The Sound of the Water

By Mike Gustafson//Contributor  | Wednesday, December 20, 2017

Every Christmas Eve when I was a kid, I listened for sleigh-bells, even though I didn’t know what sleigh-bells should sound like. I assumed they sounded, well, like bells, but with some additional mysterious, magical resonance. And I assumed I would hear them, among the creaking white pine trees and northerly wind gusts. For hours, I’d lay in bed, close my eyes, and listen. And even though I never heard them, the experience itself was fulfilling, magical, dream-like.

I never had a similar audible experience until years later. I was a competitive NCAA swimmer, and I had just swum poorly in a mid-season swim meet. My coach, attempting an unorthodox way to ease my despondency, encouraged me to do something I had never done before: Listen to the water.

“Close your eyes and swim underwater,” he said. “And just do nothing. Listen to the water. Hear the water.”

At the time, the last thing I wanted to do in that moment was to listen to some abstract water gurgles. Instead, I wanted to throw my goggles, cry in the showers, and feel sorry for myself. I wanted to flee. I wanted to hide. I was frustrated with the sport and how my performance times weren’t reflecting the work I had put into training. I thought I had done everything right. And yet, I was swimming worse times than I had years before. And so, somewhat reluctantly but seeking any kind of advice or solution, I found a quiet corner in the warm-down pool, took a deep breath, and sunk underwater.

As any swimmer knows, “underwater” is an upside-down world. A weightless wonderland featuring supernatural abilities, where humans can flip, fly, and soar. But it wasn’t until I closed my eyes and listened to the rhythm of this upside-down world that I felt connected to it. A part of it. A part of its unique rhythm.

Gone were the whistles, yells, beeps, and cheers. Gone was the natatorium’s mechanical ventilation’s whirl, the florescent lights’ buzz. Gone were the onslaught of heats, dives, turns. And for thirty seconds or so, I only heard one sound.

A heart beat.

Swimmers can get easily caught up in times, performances, and expectations, like any of us can get caught up in grades, careers, wealth, and materials. I’m reminded of this every holiday season spent frantically buying, shopping, and wrapping. Occasionally, the holidays morph from a magical experience into a material one.

But when I followed that coach’s advice that day, and when I closed my eyes and temporarily shut-off the visual stimulation and non-stop movement of the world around me and just listened, I felt re-connected. In this upside-down, underwater world, I heard a heart beating — as natural and human a sound we will hear — and the experience felt otherworldly. Magical, even. Like I was a kid, once again listening to the black Christmas Eve night. The world seemed new, fresh, alive. As though there was this beat, this rhythm, this song happening all around me, and for the first time, I was singing along.

So much of our sport is focused on its tactile nature, its physical dance through water. Strength, flexibility, motion, angle, velocity. I’ve spent thirty years working on these things. But in thirty seconds of motionless listening, I learned more, felt more, gained more.

The holidays can be a whirlwind, frenetic time. The holidays for swimmers can mean additional hours of velocity and training. More yards. More intensity. More sweat.

But also, important?

To listen.

To your family. To those carolers down the street. To the quietude of the deep winter night. To your heart.

Mike Gustafson co-owns @LiteratiBookstore in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

The One Quality Great Teammates Have in Common

By John O’Sullivan of changingthegameproject.com

“Coach, can I talk to you?”

“Sure,” I said. “What’s on your mind today Michael?”

“Well, I just want to know what I can do so I get to start more games and get more playing time as a center midfielder. I don’t think I am showing my best as a winger, and my parents tell me I am not going to get noticed by the college scouts unless something changes.”

Well Michael,” I said, “there is something that all coaches are looking for from the players they recruit. In fact, it is exactly what I am looking for from you as well. If you approach every practice, every fitness session, and every match with this one thing, I think you will see a huge improvement in your play, regardless of where you play. Interested?”

“Of course, coach. What is it?”

I waited a moment before I answered to make sure he was listening.

“You have to stop asking what you can get, and start asking what you can give. You must serve.”

Michael furrowed his brow as he tried to process what I told him.

“You want me to serve the team, like with food?”

I smiled, “No Michael, serving others is the one thing that unites successful people, from friends to employees to athletes to business owners. The great ones know that to be more they must become more, and to become more they must serve others.”

“So, you are saying that instead of asking what I can get from the team, I should be asking what I can give to the team?”

I wanted to leap out of my chair and hug him.

Michael got it. It’s not about him. It’s not about me. It’s about service. The tool that would eventually earn him more playing time and increase his chances of playing in college serving others by focusing upon what he could give, instead of what he could get.

My great friend and coaching mentor Dr. Jerry Lynch is the founder of Way of Champions is the winner of 34 NCAA titles and one NBA World Championship as a sport psychologist and consultant. He calls this paradigm-shifting question the most effective question an athlete can ask, and an attitude that every coach must try and instill in his or her team.

We live in a world these days where self-centeredness and a ‘what’s in it for me” attitude of entitlement is far too prevalent. In the age of the selfie, Instagram, Facebook and a million other ways to say “look at me,” the concept of teamwork and the importance of service to others has gotten lost in the shuffle.

This is very sad, because service to others is the exact thing that athletes need to not only become elite performers, but the type of athlete that coaches look for, celebrate, and fight over at the next level. Do you want to stand out from the crowd?

Start by serving everyone in that crowd.

Far too many athletes bring the attitude of “what do I get” to practice and games. They want to know how they can:

• Get to start
• Get more playing time
• Get to play my favorite position
• Get to score all the points/goals
• Get to work hard when I want to
• Get to show up (physically and mentally) when I feel like it
• Get to give less than my best because I am an upperclassman
• Get attention as the star player

Sadly, this is the path to short-term satisfaction, at the expense of long-term development and high-level performance. This attitude does not promote success; it inhibits growth on and off the field, the court, and the ice.

If you want your athletes to perform at their very best, whether you are a parent or coach, then you must get them the right question.

What can I give?

Athletes who ask themselves what they can give bring “I can give/I can do” attitudes and actions to the table for their teams. The can actually “get” everything they are looking for simply by starting with the following service oriented ideas:

• I can give my best effort in practice and games
• I can give my team a positive attitude no matter what the circumstances
• I can give my team a boost no matter how many minutes I play
• I can give my team a better chance to win no matter what position I play
• I can do the dirty work so my teammate can score the goal and get the glory
• I can sacrifice my personal ambitions for the better of the group
• I can lead by example
• I can be an example of our core values in action

As a coach, I used to think that the most important thing was to have my best players be my hardest workers. But now I realize that isn’t enough. Being a hard worker can still be a selfish pursuit.

No, the most important thing as a coach is to have a team that all ask “what can I give,” especially when it come to your captains, your upperclassmen, and your most talented athletes. You must teach them that the selfish attitude may once in a while lead to success, but the selfless attitude leads to excellence, celebrates the success of others, and makes you the type of athlete that EVERY COACH wants on his or her team.

The most successful sports team in the professional era is not the NY Yankees, or the Boston Celtics, or Real Madrid, but a team from a far less known sport. It is the New Zealand All Blacks in rugby, who have an astonishing 86% winning percentage and numerous championships to their name. In the outstanding book about the All Blacks called Legacy, author James Kerr discusses one of their core values that epitomizes the selfless attitude.

It’s called “Sweep the Shed.”

You see the goal of every All Blacks player is to leave the national team shirt in a better place than when he got it. His goal is to contribute to the legacy by doing his part to grow the game and keep the team progressing every single day.

In order to do so, the players realize that you must remain humble, and that no one is too big or too famous to do the little things required each and every day to get better. You must eat right. You must sleep well. You must take care of yourself on and off the field. You must train hard. You must sacrifice your own goals for the greater good and a higher purpose.

You must sweep the shed.

After each match, played in front of 60,000 plus fans, in front of millions on TV, after the camera crews have left, and the coaches are done speaking, when the eyes of the world have turned elsewhere, there is still a locker room to be cleaned.

By the players!

That’s right, after each and every game the All Blacks leading players take turns sweeping the locker room of every last piece of grass, tape, and mud. In the words of Kerr: “Sweeping the sheds. Doing it properly. So no one else has to. Because no one looks after the All Blacks. The All Blacks look after themselves.”

They leave the locker room in a better place than they got it. They leave the shirt in a better place than they got it. They are not there to get. They are there to give.

If you are a coach, recognize that by intentionally creating a culture where players seek to give instead if get, you will have a team that not only develops excellence on and off the field but is a team that is much more enjoyable to coach. Create a culture that rewards the 95% who are willing to give, and weeds out the 5% who are trying to get. When you do, the “getters” will stick out like a player who is vomiting: he feels better and everyone else feels sick. Eventually, he will get on board, or be thrown off the ship.

