Reasons Why Mental Strength in Sports is Essential
In many of the investigations on the greatest athletes in history, a very particular feature has been found that makes athletes “mentally strong.” It is about the ability to know the deep and real meaning of the words that an athlete lives with every day and live based on them. Mental strength is part of the game and if you don’t have it, you’re career may not play out the way you envisioned. Sure, muscle strength is important, but mental strength is even more important.
MOTIVATION
In general, it happens due to a lack of experience. Mentally strong athletes know that nothing external can motivate them. Motivation is born within the being. It comes from what competition means to an athlete. In turn, the word motivation hides two other words: motives and action.
These motives are what generate the athlete’s actions. Therefore, an athlete is highly motivated because he has many reasons. By contrast, a demotivated athlete lacks reason. To work with motives, you have to connect other important words.
INSPIRATION
This word also comes from within, connecting with the interior, and it happens when the athlete connects with the deepest part of himself that manages to generate energy that makes him compete, and of course, distinguish himself from others.
DREAMS
What athlete does not have dreams? It doesn’t matter if you are an Olympic athlete or a child who wants to win a competition at school. Great athletes consider the word “dream” along with another equal or even more important: goals.
GOALS
Goals are those specific, realistic, achievable, and very challenging indicators that athletes with great mental strength continually set in the short, medium, and long-term. It is what allows them to put legs to their dreams. There is a saying that “goals are the legs of dreams.”
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As an example, we can cite one of the most important swimmers of all time, Michael Phelps. Before the Rio 2016 Olympic Games, Phelps observed that more and more swimming athletes were performing better than him and found something very particular. He observed that for a competition most swimmers managed to take a much faster breath than he did. Realizing this, he set a personal goal. For two years he trained his breathing, not only improving his performance but also winning Olympic medals.
It is not only the natural and physical talent but the ability of athletes to set goals and meet them.
PROBLEMS
In the race to achieve goals and dreams, one word that we commonly live with in sports is the word “problem.”
“I have problems with my coach,”… “I have problems with my teammates,”… “I have personal problems,”… “I have problems getting resources.” An athlete, no matter how talented and physically capable he is, if he constantly lives in the world of problems can hardly reach its maximum performance.
CHALLENGES
Athletes with great mental strength do one very simple but very important thing: they simply delete the word “problem” from their vocabulary and replace it with the word “challenges.” “I have challenges with my colleagues,”… “I have challenges with my concentration,”… “I have challenges with my coach,”… “I have challenges to get the resources,” etc.
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They know that our brains are fascinated by challenges. It is as if we are programmed to solve problems and solve challenges. Therefore, problems become challenges, challenges become goals, and that virtuous circle begins again.
MISTAKES
It is almost impossible to find a perfect athlete, someone who has never been wrong, therefore the word you have to live with constantly is “error.“
An error in technical execution, a memory error, a concentration error. How many people are left with the mistake during a day, a week, or throughout their entire lives?
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Those athletes who have great mental strength have always been identified, those who know that behind these errors there are other errors even more important and of which little is said, which we call “ethical errors“: laziness, vanity, and ego. These are the most important mistakes that prevent an athlete from achieving his goals and therefore his dreams.
Even a jockey who runs his horse in a race, such as the Kentucky Derby picks 2020, undergoes rigorous mental training to reach the finish line first.
Athletes with great mental strength transform these errors into virtues. They live them in their daily habits: discipline, perseverance, effort, and humility.
Rafael Nadal, one of the most important tennis players we have ever seen, defined with his own words the word discipline:
Discipline is doing what you don’t like in the best way.
May your hardest part of mental strength become your funniest part
How do athletes who believe that their hardest part is their funniest part and those who think that the most complicated part is the one that needs the most training, do they live, how do they think and how do they train?
It is true that on this path, a match, a competition, or a medal is achieved by one, therefore, the athlete constantly lives with the word defeat and that defeat can stay in his head or his heart for a long time.
Mental strength can change the meaning of the word defeat and refers to it as “learning.” If for every sporting defeat one gains an apprenticeship, for fifty defeats one learns fifty lessons. After learning 50 things, what do you become? You are certainly better, but you have to recognize learning and become aware of it.
What if I tell you that many athletes consider defeat a blessing for mental strength?
Definitely a sign of mental strength. This, without taking into account the rivals, or the referee of a match in which we automatically find excuses for not giving our maximum version. Unfortunately, there are societies in which the inability to achieve goals is justified with a phrase.
Athletes with great mental strength know that the rival and the referee are their masters. If the rival overcomes you, he is teaching you something. If the referee makes a mistake, he invites you to work on your emotional management to be more resilient and move on.
THE SUCCESS
For many, success is related to reaching goals, earning medals, breaking records. Athletes with great mental strength have a different meaning for the word success and refer to it as self-conquest. It is not in what you have outside or in the final result, but on the daily path of conquering yourself, overcoming adversities, setting goals, and becoming the best version of yourself.
ATHLETES NEED MENTAL STRENGTH
Those affirmations come from the words and their meanings: Motivation, dreams, goals, challenges, learning, teachers, and the conquest of oneself. But do not think that these words are unique and exclusive to athletes.
Mental strength is the repetition of affirmations that leads you to believe. And when it becomes a conviction, things start to happen. – Muhammad Ali
What is your definition for these words and how easily do you get inspired? Do you have your goals clear? Or did you stop dreaming? Are you living with problems or do you have the ability to set challenges? Do you face your failures or constantly learn and have teachers? In the end, that’s all that matters.
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