If you had to pick between the journey or the destination, which would you choose? Do you value the winding river along the way — or the peak at the top of the mountain? It is a difficult question to answer. Every person has their own reasons for choosing one over the other: “The journey is how we get to the destination” one might say; “There would be no journey without a destination” says another. It is interesting. Think about it — would you ever keep playing your sport if all you did was practise? No games or competitions? Unlikely. Would you even begin a movie if there was no ending? If t ..read more

For many athletes it starts off as a dream of playing professionally. Growing up and watching their favourite players inspires them to one day test their craft and live a life playing the game they love. Some stories end in success — but the majority of careers dwindle away and what is left is a deflated sense of self. This was the story of one particular athlete, who left the familiarity and safety of his hometown to pursue an opportunity abroad. Things got off to a pretty good start when he first arrived at his new soccer club. He made the team after a few weeks, and even scored a goal in h ..read more

You wake up to the monotonous sounds of an alarm. It shines its light on you: 6:30 AM. It’s Monday morning. What sort of feelings or images does this scenario bring up for you? Is it a sense of motivation and drive to get up and work on your craft? Or perhaps you feel a sense of dread and anxiety about going in today. If you don’t feel engaged and excited to work - that’s ok. Don’t worry - I am not here to tell you that you have failed at life just because you don’t feel excited to wake up early in the morning. That would just be silly. However, it might be worthwhile to take stock and assess ..read more

Consider the life of a blacksmith hundreds of years ago. They would work on their craft of casting iron and molding metal into a sword, or some sort of tool to be used around the homestead or village. The hours were long, and the work was tiring, but upon inspecting the quality of the finished product in their hand the blacksmith would feel great satisfaction in a job well-done. The goal was clear, and the feedback immediate. This is one of the most innate deep human needs - the feeling of purpose and full concentration on a task. As psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi puts it: “The best mom ..read more

During the ’60s, psychologists Gary Latham and Edwin Locke—pioneers of goal-setting theory— discovered that the establishment of a goal is one of the easiest ways to increase motivation and enhance performance. In countless studies, Latham and Locke found that setting goals increased performance and productivity by 11 to 25 percent. That is a lot of potential left out on the table if we neglect it! However, goals or projects can be daunting. It often feels like there is just too much to do and we get overwhelmed by the magnitude of the task. We desperately want to reach the outcome but find i ..read more

When we were younger, we were often asked: what do you want to be when you grow up? At first, as bright-eyed children we would relish the opportunity to talk about how we wanted to be a fire-fighter, doctor, athlete, or any other career we had an interest in (YouTube star/influencer according to recent surveys). This was met with either supportive enthusiasm, or laughter. As we got older we started to identify with certain career paths diving deeper into the journey of becoming the thing we wanted. Alternatively, a lot of us were on a different boat; feeling bad for not knowing what our “purp ..read more

Recall a time when you got injured and could no longer participate in your sport for a period of time. How did you feel? What was your reaction when you were told the news that you would have to miss the rest of the season? How did you feel seeing your teammates training and winning games without you? Did you feel sad, frustrated or angry for not being able to play or exercise? If you haven’t experienced an injury yet, how do you think you would react? I certainty felt frustrated and angry when I got injured and was told I would have to stop participating in sports for at least 6 months. I ..read more

Our brains don’t like big, overwhelming tasks. It takes up too much cognitive energy thinking of the future and planning ahead for it. So instead we want to break down our long-term goals into smaller little chunks with a few concrete actionable steps. We do this by setting what I like to call macro and micro goals. Performance adaptation is a systematic series of actions where we don’t just react to what is happening in the moment but is a part of the on-going change process. We do this by having a structured feedback loop and adaptive processes built into our goal setting framework. One eff ..read more

Pursuing a life of mastery, whatever the craft, is a long and tedious journey. I’ve discussed this previously in describing the various ,,stages on a path to mastery, but what’s often not explored is the various challenges encountered along the way and how to handle them. If you so choose to step onto a path of mastery, you must understand that there are no shortcuts. You will face many challenges and obstacles and you best come prepared. The mastery path can be likened to climbing a mountain. But these mountains are not made of rock and ice. The mountains we climb are mountains of the mind ..read more

How much of your success in performance would you attribute to mental skills such as confidence, anxiety management, focus, etc.? Most of us would probably agree it is quite high. Now, think of how much time you spend on developing and mastering these skills. Unless you have committed to a formal mental training program, most people spend little time actively honing these skills. Part of the reason for this is that there is a lot of ambiguity regarding what mental skills are, and how we go about training them. But if we don’t spend an adequate amount of time going to the mental gym we are pot ..read more