Parents, teach your children to be teammates who give. It will not only serve them well in athletics; it will serve them well in life.

For as former NY Yankee great Don Mattingly so eloquently stated:

“Then at one point in my career, something wonderful happened. I don’t know why or how . . . but I came to understand what “team” meant. It meant that although I didn’t get a hit or make a great defensive play, I could impact the team in an incredible and consistent way. I learned I could impact the team in an incredible and consistent way. I learned I could impact my team by caring first and foremost about the team’s success and not my own. I don’t mean by rooting for us like a typical fan. Fans are fickle. I mean CARE, really care about the team . . . about “US.”

Mattingly continued: “I became less selfish, less lazy, less sensitive to negative comments. When I gave up me, I became more. I became a captain, a leader, a better person and I came to understand that life is a team game. And you know what? I’ve found most people aren’t team players. They don’t realize that life is the only game in town. Someone should tell them. It has made all the difference in the world to me.”

Please share this article with an athlete or a team that matters to you. Encourage, no implore them to take Don Mattingly’s advice, to take the All Blacks advice. Come to prepared to compete, and to be a “giver” and not a “getter.”

You will stand out.

You will be a difference maker.

And you will get everything you want by giving full of yourself, and helping everyone else get what they want.

It changes everything.

10 Fundamentals of a Peak Swimming Mindset

BY SWIMSWAM – Courtesy of Will Jonathan

Your mind is, by far, the most important asset you possess as a swimmer. It’s the most potent weapon you possess in your arsenal. And yet, many swimmers never bother to take the time to train their minds for performance nearly as much as they train their starts, their kicks, and their turns. The fact of the matter is that you can have all of the talent, skill, technique, and ability in the world. If you don’t have the mind to match them, those things will count for nothing because they’ll never be utilized properly, much less to their maximum.

There is no such thing as “muscle memory”. You muscles have zero capacity to think. Every physical action you produce in the pool is born out of your mind, and it’s the quality of your mindset when you go to swim that determines the quality of your physical actions in the pool. An unconfident mind will produce an unconfident stroke. An unmotivated mind will produce unmotivated kicks. An unenthusiastic mind will produce unenthusiastic turns. And, a negative mind will produce a negative performance that will inevitably produce negative results.

What separates the elite from the great, the great from the good, and the good from the bad has little to do with anything physical. When you reach a certain level, everyone has talent, skill, technique, and ability. What creates the difference between athletes and the results they experience is the mental aspect of sport. It’s how they mentally approach competition, how the cope with pressure, how they respond to challenges, and how they react to the results they experience. The athletes that are the best at those things rise to the top, and the ones that don’t will sink to the bottom.

On the day, when it’s time to perform, it’s all about the mindset and mental state you’re in when you go to swim. If your mindset is in a peak state, you’re going to have a peak performance and experience peak results. If your mindset is in a negative state, you’re going to have a negative performance and experience negative results. So, getting yourself into the best mindset possible to perform to the maximum of your ability is absolutely essential. To do that, he is my list of the 10 essential fundamentals for a strong swimmer’s mindset:

1) Swim to have a great race, not to avoid a bad one.

Swimming to avoid a bad race is swimming out of fear. Swimming to have a great race is swimming with confidence. Because of all the training you do and the preparation you undertake, you have a much better chance of swimming great than you do swimming badly. And yet, many swimmers almost always naturally gravitate towards thinking about the worst case scenario.

If you think about swimming badly, you’re much more likely to make it happen. And, the same is also true when you think about swimming great. The more you do, the more it’s likely to happen. In either case, it’s like a self-fulfilling prophecy. Great swimmers know that, if they focus too much on not swimming badly, they make it more difficult for themselves to swim freely and to their maximum. They swim believing in what they’re truly capable of, not fearing what could potentially go wrong.

2) Care less about the results and more about the process.

Many swimmers will tend to get this one backwards. They’re so focused on hitting PB’s and making cuts that their mind becomes cluttered and distracted from focusing on the very thing that will create those result they want. On top of that, by caring too much about the outcome, you develop an emotional dependency on it, which will place on your shoulders unnecessary amounts of pressure, nervousness, and tension when you race, things which will make it much harder to get the results you’re after.

Always remember that thinking about or worrying about your results is completely pointless. Your results are totally beyond your control. They exist in a future that hasn’t even been created yet. Results don’t come from caring about them. Results come from performing, nothing else. And, the best way to perform your best is to not think or care about the outcomes of your races. If you put every ounce of your focus and concentration purely into your performance, then the result will take care of itself.

3) Use your mental reset button.

A common mistake that many swimmers will make is that they’ll carry the results from a previous race into their next event. If their previous race was a good result, then they go into their next event either too overconfident or they become fearful of not being able to sustain or surpass the results they just managed to obtain. If their previous race was a bad result, they go into their next event with that bad result weighing on their mind and they also assume that because their previous race was poor, their next one is likely to be the same way.

Great swimmers have great reset buttons. Whether a race is good or bad, it’s irrelevant to them. When a race is finished, they get their minds out of the past, hit their mental reset button, and become completely focused in the present moment on what they need to do right now. They don’t let good results or bad results affect their mindset either way. If they have a great race, they go into their next event with a peak mindset. If they have a bad race, they go into their next event with a peak mindset. Great swimmers don’t let past results impact future performances.

4) Love the challenges and obstacles of the day.

To be an elite level swimmer, you have to have the kind of mindset that acknowledges, embraces, and loves challenges and obstacles. The harder things become, the better you become. The tougher things get, the more your best comes out of you. You’re not intimidated by the opposition swimmers when standing behind the block. You don’t put your opponents on a pedestal. You see yourself as their equals. You want to swim against the best and are eager to swim against the best.

During a race, if the race is tight and your opponents are neck and neck with you, that doesn’t bother you. It actually has the opposite effect. It makes you want to swim more determined and it lights a fire in you. If your opponents are ahead of you, that drives you to keep pushing, go beyond your pain barrier, and catch them up. It doesn’t tire you out or cause you to give up. When the race starts to hurt, you get stronger and you push harder. You love the pain and you’re willing to bulldoze through the burn in order to finish strong.

5) Visualize the start of each race.

When you get behind the block before your race, stare at it. If you’re a backstroker, see yourself in the water preparing to go. With your eyes open, picture yourself in a perfect starting position. Then, see the start of the race. Picture the perfect start. See yourself making perfect kicks under water. See yourself rising up out of the water. See yourself performing with flawless stroke technique. See yourself making the perfect turn. See yourself making more perfect kicks, rising up out of the water, executing perfect stroke technique, and touching the starting wall.

By visualizing the first 50 in your mind, you plant into your brain the command of how you want it to perform for you throughout the race. By visualizing a perfect starting position, a perfect start, perfect kicks, perfect strokes, and perfect turns, you’re showing and telling your brain, “This is what I want you to do.” And, the brain always responds to commands. It’s like a small child. If you show a small child what you want it to do, it will do it. If you visualize the perfect race in your mind, your brain will do everything it can to help you make that happen.

6) Believe in yourself fully and unconditionally.

There’s very much a connection between the mind, the body, and our physical actions where everything is interconnected and linked to one another. We know this is true. We see it. You can always tell when someone is feeling extremely confident and has belief in themselves. Their body language changes. They walk taller. They have more of a swagger about them. Their physical movements are more assured and they’re able to perform with a higher degree of tenacity and intensity.

A swimmer without confidence and self-belief is nothing more than an empty shell. They become hollow. They walk around with their shoulders slouched. They look frail and vulnerable. When confidence and self-belief is gone, the tenacity and intensity they used to perform with is replaced with a very visible look of doubt and uncertainty. Confidence and self-belief as an athlete is like the gasoline that fuels the car. Without fuel, a car can’t even move. Without confidence and belief in yourself, you can’t perform your absolute best. Never, ever allow yourself to doubt your ability and what you’re capable of producing.

7) Have fun and enjoy what you love.

A survey was once conducted of former NFL players. As part of the requirements of the survey, each player had to have played in the NFL for a minimum of 6 seasons or more, so these were players who played in the league for consecutive years and were by all standards considered to be seasoned professionals. The premise of the survey was very simple. They asked former NFL players what they considered to be the most important ingredient to their success as professional football players. Unanimously, all of the players listed the same thing as the most important ingredient: They made sure to have fun and enjoy the game.

If you’re not having fun when you’re competing, then you’re not doing it right. It’s very easy to get wrapped up in the “business side” of the sport and to let the need to win and produce success consume you. However, those things are much easier to produce when you let yourself have fun and enjoy swimming. Now, don’t get me wrong. You’re competitive. You’re fierce. You’re emotional, and you have that fire. However, at the same time, you allow yourself to have fun and enjoy the sport you love. You simply cannot swim your best if you don’t.

