Trying to win is tricky. You have to care, but not too much. You have to try, but not too hard. You have to give maximum effort, with minimum stress . . . It’s a bit like walking a tightrope in the dark, where you can’t see the rope or the other side, and the height of the fall depends on you, and how hard you’re going to be on yourself if you do mess up.
When I talk about mental training, I mean truly anything that helps your mental state—drinnking water, sleeping well, using three-minute mindfullness, 5-second resets, or haivng a process goal to focus on all could be your mental training, if that’s what helps you.
That’s the clear, concrete, tangible side of things.
But there’s another, subtler aspect to mental training, that innumerable athletes have spoken to in countless interviews—that kind of mental judo you have to do to yourself to be locked in for a competition and take it seriously, without letting the stress become overwhelming.
One thing that helps with this is simply experience. Somebody who’s been to 50 competitions is generally going to be better at handling the pressure than someone who’s been to five.
That’s not always true though—some athletes will get more stressed and anxious as they compete more. In the same way lifting weights with bad form will cause injury over time, approaching competitions with the wrong mindset can make each consecutive performance more stress inducing, instead of less.
Bad form in weightlifting might be using your back instead of your legs, putting pressure on a weaker part of your body instead of a stronger one. By the same token, if you’re trying to motivate yourself for competition by worrying about the result or trying to focus on the bout just through sheer mental effort, not only are you unlikely to be successful, but you’re going to have a bad time, and that may come back to haunt you next time you show up at a competition.
Instead you’ll want to focus on the process you’re following—how you’re setting yourself up for success—and trust that the outcome will follow.
When it comes to staying focused—well, you can’t possibly stay totally focused all day, so you’ll want to take breaks, while still avoiding distractions, keeping the mind free and relaxed so it can return to focus on the next bout when the time comes.
There’s still a subtlety to achieving the exact right amount of internal pressure that’s hard to a put a finger on, and I’m still looking for the right way to articulate it. What do you think—do you have any examples of balancing pressure with focus, either from your own life or that you’ve heard from others?