starting the process by “tuning” your Mindset relative to low intensity Challenges.
Low intensity Challenges are ones that you believe that you can overcome.
Your internal conversation before a low intensity Challenge might sound like this:
“I will probably succeed at overcoming this challenge but if I do not, I will definitely Learn WHY I did not and HOW I can improve my process to make sure I succeed next time.”
Belief is a VERY important component of overcoming Challenges.
In the next section we will look at how Self Belief affects your Challenge Response and how you can strengthen Self Belief.
Why is Strengthening Self-Belief Important to Mental Performance?
In competitive situations the difference between “wanting” to overcome a Challenge and BELIEVING that you can overcome the Challenge is often the difference between Poor and Peak Performance.
Here is an image of what the Self Belief “dial” looks like for Challenge Response:
Here is what happens at the opposite ends of the “dial.”
NO
When you “want” to overcome a challenge but do not genuinely believe that you can, this triggers performance inhibiting responses in your mind/emotions/body:
Mind – Pressure, Make it Happen
Emotions – Anxiety, Fear
Body – Inhibiting neurochemicals
YES
When you genuinely BELIEVE that you can overcome the Challenge this Triggers optimum:
Mind – Calm, Let it Happen
Emotions – Trust, Love
Body – Enhancing Neurochemicals
Strengthening Self-Belief allows you to experience these positive mind/emotions/body performance enhancers when confronted with bigger and bigger Challenges.
The Goal is to strengthen Self Belief to the point that you have a Genuine Love of Challenges.
You look forward to Challenges that test your skills and training whenever possible.
The reality is that no one looks forward to EVERY challenge.
BUT
The stronger your Self Belief the more Challenges you will GENUINELY look forward to and the more performance enhancing benefits you will experience.
Helpful Hint – Daily Mini Challenges
It is important with any change process to follow Success Progressions.
Success Progressions are a series of small, achievable challenges as you progress to the Goal.
Author James Clear refers to this as the 1% Rule.
Here is an example of using Mini Challenges to create a Self-Belief Success Progression:
The Self-Belief Three Week Mini Challenge Progression
1. Each day for one week choose a “fun” challenge to overcome
2. Use a different Challenge EACH day
3. The challenges should be “daily life” challenges not “sport challenges”
4. Make sure you BELIEVE you can achieve an 80% success rate
5. After one week increase the level of challenge slightly
6. After two weeks you can start using “sport challenges”
Here are a few examples of daily Mini Challenges:
Brush your teeth opposite handed
Comb your hair opposite handed
Change you “lead” foot walking up/down the stairs
Wake up 15 minutes earlier than normal
After three weeks you will have successfully overcome twenty one challenges.
Even though they are small challenges, I guarantee you will notice a significant difference in your sense of Self-Belief.
I have used this same progression with athletes of varying ages and in multiple sports with remarkable success over the years.
The goal of the exercise is to help you BELIEVE you can overcome Challenges AND learn to enjoy/love the experience of testing yourself.
When you learn to enjoy testing yourself you will progress to your big Goals faster AND enjoy the process.
Conclusion
Optimizing your Challenge Response by “Tuning Your Mindset” and “Strengthening Your Self Belief” is a critical component of overcoming Challenges and progressing faster toward your Goals.
However
There are other important metrics involved with Optimizing your Challenge Response.
Physical Skill Level – the quality of your skills
Physical Fitness Level – the efficiency of your body
Support Team Environment – the quality of your help
ALL five metrics are important pieces in the “Goal Process” puzzle.
The key is to make sure you are finding YOUR optimum training balance and making small, successful improvements to your “Goal Process” daily.
If you want more information on mental performance training make sure to check out the content on the rest of my website.
If you want to find out about personalized coaching programs click the link below to set up a complimentary 30-minute Zoom call with me.
All the best,
Geoff
References
1. Scott R. Ross, Heidi N. Keiser, Autotelic personality through a five-factor lens: Individual differences in flow-propensity, Personality and Individual Differences, Volume 59, 2014, Pages 3-8, ISSN 0191-8869,
2. Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1990) Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. New York: Harper and Row
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