8) Be your own best friend and supporter.

If a teammate or friend were to make a mistake or have a bad race, what would you say to them? Would you berate them, tell them they’re terrible, and become extremely angry and frustrated with them? Or, would you positively support, inspire, and encourage them? I’m willing to bet it’s the latter. If you’re willing to do that with other people when they have a bad race, why can’t you do that for yourself too? There’s no reason why you can’t, and you should.

Many swimmers develop this poisonous belief that, if they screw up, they have to berate themselves and be overly critical, otherwise, it means they don’t care enough or are taking it too easy on themselves. Nothing could be further from the truth. Beating yourself up and insulting yourself when you make a mistake or swim badly doesn’t mean that you care about yourself. It actually means the opposite. If you cared about yourself, you wouldn’t treat yourself that way, just like you wouldn’t treat anyone else you cared about that way. When things go badly, your best supporter and number one fan has to be you.

9) Trust is a must.

For each event, you and your coaches will have formulated a strategy for how you’re going to race that event. Depending on the event, you might start with a slower pace and then increase that pace as the race goes on (Mid Distance-Distance swimmers). In other events, you might start with an all-out pace and try to hold that for as long as you can (Sprinters). Whatever the plan is, you need to trust it, believe in it, and execute it to the best of your ability.

Lastly, you have to trust in the training. You have to trust in the preparation. You have to trust in your warm-ups. Trust in your coaches, trust in your teammates, and most of all, trust in yourself. If you make the decision to turn on the jets and go for it during a race, trust that decision completely and commit to it without wavering. If you gut feeling tells you, “I can catch her if I go for it”, then go and catch her. Trust your intuition and trust your feelings. They often know better in the end.

10) Let your mind take over.

The human mind is designed to function best on a subconscious level. When the brain can take over and operate without your influence, that’s when it operates to its maximum. To get the most out of yourself when you swim, one of the best things you can do is to just shut off your brain, don’t have any thoughts, and just let your brain take over the race. Let it take control and guide things.

Over-thinking can kill a race. Often times, just clearing the mind and swimming with feeling is the best way to go. Don’t think any thoughts. Just feel the water, feel your body, and feel your movement. Become so entrenched in the moment that when you finish the race, you have a hard time remembering anything that happened during the race. Just get into a deep zone and the training take over.

Those are my 10 fundaments for a peak swimming mindset. Begin putting them into practice ASAP. You’ll be glad that you did.

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About Will Jonathan

Will Jonathan is a sports Mental Coach from Fort Myers, Florida. His clients include athletes on the PGA Tour, the Web.com Tour, Major League Baseball, the UFC, the Primera Liga, the Olympics, and the NCAA, as well as providing numerous talks and presentations on the mental aspect of sport and peak performance to various sports programs and organizations across the country. He also works as the official Mental Coach for the Florida Gulf Coast University Swimming & Diving Team.

If you’re interested to learn more about Will and his work, head on over to his website at www.willjonathan.com or email him at gru@willjonathan.com

Life’s a Journey Not a Race (part deux)

by Coach Mike

Last month I touched on how this past year I started this thing I called “project me”. I wanted to expand upon this journey that I have been on as it may give some of you reading the courage to be the change you wish to see in the world as well.

Over the years I have learned to start with myself if things don’t go the way I want them to. This past year I have pondered some questions; just thinking about life, what I want to be doing, what means the most to me, why do I do things, am I being true to myself, etc…Being honest with myself and in answering these questions I noticed I lost my way.

When I took the head coaching job here over ten years ago I set a goal for myself to make BLUE WAVE into one of the best teams in Potomac Valley Swimming. I associated being the best with performance and results. If we didn’t get these results it meant that I was a bad head coach and not good enough. The thing is though I didn’t get into coaching for the performances and results, I got into it to inspire kids to be greater than they believed they could be in life.

Through the answers I was uncovering, I noticed that I my actions were not in sync with who I am. I was not living with integrity. My outside world was mirroring my frustrations and internal conflict. My ego was calling the shots and because I saw top end coaches over the years use fear, anger and negativity to produce top results I allowed myself to get caught up in that approach. That approach, however, was horrible for me and it took me four or five years to really see it.

How did I become aware of all this?

It started with mediating and learning to be present. Meditation helped me to start recognizing my thoughts and like an onion, I started peeling away the layers each day to find the best version of me. In addition, I found a Life Coach, she helped me learn that my conscious decisions were not in line with my subconscious and my actions did not line up with who I truly am, or what I will refer to as my soul. She helped me to start recognizing the excuses I make for myself and conversely come up with ways to break through them. It is difficult work and I still have a long way to go but my vision is becoming clearer.

A story to convey this was at this year’s travel meet to VA Tech which I had to unexpectedly attend. I was on the deck for every session, putting in three 15-hour days which included prep and travel on Friday, three meet sessions on Saturday and two on Sunday with traveling back home with a bus full of energized kids. You might think I would have been exhausted, but I wasn’t. I had energy that I hadn’t felt in a long time. This meet, in ways I can’t explain, was this calm of being able to have meaningful conversations with the swimmers and just enjoy leading those that would come up to me. I felt connected which has been my worry over the past few years, and I just had fun coaching them.

During “project me” I learned that I need to stay true to my approach to coaching or what I am referring to as my coaching soul. In the past I let ego and results get to me too much, and it took away my joy in coaching. While I am competitive and hate to lose, it’s not why I am in this sport. I do this job because I want to help improve people’s lives. I want to have a positive influence on these athletes and inspire as many people as I can to reach higher, believe in themselves more, and remember to enjoy life along the way. Swimming to me is the ultimate vehicle to teach life lessons, but my true passions are the athletes and leading them to a great life ahead by learning incredible life lessons through swimming.

I still have more layers to work on but a good way to describe where I am right now, being at peace. As I read somewhere; PEACE. It does not mean to be in a place where there is no noise, trouble, conflict or hard work. It means to be amid those things and still be calm in your heart.

Life is a journey and not a race. Enjoy every moment and strive to be the best version of you every day.

BLUE WAVE ON 3…BLUE WAVE ON 3…1...2…3

GO BLUE WAVE!

FAMILY – DEDICATION – MENTAL TOUGHNESS

Habits, Not Goals, Will Bring You Success

“What most people don’t realize is that your habits don’t follow your ambition, they follow your system.”

By Heleo Editors

CONVERSATION WITH

James Clear Multifaceted Motivator Book: Transform Your Habits

Jay Papasan Book: The ONE Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results

READ ON TO DISCOVER:

• Victor Hugo’s dramatic trick to stop procrastinating
• The daily habit that made Jerry Seinfeld such a success
• The single behavior that often separates top performers from the pack

James Clear is a productivity expert who uses behavioral science to help nearly half a million newsletter subscribers optimize their habits. He recently sat down with bestselling author Jay Papasan to discuss the hidden psychology of our habits, and how we can build habits to achieve success in the office, at the gym, and everywhere in between.

This conversation has been edited and condensed. To view Jay and James’s full conversation, click the video below.

Habits, Not Goals, Will Bring You Success (feat. Jay Papasan & James Clear) from heleo on Vimeo.

Jay: What’s the basic structure for how habits get formed?

James: I think about it as a four-stage model: noticing, wanting, doing, and liking. As an easy example, if you have a coffee cup sitting on the table, you have to first notice that it is there before you can do anything about it. All habits are like this. They have to come into our awareness for us to act on them.

Then there’s wanting, which is desire. Now, if you see a coffee cup on the table but you don’t actually want to drink coffee, then you won’t do anything. A trigger only gets you to act if it causes you to approach, causes you to do something, and that happens because there is desire. When wanting happens, there is a spike of dopamine in the brain before the action. That spike happens, that gets you desiring it, it drives you to take action, and that brings us to the third stage, which is doing.

The doing is the actual habit itself, and then after you do the action, there is usually some kind of reward, and it gets you to like or repeat [the action]. So you see the coffee cup on the table, you want to drink coffee so you pick it up and drink it.

If you like it, if you get a reward from it, then you want to repeat that action. Those four stages eventually become automatic because we’ve repeated them so much, and at that point, once the behavior has come nonconsciously formed, we’ll say it is a habit.

“The greatest benefit that goals provide is direction, and once you have a clear direction, pretty much all your energy should be focused on the system and the process.”

Jay: I’ve got young kids, so one of the habits we’ve been trying to help them build is brushing their teeth. Where would the wanting [come] in on some of these habits that we know we need to do, but we don’t really like to do?

