April 11, 2016
The Growth Mindset – Achieving Peak Mental Performance – New 7 Week Series
The Growth Mindset – Achieving Peak Mental Performance
–
In the past 5 days we have witnessed 2 of the biggest extremes in mental performance you will ever see in sports.
–
Situation #1:

picture courtesy of Newsweek
–
They call him Big Smooth. He just hit one of the most clutch shots in NCAA basketball history. It’s the shot we all practiced and imagined when shooting in the driveways as kids. I think it’s safe to say he achieved peak mental performance.
–
Situation #2:

picture courtesy of ESPN
–
They call him the Big Easy. He just had the highest score on Hole #1 in the 80 year Masters history. The newsworthy part of the story was that he 6-putted from 3 feet away. It is painful to watch, for those of us old enough to remember it brought back memories of Greg Norman’s collapse at the same golf course.
–
So what allowed one athlete to achieve peak mental performance while the other struggled to perform at all? This is a fascinating and complicated question. In this new series we’ll look at 7 key factors that allow athletes to achieve peak performance. The key resources this information is drawn from will be many great coaches interviewed on the WYC podcast, and 2 must-read books whose philosophies are interwoven throughout all 7 factors:
–
Mindset – by Carol Dweck
–
The Inner Game of Tennis: The Classic Guide to the Mental Side of Peak Performance – by W. Timothy Gallwey
–
—
I have learned a great deal from incredible coaches on this subject over the past several years and look forward to sharing it over the next 7 weeks. Next week we’ll get things started taking about how to focus on the process, not the outcome.
Here’s a preview of the content: