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I’m a former pro athlete and I’ve competed globally.

But today, I am Coach Gad and a parent of two former competitive athletes. As the Head Performance Coach for all varsity athletes at Redeemer University, I am passionate about working with athletes ranging from those just starting their athletic careers to full-blown Olympians, and professionals.

Despite the differences in the athletes and people I train, the one consistency that applies to all, is developing a higher level of mental strength.

You know, mental toughness.

Young athletes put so much time and energy into developing their technical skills and fitness levels, yet virtually ignore the most powerful part of their body – their brain!

Our brain tells our body how to feel (confident, nervous, stressed, etc.) and decisions are made based on these feelings. Imagine if you, or your child, had the ability to turn feelings of anxiety, doubt, and frustration into higher levels of confidence, focus, and resiliency.

That’s mental toughness.

Mental toughness is a game-changer, no doubt, for sports and life! The good news is: this is a skill that can be learned like any other and the younger the athlete the better!

Here’s how you can get started, now.

Below, you’ll find a simple and systematic method so you can help your athlete become mentally stronger, regardless of their age. I call this: ‘The 4 Key Mindset Changes Your Athlete Needs to Make NOW’, to stay focused, gain confidence, and become more resilient.

Embrace Failure

“Success is stumbling from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm”  – Winston Churchill

Failure is something that every athlete experiences and is actually far more important than we realize. Let’s take a closer look at the significance of failure.

Most athletes don’t realize that failure is not only okay but should be expected. This is because athletes are always putting themselves out there to be judged, and there is always a winner and a loser. Even the best players fail most of the time; the best hitters in baseball fail 7 out of 10, the best 3-pt shooters in basketball fail 6 out of 10, and so on.

Failure is part of the athletic journey.

Shifting one’s mindset to understand this will allow athletes to be emotionally ready to accept and learn from failure, as opposed to making excuses, getting overly frustrated, blaming others…

Athletes that are failing and have the discipline to ask themselves – What went wrong? Why did it go wrong? What can I do to make it better? – activate a formula that is key to reaching their full potential.

They are maximizing their ‘Rate of Growth’ (ROG). This is extremely important because when a young athlete maximizes their ROG, they are on their way to becoming the best possible version of themselves.

With time they will leapfrog those athletes that don’t adjust their training or, worse yet, don’t learn from their mistakes.

Mistakes are information!

Information to store in the library of the brain for future use. Suppose young athletes take the time to review the situation after a failure. In a calm, accepting state of mind, they will understand what their mistake was, learn how to adjust themselves for success on the fly, and begin to focus on improving specific aspects of their performance.

However, if they don’t know how to learn from their mistakes, an athlete will have a lasting negative memory of the event in their brain – one that will be triggered subconsciously each time they’re in a similar situation. This ultimately causes them to lose confidence or freeze up and not perform at their best.

Now, despite how important failures are in an athlete’s journey, there is one kind of failure that an athlete should never embrace: preventable failures. A preventable failure is when athletes don’t do what needs to be done in order to succeed, despite knowing what they should do. This could be staying up late when they have an early morning tournament, at school, this is not studying for a test. There is no excuse for t his type of failure and being accountable will help change this in the future.

In contrast, intelligent failures are the ones that you need to seek and embrace wholeheartedly. This happens when you push yourself into unchartered territory, trying things you haven’t accomplished yet. These are high-risk and naturally produce a lot of failure at first, but in the long run, they allow athletes to grow, learn, and improve enormously.

Conclusion: Embrace intelligence failures, avoid preventable failures

Make sure as a parent or coach you foster an environment of accepting intelligent failure. Athletes need to know that intelligent failure teaches them how to improve. They should pursue and embrace intelligent failure and avoid preventable failures. There you have it: An in-depth look at key mindset change #1 of the four every athlete needs to make ASAP, so they can become mentally strong.

P.S. – To get my free guide, ‘The 4 Key Mindset Changes Your Athlete Needs to Make ASAP (to gain confidence, stay focused & be resilient), CLICK HERE!

To learn more about our Camps & Clinics click here & be sure to sign up for Winter Break Camps today.

To learn more about Coach Gad visit his website here

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