James: In many cases, people assume that what they lack is motivation, when what they really lack is clarity.2 Most people want to have clean teeth, or want to be in shape, or want to be calm and not stressed, or want to succeed in the workplace. It’s not that the desire is not there. The problem is that when the moment comes to act, they either don’t notice that the moment is there and so it passes them by, or they don’t have the systems in place to make it easy for them to act at that time.

I got my teeth-brushing habit from my parents, like many of us did, and I did that every morning and night without fail. But for a long time I didn’t floss consistently, so I started to look at that habit. The first thing that I realized was I wasn’t noticing. I would just automatically brush my teeth without realizing, “Oh, this is also the time to floss.” One problem sounds so basic, but the floss was hidden in a drawer in the bathroom, rather than being visible. So I went and bought a little bowl for $2 at Target and set it right next to the toothbrush and filled it with those pre-made flossers.

This is trying to reduce the friction associated with doing it. I didn’t like to have to wrap the floss around my fingers, so I would just pick it up and do it right away. This is the most micro example ever, but you can take that idea and apply it to many different habits. How can you make them more visual so that you notice them, so that they’re obvious in your environment? How can you reduce the friction or the pain point of the habit so that even if your desire isn’t that high, it’s still enough to get you to act?

Another common example is fitness. For a long time, my mom wanted to be in shape, but she didn’t like working out in public, so the idea of going to a YMCA or a gym wasn’t appealing to her. Once she figured out that that was the friction point, she bought a home yoga DVD, and she started doing that four days a week. Reducing the friction of an action so that it’s low enough to match the actual desire you have is one great way to get through that hurdle of wanting or desire.

Jay: Sometimes wanting doesn’t have to be, “I want to go to Alaska on vacation.” It can also be, “Oh, I know I need to do that.”

James: Right. Here’s another example. For a long time, I would buy apples and put them in the crisper in the bottom of my fridge, and they would sit there for three weeks and go bad. I was like, “I want to eat fruit. I want to be healthy, and I’m just wasting money.” [So] I bought a larger bowl and set that on the counter. When we buy apples now, we put them there. Now I eat one every day. I don’t even think about it. I changed nothing else, I just made it more obvious.

There are many things that we have a general desire to do, but we don’t make it obvious or easy for ourselves to do it, and we end up wanting to do something [else] in the moment: watch Netflix, eat junk food, whatever. Desire comes in waves and spikes. It will not always be there, so if you can capitalize when the spike is high, you can change your action down the line.

One of my favorite examples of that is Victor Hugo. When he was writing The Hunchback of Notre Dame, he was procrastinating for over a year. He just hosted parties and didn’t send anything to his publisher, and eventually the publisher got tired of it. They said, “You have six months to write this book, or it’s getting canceled.” So he had his assistant gather up all of the clothes in his closet and take them out of the house. The only thing left was this giant shawl, so he had no clothes to see people in or to go out in public in. He basically put himself on house arrest.

And it worked. He got the manuscript done two weeks ahead of time. He locked in those future actions. He was like, “I know I’m not going to want to do this two months from now, but I don’t have any clothes to leave the house, so I guess I’ve got to stay here and write.”

Jay: That makes me think of Ulysses tying himself to the mast.

You’ve written about this idea of using systems versus goals. You’ll have to refresh my memory.

James: The basic idea is that we often focus on the milestone or the achievement, but in fact, the way that we ever get anywhere is through some kind of repeated action or system.2 If you’re a basketball coach, your goal might be to win the championship, but your system is how you run practice each day. If you’re a writer, your goal might be to write a bestselling book, but your system is the writing process that you follow each day. If you’re a runner, your goal might be to finish a marathon, but your system is how often you run each week.

The question that came to my mind was, what if you just completely forgot about the goal [and] just focus on the system? What if you’re a basketball coach and you don’t even think about winning the championship, but you just focus on running the very best practice you can each day? Would you still get results? I think you would.

The greatest benefit that goals provide is direction, and once you have a clear direction, pretty much all your energy should be focused on the system and the process.1

Jay: “Habit” is, in my mind, another word for a “system.”

James: I like to think about it as the system supports the habits that will help you achieve the goal. Let’s say that you have a habit of flossing your teeth. The system could be buying the pre-made flossers and setting them on the counter.

What most people don’t realize is that your habits don’t follow your ambition, they follow your system. People think that you achieve something based on how ambitious you are, or how much you want it. But in the long run, the system ends up winning over those things.

I’ve never seen someone, for example, stick to a positive habit in a negative environment. If you’re fighting your system every day, eventually the system washes you away. So figuring out how to optimize that system is the key to building habits that last.

Jay: Championship dynasties are built on systems. You can have a one-year [success] because some kid became an unexpected MVP, but the dynasties are built on systems. I look at Belichick and the Patriots, I look at Saban in Alabama. There are a lot of ways to be average, but if you want to be extraordinary, the system is the surest way to get there.

James: Yeah. What’s interesting is that a lot of habits enter our lives through a back door. Everything that surrounds us is a system to some degree. The religious ideas you were exposed to, the educational ideas you were exposed to, the friends that you hang out with, they’re all pieces of the system that influences your habits. And if you look at the person you are today, it’s largely a result of the systems that you were exposed to. Our behaviors get automated without us really thinking about it.

[But] once you realize that, it becomes your responsibility to shake the system. The thing that was previously not under your control can become under your control, and it becomes your choice as to how to design the future, and what influences you want to have [in] your life.

Jay: What advice do you give to people for how to form a habit so that it doesn’t have to be hard every time?

James: There’s a story about Jerry Seinfeld I love using as an example. Seinfeld, one of the most popular comedians of his generation, was once asked by a young comedian if he had any tips for a young comic.

Seinfeld said, “The secret to being a better comic is to write better jokes, and the secret to writing better jokes is to write every day. So one thing that you could do is get this big calendar and put it on your wall, and you can see every day of the year mapped out on it. Each day that you do your task of writing jokes for 10 or 15 minutes or whatever, I want you to take a sharpie and put an X on that day. At some point, you’re going to get a bit of a chain going: five, six, seven, eight days in a row. And at this point, your only goal becomes to not break the chain. It’s not about how good or how bad the jokes are, it’s not about how you feel about them, it doesn’t matter if it makes it into your material or not. Just don’t break the chain.”

I have had friends use that same philosophy for workout habits. I have friends who use it as video editors. Every day, they do their 30 minutes of video editing, they put an X on that day. You can do it for pretty much any repeated task, but what is so useful is that it helps you get those reps in, which are so essential for building a habit. It’s a natural motivator, too. You see that chain and you’re like, “Oh, I’ve got 12 days, I don’t want to break it.”

It helps you notice because it’s a visual cue, it helps you want it because you see the chain building, and it also helps you like it because as soon as you’re done, you get to put another X down. So it hits on all levels of that noticing, wanting, doing, and liking.

One thing I want to add to that Seinfeld strategy is that top performers are not perfect. They make mistakes just like everybody else. But what separates them is that they get back on track more quickly than other people. If they miss a workout, they’re back in there the very next day. Of course you want to keep your chain going for as long as you can, but at some point, your kid’s going to get sick, or you’re going to get sick, or you’re going to go on vacation, and you’re going to slip. In that case, the idea that I like to keep in mind is “Never miss twice.” As soon as you miss once, put all of your energy into getting back in the very next time, and make sure that you don’t miss twice in a row.

It’s not about whether you did it today or not. You don’t have to beat yourself up about it. It’s always about the long-term performance. If you commit to it consistently, the body of work will be there.

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Life’s a Journey Not a Race

By Coach Mike

First, I want to thank everyone that came by the Kindness Rocks booth and decorated a rock. They are being placed throughout the village and already bringing a small bit of joy to your fellow neighbors. I also want to say thank you to the ones that have shared with me there love of reading these articles, it truly means a lot. I am glad that these words may inspire you to be a better version of yourself. Today I would like to share a story I found entitled “Life is a DYI project”.

An elderly carpenter was ready to retire. He told his employer-contractor of his plans to leave the house building business and live a more leisurely life with his wife enjoying his extended family.

He would miss the paycheck, but he needed to retire. They could get by. The contractor was sorry to see his good worker go and asked if he could build just one more house as a personal favor. The carpenter said yes, but in time it was easy to see that his heart was not in his work. He resorted to shoddy workmanship and used inferior materials. It was an unfortunate way to end his career.

When the carpenter finished his work and the builder came to inspect the house, the contractor handed the front-door key to the carpenter. “This is your house,” he said, “my gift to you.”

What a shock! What a shame! If he had only known he was building his own house, he would have done it all so differently. Now he had to live in the home he had built none too well.

