Dream big dreams.
Attributes of Top Athletes
By Jim Murphy, MHK, CSCS
1. 1. Embrace adversity
a. Adversity and athletics go hand in hand, and the top players are
comfortable with adversity. They don’t base their self confidence on the
results during the game. Adversity is the training partner of champions.
They aren’t attached to outcomes.
2. 2. Good body language
a. The best athletes walk a certain way. Their body language displays a
confidence, an expectancy, a presence, on and off the field.
b. From the field of psychology we know that nonverbal communication
trumps over verbal. This means how you walk, facial expressions, how
you look at opponents (i.e. the eye of the tiger), how you carry yourself
and your body when things aren’t going well, tells more than what you
say.
c. Body language not only communicates to others (teammates, opponents,
scouts, coaches, etc), but it’s also self-talk (see #21), meaning it communicates to
yourself how you feel about yourself. An easy example is to try to feel really
happy and excited when slumped over and frowning, or really sad when you’re
smiling broadly; tough to do.
3. 3. Good breathing skills (during competition and in visualization)
a. Breathing has a huge role in competition. Breathing affects many things
including heart rate, blood pressure, light-headedness, nervousness, and
focus.
b. The best athletes get oxygen circulating well throughout their body, and
they control their breathing during chaotic points in the game.
c. Deep breathing between plays is one of the crucial ways athletes slow the
game down. (And for refocusing).
4. 4. Ability to get in the zone
a. There is a place, mentally, where each player performs their best, often
called the zone.
b. When a player is in the zone, he is completely in the moment, not thinking
about the past or future, not really thinking anything, just focusing on the
task at hand and enjoying that task, the competition, the challenge.
c. Time slows down, actions are easy and smooth, and there is an intensity
and focus that is hard to describe.
5. 5. Concentration
a. The ability to concentrate comes largely from the ability to get into the
zone. They are intertwined: concentration is an ability to block out
distractions, including your own thoughts, and focus on the actions
needed; concentrating is a part of being in the zone.
6. 6. Staying in the moment
a. The greatest athletes play their best when they have a moment-to-moment
focus. Nothing else enters their mind or garners their attention.
7. 7. Quieting the mind
a. The mind, being like a spoiled child, wants to think whatever it wants to.
It can start to chatter with what we call the monkey mind, continually
spewing forth distracting thoughts, negative thoughts, whatever.
b. Those who excel know how to control their mind this way.
8. 8. Keeping internal focus
a. Having an internal focus is the ability to concentrate on the task and not on
the result or outcome. Our culture is so results-oriented, largely caused by
the media, and great athletes know how to block that out, and focus on
their performance, rather than on what happens afterward.
9. 9. Hyper-focus
a. Hyper-focus is a term I use to describe an ability to block out incredible
distractions and chaos while performing nearly perfect (dialed in). When
it’s the 7th game of the World Series and the game is on the line, the crowd
is going wild, how well do you tune in and use that energy around you to
your advantage.
10. Controlling the mind
a. As mentioned in #7, an undisciplined mind will think whatever it wants;
like a little kid, it has to be trained to focus solely on the goal desired. The
more focus, the more powerful. It takes practice like any other aspect of
sports. Focused thoughts are powerful, weak and scattered thoughts are
weak and scattered.
11. Confidence
a. Confidence comes easier to some than others, but it can be developed.
Learning to control what you can control is one way; a feeling of being out
of control is hand in hand with lack of confidence.
b. Another way is to set small, process-oriented goals that you can build on.
12. Setting process-oriented goals vs. outcome oriented goals
a. Process oriented goals are goals that seek to accomplish things that you
can control, things that are part of the overall process of achieving your
big goal.
b. Outcome oriented goals are the typical goals such as hitting .300, shooting
80% from the free throw line, making the team, etc.
c. Process oriented goals are even more important than outcome, because
process goals make it happen, whereas outcome goals are often out of one’s
control.
13. Courage
a. Courage is facing your fears and doing it anyway. It’s not an absence of
fear or nervousness, it’s having those feelings and still charging ahead.
14. Making fear your ally
a. Fear is a powerful thing, and causes untold numbers of athletes to fail.
Fear is like fire, uncontrolled it will burn you and can cause you to lose
everything, but controlled, it can provide energy and power to propel you.
b. Fear is powered by one of the most powerful forces on earth, the
imagination. The best players have used their imagination their entire lives to
their advantage.
15. Self-coaching
a. Success in athletics is about making adjustments, reacting to an
uncontrolled and often hostile environment, doing what’s necessary to
keep yourself poised, and change what’s not working.
16. Eliminating negativity
a. Part of being in the zone is controlling that voice, that part of your mind
that says “hey, you struck out last at-bat, or “you bogeyed this hole last
time.” Those thoughts are there even with the greatest athletes, but they
know how to control those thoughts.
17. Poise
a. Poise is playing up to your ability in situations that are chaotic and/or
pressure-packed. Players that lose their poise, that aren’t the same player
in those situations have not learned how to control their thoughts, or programmed
their mind well.
18. Excelling in pressure situations
a. There are many factors to why a player does or doesn’t perform well in
pressure situations, but the main one is that those who do not perform well are not
in the zone, and those who do are.
19. Trying too hard vs. achieving flow
a. Failure is a part of sports and life, and those who succeed work very,
very hard. But like running, success comes from being smooth,
controlled, and in the zone. When you press, or get anxious, slumps
begin.
20. Having faith
a. Faith is the ability to stay with the program even though results are not
what you desired at the moment; it’s knowing that there is land out there
even though all you can see is the ocean; it’s knowing you’ve worked as
hard as you possibly can, and that it will all pay off if you stay the course.
21. Self-talk
a. 24 hours a day, 7 days a week your mind is going, talking to you. What
you say to yourself, determines what you focus on, and what you move
toward. The greatest have a distinct manner in which they (largely
subconsciously) talk to themselves.
22. Visualization: night before, during day, pre-game, during game
a. You cannot outperform your self-image. Self-image comes from thoughts
that you think, and dwell on, and pictures that you focus on. When you
program the thoughts and pictures to be of the goal you want, and you do
it vividly, repeatedly, you will move towards those things.
23. Emotional control
a. There are many things that happen in sports, and in life, that are very
disappointing. The best players may or may not be very emotional, but
they know how to control their emotions so their emotions don’t control
them.
24. Studying the game
a. To be successful takes a lot hard work and cognitive ability. The best
athletes study the game as well as those who play it the best. They learn
from them.
25. Acting as if
a. Champions are always born in the mind of the individual, then it happens
physically on the field. It can’t happen unless it is first seen in the mind.
2 26. Enjoying the game with the game on the line
a. Enjoying the game in these situations means you have freed yourself from
being attached to the outcome; you’re completely in the moment, and you’re
playing for the love of the game at that time right there, nothing else.
27. Visualizing every possible scenario
a. Like an Olympic skier visualizing the bumps around every turn before she
hits them, athletes play their best when they’ve recently seen the play that just
happened in their mind’s eye first.
28. Using affirmations
a. Great players are continually affirming to themselves their greatness
(usually done with self-talk). It often becomes a fine line between cockiness and
confidence, but that is what the greatest have.
29. Have routines
a. Having routines in pre-game, the night before, and during the game gets
them into a rhythm, into the zone.
30. Take responsibility
a. Don’t blame teammates, the weather, injuries, umpires, etc. You control
your destiny.
