Achieving Peak Mental Performance - Factor #5: Keep It Simple Stupid

Published: Fri, 05/13/16

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The Growth Mindset - 7 Key Factors to Achieve Peak Mental Performance

Factor #5 - Simplify

Joe Daniel from The Football Coaching Podcast has one of my favorite quotes about simplifying:

‘Keep everything simple so that your kids build confidence, confident kids play fast, fast kids win games.’

That says it perfectly. The best way to quiet your mind is to not be thinking about a million things while playing. Here are a few other of my favorites that I've learned from great coaching minds:

Coach Shane Sams identifies 5 skills for each position – then those are the only skills they teach in practice for the entire year. For younger kids maybe only 3 or 4 skills. Repetitions are key – don’t keep changing things up.
‘If your goal is to freeze an athlete – give them a whole bunch of stuff to think about’ – James Leath, head of leadership at IMG Academy
Renowned high school championship basketball coach at Christ Pres Academy in Nashville and former Vanderbilt star Drew Maddux uses the term 'Boundaried Freedom' – Create the culture and boundaries – and then give them the freedom to go make plays

I was watching the Golf Channel this week and they discussed how Jack Nicklaus credited much of his success to his ability to play present. The ability to stay in the moment allowed him to pay attention to details that many of his competitors missed - the wind speed and direction, the amount of power he was hitting with that day, and many other things that if he had complicated his mind with too many worries or concerns he would have missed. So Keep It Simple Stupid. You will have more fun and your athletes will go out there and play instead of going out there and thinking.

Don't miss next week as we'll dive into probably the hottest topic in this series - how do you keep kids from putting the weight of the world on their shoulders during a game

NEW WYC PODCASTS

WYC 079 – Mental Performance – Lindsey Wilson talks breaking out of slumps and coaching girls

As the Co-Founder and Product/Program guru for Positive Performance, Lindsey works with athletes and coaches to unlock player and team potential through mental performance training. As an athlete, Lindsey had the privilege to play on many successful teams and collect an impressive playing resume along the way. As a mental training coach, Lindsey has developed mental performance training tools and techniques for universities, teams, and organizations across the globe.

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Craig

Craig Haworth is the founder of Winning Youth Coaching, a site dedicated to helping coaches and parents make youth sports an awesome experience for the youth and the parents. He interviews coaches from around the world and posts them on his podcast, which currently has over 75 interviews and has been downloaded over 70,000 times. He writes a weekly note to coaches and parents. He is married to his high-school sweetheart and they share the blessing of 3 children and live in Franklin, TN. You can sign-up for his weekly note here, find him on twitter at @craighaworth1, or visit his website winningyouthcoaching.com.

"It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men"

- Frederick Douglass