So it is with us. We build our lives in a distracted way, reacting rather than acting, willing to put up less than the best. At important points we do not give the job our best effort. Then with shock we look at the situation we have created and find that we are now living in the house we have built. If we had realized that we would have done it differently.

Think of yourself as the carpenter. Think about your house. Each day you hammer a nail, place a board, or erect a wall. Build wisely. It is the only life you will ever build. Even if you live it for only one day more, that day deserves to be lived, graciously and with dignity. The plaque on the wall says, “Life is a DIY project.” Your life tomorrow will be the result of your attitudes and the choices you make today.

This past year I committed to a small project I nicknamed “project me”. The main reason for this project is because of a quote stated by Gandhi which I do my best to live by, “be the change you wish to see in the world.” One thing about change is that it is the only constant in life. The only thing you can truly change is yourself. Most often we look outside of ourselves for change; change our surroundings, change our job, change the people around us, etc... We have this delusion that by changing things outside we will be happy with ourselves. The thing that we must realize is that our outside world is just a mirror of our true selves. Life reflects back everything you say or do. If you want more love in the world, create more love in your heart. If you want more competence in your team, improve your competence. If we want to change the world, we must first change ourselves.

I put things off that would make me better because I supplied myself with excuses such as; I don’t have time, it costs too much money, I’m not worth it, just to name a few. By living these excuses I was not living with integrity because I was not being the change I wished to see in the world.

An article written by So-Young Kang states that; the word integrity stems from the Latin word ‘integer’ which means whole and complete. So, integrity requires an inner sense of ‘wholeness’ and consistency of character. When you are in integrity, people should be able to visibly see it through your actions, words, decisions, methods and outcomes. When you are ‘whole’ and consistent, there is only one you. You don’t leave parts of yourself behind. You don’t have a ‘work you’, a ‘family you,’ and a ‘social you.’ You are YOU all the time.

Realizing that I was not living with integrity was an epiphany during my ongoing “project me.” I have always valued integrity and to realize that I was not living it was a humbling experience. What does it take to be someone who lives with integrity? Consciousness and choice. Here are six things that we can choose to do to be on a journey towards greater integrity:

1. Understand the true definition of integrity.
2. Intentionally reflect on what to say, how to behave, how to make decisions.
3. Be the same authentic person regardless of the situation.
4. Recognize the impact that you have on others.
5. Actively focus on the development of character and wholeness.
6. Enroll others to be on the same journey.

Life is a journey, not a race. The journey will continue…

7 Ways to Swim Better, Faster, Stronger This Year

By Olivier Poirier-Leroy www.swimswam.com

This time of year is very formative, daunting, and exciting all rolled into one for swimmers. After a brief break we get back into the meat-and-potatoes of training, a clean slate before us, pounding out miles of drill and aerobic work, laying the foundation for a fresh set of goals.

With no tapers in sight, no championship competitions for miles (and miles), and nothing but training staring you in the face the fall can be a little daunting. But it doesn’t have to be. This is the time of year where we are all given a clean start, and a fresh set of opportunities to improve and define ourselves as swimmers.

Here are 7 ways for swimmers to reap the most of the start of the new season:

1. Get back to the fundamentals.

With a new season you have a fresh start with your stroke and technique. What are those corrections you were meaning to make but kept postponing last year? Now is the best time to hammer those into habit, so that when the mileage and intensity ramps up in the upcoming weeks and months you will have solid fundamentals as a foundation to build on.

2. Analyze the season that was.

Just because the previous season is in the rear-view doesn’t mean that you should steamroll over the valuable lessons it can provide. Sure, the parts of the season that sucked where you were injured, or got sick will stick out because, well, the sucky parts unfortunately tend to outshine the good things. Learn from those setbacks – make sure you are staying ahead of injury by doing pre-hab, and cut down on sick days by taking better care of yourself. And speaking of the positives, there were things that you did super well, so make sure you are incorporating those into the new season and building on them as well.

3. Get short with your goals.

Especially at the beginning of the season, when the days are short, the nights long, and your first big meet is perhaps even off into the new year, it is important to set yourself some mini-goals. Doing so will keep you focused on your swimming, add purpose to what you are doing, and keep you motivated through the long bouts of training.

4. Slap around that part of your swimming you’ve always wanted to improve.

We all have those little weaknesses in our swimming that we never quite find our way to getting around to solving. The beginning of the season is a perfect opportunity to attack that weakness and finally improve on it. Whether it is improving on your kick, adding distance to your underwater, or even flexibility-related issues, the fall is a perfect time to put in work on these areas. The best part? As long as you stick with it over the winter months that weakness will shuffle over into your armory of weapons.

5. What you invest now will pay dividends next summer.

The fall and winter are where the foundation of your performances next summer are being built. The habits you choose to adopt (or carry on from previous seasons), the consistency you provide in the pool, and the technique and breathing patterns you instill now will carry you through the rest of the year. Remember to have a long-view mindset when you are feeling like all you are doing is pounding out mindless yardage; the way you train now is an investment for your swimming next spring and summer.

6. Get a feedback loop going with your coach.

When making those little adjustments in your technique or stroke, stay in constant contact with your coach so that you are getting the necessary feedback. He or she is there to provide you with the expert instruction to help you improve as a swimmer. You and I both know that the way we perceive ourselves swimming in the water isn’t always a very accurate reflection of what we are actually doing, so make sure that you engage in a feedback loop with your coach.

7. Choose what kind of swimmer you want to be this year.

With a fresh slate comes a new opportunity to be the swimmer you want to be. Last season is long gone, and the way we judge ourselves is based on how we do the next time we grace the competition pool. Will you be the swimmer that never misses a practice? That never gives up on the main set? That is a supportive and positive influence amongst the other swimmers on the team?

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Olivier Poirier-Leroy is a former national level swimmer based out of Victoria, BC. In feeding his passion for swimming, he has developed YourSwimBook, a powerful log book and goal setting guide made specifically for swimmers. Sign up for the YourSwimBook newsletter (free) and get weekly motivational tips by clicking here.

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What Meditation & Mindfulness Have To Do With Mental Toughness

by Dr. Alan Goldberg – www.competitivedge.com

There is a tendency in the world of sports to be “tough” and put on a brave face no matter what, to push yourself through obstacles with force, and to keep yourself moving because the alternative of slowing down might mean that you’re “falling behind.” But the problem with that full-speed-ahead approach is that it’s bound to burn you out in the long run, and it’s not going to help you mature as an athlete.

Real Mental Toughness requires slowing down both physically and mentally.

Many of the techniques I teach, such as controlling your eyes and ears, staying focused in the NOW, and emphasizing the process over the outcome are a unique way of applying the concept of mindfulness to sports. But if you really want to grow as an athlete it’s helpful to understand the broader definition of mindfulness and apply it to life both on and off the field so that you can benefit in multiple ways.

So what is mindfulness?

If you’ve ever time-travelled in your head and got distracted with thoughts while your body was doing something on autopilot then that’s a good example of what mindfulness is NOT, and what it aims to address. When “the lights are on but nobody’s home” so to speak, you are not doing whatever it is you’re doing to your full capacity.

If you’re in practice and thinking about how you really need to win the next game, how embarrassed you are about some mistake you made in the past, or how you’re failing chemistry then your concentration will suffer because your body and mind are in two separate places. Mindfulness helps bring the two back together so that you have more focus, clarity, and are able to perform better.

It’s a concept rooted in the Buddhist tradition that basically asks that you bring more conscious attention to what you’re doing in that moment. Whether you’re brushing your teeth, having a laugh with family, or stretching pre-performance, being mindful means keeping your thoughts only in that action rather than allowing them to wander elsewhere.

Let’s take the example of stretching. Doing it mindfully means fully feeling your body with a quiet mind. If it helps you can “think” about how a certain muscle group feels when you’re stretching it, imagine tense areas relaxing, and really appreciating how your body allows you to engage in a sport you love. That’s it. If you start to think about other things then just bring your attention back to the stretch, no need to self-criticize for those wandering thoughts, just bring your attention back and continue with the mindful action. Try mindfulness when you do other things too, like walking, eating, playing with your dog, etc.

The more you get in the habit of doing all sorts of things mindfully the easier it will be for you to access the concentration necessary to reach peak performance when it’s crunch time!

Now here’s another practice that will improve your performance: meditation.

Stay with me here, this isn’t woo-woo stuff, I’m not asking you to dance in the forest and go on a shamanic journey. Meditation is a scientifically proven effective strategy that helps increase mental functions, lower stress, and even improve resilience to adversity. And if I’m not enough to convince you then consider this: some of the most successful athletes like Kobe Bryant, Joe Nameth, Arthur Ashe, Barry Zito, Lebron James, Derek Jeter, and many others meditate. It worked out pretty well for them so you might as well give it a try!

Meditation is both incredibly simple and very difficult at first. Here’s what you do: sit and do nothing!

You can start with 5 or 10 minutes every day, and choose a time of day where you can do it consistently. Mornings tend to be best but you should prioritize consistency, so if you’re not a morning person then try afternoons or evenings. Sit down on a cushion on the floor or in a chair, close your eyes, and just focus on your breathing. That's all, just focus on your breathing. Without altering your breath in any way, feel the breath come in and then the breath go out. If there's a pause between breaths, notice the pause. As thoughts come in, label them, "thinking," and immediately bring your focus back to your inhale and your exhale.  Use a timer so you don't have to keep checking the clock.

Mental Toughness is all about training your mind and these techniques will go a long way in helping you reach a new level of performance.

A Personalized Way for Swimmers to Increase Mental Toughness

by Olivier Poirier-Leroy

If you want to be mentally tougher, start out by defining what mental toughness is for you. Here’s how.

Mental toughness.

You hear it so often from coaches, swimmers, announcers, and amateurish swim bloggers (hey, that’s me!) that you almost become tone-deaf to its importance.

Kind of like how you become nose-blind to the smell of chlorine after a while. (Could also be that the chlorine is slowly deadening your smelling apparatus. But let’s move on from that thought for now.)

You know that mental toughness is important. You know that you could benefit from more of it. You know that it will probably even help you be a little bit taller. You could be a baller. Have a girl who would look good, you could call her.

But because mental toughness is such a vague concept, and so head-scratchingly difficult to measure, you don’t even know where you would begin.

It’s like saying, “Let’s be better!”

Cool—no one is arguing that “being better” is a good idea. I want to be better. You want to be better. But what does that actually mean? And who is going to decide when we hit that point that we are “being better”? How do we know with any kind of certainty that we’ve reached a point that we are “better”?

One of the problems with increasing mental toughness is that it’s hard to measure.

It’s a moving target unless we are able to affix some sort of quantifiable variable to it. It’s not something you can look at with complete, quantifiable certainty and say, “Your mental toughness is presently at a 6.34 out of 10, sir! Let’s get that up to a soft 8 or at least a hard 7, okay there, broski?”

It’s not like a stroke rate. Or an interval. Or the amount of meters you did last week. It’s a completely subjective rating.

Compounding things further is that mental toughness is a sliding scale; what may be mentally tough for one swimmer is easey peasey for another.

While you may think swimming a 5k straight descending the 1000s is another day at the office, for someone else that represents a task of Herculean and wildly un-interesting proportions.

See Also: Hey Coach: Should I Track My Workouts?

With no template or universal scale for assessing mental toughness, where do we even begin on trying to figure out how to increase and strengthen it? Especially as we know that resilience, grit, fortitude—whatever we are calling it this week—is one of the determining characteristics of successful individuals in the water?

Here’s a way that you can figure out what mental toughness means for you…and what you can do to in order to toughen up your brain so that it’s leathery like your grandpa’s catcher’s mitt.

Where do you fall apart mentally?

I will freely admit right off the red top that this exercise is going to be a little humbling—no one likes to have to admit that they aren’t as awesome as they tell themselves they are. But self-awareness is  the jefe when it comes to improvement.

If it’s hyper-improvement you want—and yes, you want it—than let’s get down on some self-honesty.

Be real with yourself, man.

The point of this exercise isn’t to make you feel crappy about yourself. It’s to give you a trampoline from which to bound off of like LeBron James with two hundred Pogo sticks taped to his ankles into being a better, tougher swimmer.

See Also: The Research Behind the Mindset of Super Champions

After all, the goal isn’t necessarily mental toughness for the sake of being mentally tough. We are simply using MT as a tool to get more from ourselves in training and competition so that we can make the most of our abilities. In other words, crush the competition and destroy our best times. There, I said it.

Let’s get down on it.

What are the top 3 things that I struggle with the most mentally in practice?

In other words, what are the circumstances where my performance sinks to the bottom of the pool faster than a weight belt?

Do I give up prematurely on the main sets? Does my self-talk stink when things aren’t going my way? Do I find myself resisting stroke and technique corrections? Am I making excuses for myself before I even get in the water before a hard workout?

Seriously. List the top moments where things unravel for you in practice. These are going to be your opportunities to overcome and prove to yourself that you ain’t no chlorinated scaredy cat.

The more specific the better.

• If you find yourself failing on the 9^th rep of a particular set, write that down.
• If you are having a hard time staying focused for longer than 1000m of a long, unbroken set (my favorite kind of set recently, as it were), write down exactly when things fall apart.

The more specific and the more measurable, the clearer your attempts at being mentally tougher will become.

You will have tangible, objective things to work on, instead of hoping and wishing that today will be the day you are suddenly infused with a high octane shot of mental fortitude.

Attack, attack, attack.

Figuring out where things unravel for you is the first step.

The next?

Habituating yourself by placing yourself in those situations so that you give yourself a chance to overcome them and develop some free-range, wholly legitimate mental toughness (with a steaming side of self-confidence).

• When I feel like giving up on the main set…I will attack the next two reps with everything I have.
• When my self-talk starts to go all negative nelly on me…I will tell myself that I am tougher than I give myself credit for.

Write down the situation in practice that will recreate the moments where things fall apart for you mentally.

Defining and confronting these moments head-on will give you that toughness and confidence that you can overcome difficult stuff, while also supercharging your efforts in the water, giving you better results, faster.

More Stuff Like This:

3 Ways to Stay Focused and Calm Behind the Blocks. The way we experience anxiety and how focused we are behind the blocks has real effects on our performance in the water. Here’s three things you can do to stay focused and control your anxiety levels.

6 Benefits of Mental Training for Swimmers. Not sold on the benefits of improving your mindset? Here are just some of the reasons to give it a look.

The Power of Journaling for Swimmers. Want better workouts? A bullet-proof race plan? Less anxiety behind the blocks? Yup—the simple act of journaling can help. Big time. Here’s how.

THE PRE-PERFORMANCE STRATEGY TO HELP YOU FOCUS AND SUCCEED

By Dr. Alan Goldberg

Athletes and coaches often ask me how they can get in or stay in “the zone” of a great performance, and the answer to that is usually simpler than they expect: you have to stay in the NOW of what’s happening.

The thing that causes athletes to lose their focus is usually time-traveling to the past or the future, wasting their precious mental energy on thinking about the mistakes they made in the last game, or how important this performance is to their ultimate goals. Don’t get me wrong, it’s important to analyze and learn from the past, and to have ambitious goals, but you should NOT be doing this RIGHT BEFORE OR DURING A PERFORMANCE!

All that mental chatter is only going to distract you or put unnecessary pressure on you, leading you to lose your concentration and not perform to your potential. In those crucial moments right before a game, event, performance, race, and even practice, the best thing you can do is LEARN TO CONTROL YOUR EYES AND EARS.

What do I mean by that?

Controlling your eyes and ears pre-performance means that before competition starts you look and listen to ONLY the things that will keep you calm, loose, and confident.

If talking to friends before the event helps keep you centered then continue doing this, but if it distracts you and gives you a shaky start then DON’T! If looking into the stands or at your opponents makes you uptight and nervous, then don’t do that either. Instead, find somewhere else to deliberately focus your eyes, such as by reading a book before or between events, watching your legs as you stretch, picking out one spot and staring at it while breathing and tuning out whatever is happening around you, or focusing on your glove, shoes, or some favorite thing that you like to have with you.

These visual targets or focal points will distract you from the REAL distractions!

A coach I know even advises her athletes to walk around the arena before the game and pick out a few focal points in advance, so that when the heat is on and distractions are plenty they can go right to those points and easily avoid the other distractions.

By picking specific targets to look at ahead of time and regularly using them, you’ll have a much easier time successfully staying calm and confident when it counts.

When it comes to your ears, there are two sources of possible distraction: outside sources and inner self-talk. SPEND AS LITTLE TIME AS POSSIBLE LISTENING TO THINGS THAT DRAIN YOUR CONFIDENCE. Instead, substitute positive or neutral sounds that will distract you from the negatives.

If hearing the crowd distracts you or makes you feel pressure then put on some headphones and listen to music that makes you feel at ease, or something motivating and helpful like mental toughness training. If there are opponents or even teammates who are negative or intimidating you then do your best to get as far from them as possible.

Same goes for negative self-talk, if your mind is coming up with negative messages like “you’re not ready to play at this level” or “don’t screw up like last time” then rather than engaging those thoughts or negotiating with yourself to stop thinking them, focus your ears on something else. You can either replace those thoughts with more positive process-orientedaffirmations such as “I am going to stay focused and perform at my very best” or “this is going to be a great game and I’m just going to have fun” or think of a word or phrase that boosts your confidence (such as “confidence”) and repeat that over and over in your head. 

Controlling your eyes and ears is a strategy you can also apply during any breaks within the performance itself, so that you don’t lose your concentration and momentum during half-time or while you’re waiting for your turn to perform.

Give it a try and see what works best for you. YOUR focal points might be different from another athlete so try a few different ones and see which results in the most effective means of keeping your concentration and performance optimal.

3 Ways Swimmers Can Develop a Better Attitude

by Olivier Poirier-Leroy

Having a better attitude helps you face adversity, be more coachable, and of course, swim faster. Here’s a few things swimmers can do to improve their attitude.

Your attitude can be your greatest asset…or your biggest liability.

From the way you react to moments of adversity in training and in competition, to how you decide to face that “impossible” main set, your attitude says everything about you and your swimming.

You can tell a lot about swimmers just by watching the way they react to trying moments in competition and practice. The body language they use, the look in their eyes, the conversation they have with their coaches and teammates.

Often before they even get in the water you know which swimmer is going to put in a full effort, and which ones will sandbag the whole swim practice.

It’s all there, plain as day, reflected in their attitude.

Your attitude is how you feel and act towards something. Which in turn affects your behavior. Put another way, the way you feel about something is how you end up reacting towards it.

• That tough set? The bad body language, the grumbling, the giving-up-before-even-starting—that’s attitude.
• Losing at the wall? Sulking, deciding the rest of the meet is wasted—that’s attitude.
• Not picking up on the technical instruction fast enough? Deciding to try it one more time, and then again and again—that’s attitude.
• Showed up late to practice? Staying ten minutes after to finish the main set, and doing it without any supervision—that’s attitude.

While some swimmers seem to instinctively have a more effective attitude than others, there are some things you can do to create an environment where your attitude improves.

1. Surround yourself with like-minded swimmers.

“How can you expect to fly with eagles when you hang out with turkeys?”

This was one of the most common coachisms I heard growing up. It didn’t make a lot of sense at the time, because I love eating turkey, and eagles, well, they are all sorts of badass. But the sentiment is a legit one: hanging out with people and swimmers with low grade attitudes will rub off on you.

When the people you hang out with ditch early morning workouts, eat like dumpsters, and don’t take the main sets seriously it becomes a whole lot easier to start making those choices yourself. Your social circle has justified it, after all.

But if you hang out with swimmers who have high standards for themselves and their swimming, you cannot help but be dragged along by the power of their wake.

You can swim with sharks, or you can swim with donkeys. Or something.

2. Reframe your setbacks.

Coming up short on our goals sucks. Experiencing another bout of swimmer’s shoulder sucks. Having a swimmer who we used to soundly beat all the time suddenly grow half a foot over the summer and who now beats us like we owe them money, also sucks.

The default route in these situations is to give up. It shouldn’t be this hard, that inner voice will tell you with a reassuring pat on the shoulder. No harm, no foul in throwing in the soggy towel.

Reframing is a powerful self-talk tool that you can use just about anytime you feel things slipping away from you.

The format is simple:

Acknowledge the suckiness of the situation + Recognize all is not lost + Figure out how you can actually benefit from this in the long term.

Here are a few examples:

• “Yeah, I came up short on my goals this time…but I worked really hard and improved a lot. Now I know how much more work I need to do to hit those goals.”
• “I’m injured and it moderately blows…but other swimmers have gotten injured and came back just as fast. Also, this injury gives me an opportunity to work on my kick.”
• “Tony now beats me like a rented mule in practice…but now I have somebody to chase down every single day in practice, which will only help me get faster.”

3. Focus on the process of getting better.

One of the main reasons that swimmers go full-blown mopey when things don’t go their way is that they are too invested in the outcome at the expense of thinking about what it actually takes to make that performance happen.

Here’s what I mean.

• When we don’t achieve a best time…we obsess on the result, and not realize that our day to day training didn’t match the lofty expectations we had.
• When we get injured…we worry about how long we will be out, without focusing on the daily things we need to do in order to het healthy again.
• When that tough set gets written up on the board…we stress about not being able to perform fast enough, or achieve a specific result, without considering what we need to do in order to swim well.

Going from outcome-based to process-based seems like trivial shift, but being process-based does some massive things for you and your swimming, from cutting down on stress, giving you a sense of control, and yes, helping you foster a situation where your attitude is going to be 20ish% less sucky.

The next time coach tries to debilitate you with a ruggedly hard set, instead of focusing on how much it’s going to hurt and how fast you may or may not go (outcome thinking), think about the controllable aspects of your swimming, such as doing a perfect streamline, and trying to swim high in the water (process thinking).

The coolest part about a process-based approach is that by swimming well you end up swimming fast, all without the agonizing pressure, stress, and less-than-wholesome attitude that comes from being dialed in on the results.

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Mental Gymnastics–The Mental Side of Swimming

by Florida Swim Network

It’s the big day. You’re at your championship meet, tapered, suited up, and not a hair on your body. You’ve trained all year for this one race. This one moment. You’re standing behind the blocks for your best event, doing your typical pre-race routine, when the self doubt starts flooding in. What if I haven’t worked hard enough? What if my coach got the taper wrong? What if my suit somehow splits when I dive off the block? The ref whistles for your heat to get on the block. The starter says those three words you’ve heard thousands of times. Take your mark. You crouch down… And the starter releases you. You swim your hardest, but that nagging voice in the back of your head never lets go. You touch the wall, look at the scoreboard and… you’ve gained time. All that hard work. All that preparation. For nothing.

You’re not alone. According to Team USA Sports Psychologist Dr. John McCauley, 99% of athletes struggle with their mentality at one point in their careers. What matters is how you approach your problem and how you find a solution to it.

To help those swimmers that struggle with the mental aspect, here are some reminders and tips to help you relax before your races:

#1. You can control mentality, but not physicality

At the end of the day, only you are in control of how you approach your races. To perform well, you need to accept that you may not feel at your best, but let go and swim fast regardless. Remember that you’ve done the work to put yourself in whatever position you’re in. All you need to do is perform to the level that you can perform at.

Clark Smith, 2016 US Olympic Gold Medalist and American record holder has struggled with the mental aspect of swimming. At the 2016 NCAA’s, he came into the meet as top seed in the 500 free and the 1650 free. He placed 21st in the 500 and 12th in the 1650, disappointing many swim fans in what they predicted was going to be a record breaking meet for Smith. However, Smith returned to the pool in June after changing his mental approach to competing and was able to clinch a spot for the US Olympic team as a part of the 800 free relay, where he went on to win a gold medal in Rio. He followed his Olympic debut by breaking the 500 and 1650 free US Open records at the 2017 NCAA’s. Smith’s advice to those struggling with the mental aspect: “You can’t control how you feel/who you are physically, but what you can do is turn your brain off and keep going.”

#2. There’s always an easy way out

Studies have shown that having the option to quit actually makes you work harder. There are what psychologists called forced choices, choices which really have only one option, such as getting up in the morning to go to school/work. Then there are choices where you have the option to quit, such as swim practice.

In a study conducted about forced choices vs. optional choices, participants in the first group of the study were asked to complete puzzles until the time was completed. The second group was given the option to quit at any time throughout the study. Surprisingly, the researchers found that those who were given the option to quit worked harder and solved more puzzles . Being given the option to quit forces the athlete to take ownership of their sport and ownership of their work effort.

Smith said the support of his teammates also helped him push himself every day in practice. “We have a saying on our team that’s been around a little while. Anytime someone gets in late or gets out to go to the bathroom before a set, usually someone will say ‘it must be nice.’ There’s always an easy way out if you want.”

#3. Dynamic visualization is key

In a University of Lyon study, neuroscience professor and psychologist Aymeric Guillot worked with elite high jumpers to see if there was a notable difference in motionless visualization and dynamic visualization, or moving along with the mental image in your mind, when it came to performance. Guillot had the jumpers perform 10 jumps at 90% of their personal best. He then randomly selected which jumpers would utilize motionless visualization or dynamic visualization. Those using dynamic visualization were asked to use as much of their body as possible in rehearsing their jumps. Guillot found that those who utilized motionless visualization improved the success and form quality of their jumps by 35%, while those who utilized dynamic visualization improved their success and form quality by 45%.

In an interview with Dr. McCauley, he also emphasized the importance of visualization. “Visualization is a profoundly important skill because, when you visualize, let’s say you visualize running, every muscle that you use in running is activated in you visualization of running. So in other words, visualizing is an excellent way to practice any sport.” Dr. McCauley has his patients hone their visualization skills through different activities outside of the athletic spectrum. “I’ll

have them cut out geometric designs on construction paper and have them look at for a few seconds and try to close your eyes and visualize it. So I’ll get them to do all sorts of exercises to stimulate the visual cortex and get them in the habit of visualizing.”

#4. Conquering the mental side of swimming takes time

The physical side of swimming is easy. The mental side is not. When FSN asked 3-time US Olympian and Olympic silver medalist Elizabeth Beisel about the physical side of swimming vs. mental side of swimming, she said, “Mastering the mental side of swimming is much more difficult than the physical side. The physical side is demanding, but easy because you are doing the same sets with your teammates and coaches who are with you the entire way… With the mental side of any sport, it is crucial you are able to control yourself in high pressure situations and to always be optimistic and hopeful. This is not something you can practice with a coach or a teammate. This is something you have to learn through trial and error with yourself.”

#5. If all else fails, take a break

Beisel has been swimming at the highest level our sport has to offer since 2007, where she qualified for her first World Championship team at age 14. Her advice on staying mentally sharp? “Take a break. I think as swimmers and athletes, we are taught to never take breaks and to never take it easy. If you give yourself a week or two to refresh and figure out what your problem is – whether it’s being negative or not believing in yourself – you will be able to come back with a new perspective and fall back in love with yourself and the sport.” Taking a two week break to allow yourself to relax and fall back in love with the sport and training at 100% for the following four weeks is exponentially better than half-heartedly training for six weeks.

#6. No one’s expectations matter, except your own

Everyone who swims at a high level swims because they are in love with the water and enjoy the feeling of swimming every day. No one else’s expectations should factor into your performance.

“Pressure should only ever come from yourself,” Smith said. “It’s something that you should be able to control. You decide if getting that cut, goal time or whatever is worth being miserable over. That’s what causes you to be nervous before your race, and upset if you don’t get what you want. At the end of the day you have to be able to live with yourself even if you don’t reach your goals.”

Remember why you swim. We all got into this sport because we enjoy it. We enjoy the feeling of being in the water. We enjoy the feeling of touching that pad and looking up at the scoreboard and seeing a time that we didn’t think was possible to hit. Whenever you feel that self doubt, take a step back, think of why you swim. Take a deep breath, and have fun with it.

“Whether you think you can or you think you can’t – you’re right.” – Henry Ford

Written by Peter Brukx

What Separates Champions From ‘Almost Champions’?

By Brad Stulberg

Great athletes are fascinating. It’s a thrill to watch the very best of the very best. And though your natural abilities (or lack thereof) may prevent you from becoming as good as the champs, you can improve yourself by emulating their behavior. And yet there’s an overlooked group that is worth your attention, too, if for a very different reason: the almost greats, those who were once good enough to play with the best of the best, but ended up in second-rate leagues.

It’s the perennial million-dollar question of nature versus nurture, sure. But the difference between the greats and the almost-greats (which, by the way, applies well beyond sports) also appears to be at least partially driven by one specific thing — how each group responds to adversity. The greats rise to the challenge and put in persistent effort; the almost-greats lose steam and regress.

For a recent study published in the journal Frontiers in Psychology, talent development researchers Dave Collins, Áine MacNamara, and Neil McCarthy examined the differences between athletes who overcame adversity and went on to become world-class (what they call super champions) and those who struggled in the face of hardship (the heartbreakingly named “almost champions”). Whereas super champions were playing in premiere leagues and/or competing on national teams (think: Olympics), almost champions had achieved well at the youth level but were playing in less prestigious leagues as adults.

The researchers found that super champions were characterized by an almost fanatical reaction to challenge.” They viewed challenges in a positive light — as opportunities to grow — and overcame them thanks to a “never satisfied” attitude. This runs in contrast to almost champions, who blamed setbacks on external causes, became negative, and lost motivation. Although athletes in each group faced comparable challenges, the researchers write, their responses — “what the athletes brought to the challenges” — were quite distinct.

These responses, of course, are the product of personal histories, histories that turned out to be similar amongst athletes in the same group but patently different between groups. By examining these differences, we can learn how to cultivate unwavering effort — a “never satisfied attitude” that gains strength from failure — in ourselves and in others.

Follow your interests.

Starting in their youth, super champions showed great interest in their respective sports. They enjoyed not only competing in matches, but also practicing and training. Super champions did not specialize in a single sport during their early childhood. Rather, they were given latitude to explore diverse activities. (A paper published in the journal Pediatrics earlier this month supports this notion, stating that later specialization is best for health and performance. Other studies show early specialization doesn’t work in athletes; nearly 90 percent of 2016 NFL draft picks played multiple sports in high school.)

Almost champions also loved the thrill of competition, but they remembered having an aversion toward practice and at times felt forced to pursue their respective sport. As one almost champion put it: “I loved fighting, but the training was just a chore. I would miss it if I could, and always avoided the bits I was shit at.”

The best goal is also the simplest: Get better.

Super champions were driven from within. Their primary concern was self-improvement. They held themselves to high standards, but judged themselves against prior versions of themselves, not against others.

Almost champions, however, were focused on external benchmarks, like national rankings or how they compared to rivals, a mind-set the researchers speculate explains why almost champions got discouraged during rough patches.

If you’re a parent, be supportive but not obsessive.

“My parents were not really pushy,” explained one super champion, whose response was representative of her peers. “It was a kind of gentle encouragement …they didn’t get [overly] involved. They’d just come and watch me, support me. But they never wanted to know what I was doing trainingwise and never got involved in that way, and that helped.”

The parents of almost champions, however, were an ever-present factor, hovering over their every move. “My parents, my dad especially, was always there, shouting instructions from the touchline, pushing me to practice at home,” remembers an almost champion. “Really, I just wanted to be out there with my mates. I felt like sport stole my childhood.”

Seek empowering, lasting mentorship.

The coaches of super champions were empowering and “mostly seemed to take a longer-term perspective,” the researchers wrote. This differs from the experience of almost champions, who remember their coaches as more focused on immediate results, “often seeming to drive the bus more than the performer.” No surprise, then, that almost champions changed coaches frequently whereas super champions maintained long-term relationships.

Yes, this is only one study, and only of athletes (54 of them, to be exact), but its findings support other psychological research, as well as the theory that “talent needs trauma.” In short, it goes like this: Individuals who have faced adversity and faltered in the past are more likely to show persistent effort and reach the top in the future. This is true in sports, but also in business, where a similar mind-set is gaining traction. Companies are increasingly seeking out individuals who have failed in the past and recruiting them to run high-profile projects. Take, for example, Amazon, which recently hired the executives of Webvan — a grocery-delivery service that went bust in 2001 — to run AmazonFresh. In a letter to shareholders, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos wrote, “Failure comes part and parcel with innovation.”

***

It’s true that not everyone can be a world-class performer. Yes, effort counts — the psychologist Angela Duckworth, who rose to fame for her pioneering research on “grit,” argues that effort actually counts twice: Talent times effort equals skill, she says, and skill times effort equals achievement. But of course our inherited traits still matter, too; and in a paradoxical twist, even our willingness to exert persistent effort may be at least partially genetic. Some of us are born with lower sensitivity to the feel-good neurochemical dopamine, which is widely known to underpin desire. Dopamine isn’t released when we achieve a goal, but rather, when we are pursuing one. It follows that the more dopamine we need to feel satiated, the more likely we are to remain eternally hungry.

Even so, research suggests that only a minority of our personality is inherited. Not to mention, the same urge for dopamine that spawns productive motivation can also lead to destructive addictions. In other words, when it comes to drive and determination, dopamine may be a factor, but it’s one of many and only useful if harnessed and pointed in the right direction, as super champions are able to do.

World-class performers, then, don’t rely on either nature or nurture, but on a combination of the two — and they are really good at nurturing their nature. All of which suggests the recipe that gives rise to super champions is worth emulating: Individuals who demonstrate persistent effort follow their interests; practice foremost to get better, not to outdo others; derive satisfaction from within; and feel constantly supported, but not pressured, in their journey toward achievement. If these criteria are in place, experiencing failure doesn’t weaken motivation — it bolsters it. In the words of Dr. Michael Joyner, an expert on human performance at the Mayo Clinic, “With enough persistent effort, most people can get pretty good at anything.”

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Brad Stulberg writes about health and the science of human performance. He’s a co-author of the forthcoming book PEAK PERFORMANCE. Follow him on Twitter @Bstulberg.

http://nymag.com/scienceofus/2016/09/what-separates-champions-from-almost-champions.html