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KNOW YOURSELF

You already train your body, you train your skills, your understanding of the game. But if you truly want to reach your top, you need something more. You need to understand yourself completely. You need to develop that self-awareness piece, because it's the foundation to everything else. It's the first skill in the mental game, and what it simply means is the ability to create a bit of distance between you and yourself so you can truly see yourself and your mental patterns.​

It means being able to notice your thoughts, to notice your emotions, notice your actions, your habits, in real time while they're happening, and then knowing how these thoughts, feelings, and behaviors affect your performance every day. Because when you understand yourself, you gain control. That's a huge competitive edge, because now, instead of being a passive reactor to what's going on in your mind, you can take a step back, and you're able to choose. You're able to decide if a thought helps you in a situation or if it harms you.​

Whether you notice it or not, your mind is turned on all the time. It's always communicating, and it doesn't always communicate things that are true or that are helpful. So we need to create filters, and we need to train the mind. The way to think about it is that with self-awareness, you're no longer the effect; you become the cause. And that's power. You can stop unknowingly reacting, and you start adjusting your mindset on purpose, in real time. That will help your performance massively. It will help your well-being massively. It will help your relationships massively.​

If we put that into a real-world situation, imagine yourself just before having to perform. If you're self-aware, you can check in with yourself and notice your own state. You can ask yourself: Am I tense? Am I too calm? Am I distracted? Am I having disempowering thoughts? That awareness gives you the opportunity to adjust until you feel locked in, or to give yourself what you need before you step into competition. It will also help you during performance, because you're able to notice when your thoughts are becoming unhelpful or when tension creeps into your shoulders, and then you have the possibility to reset before it's gone too far.

Most athletes aren't just beaten by opponents; they're beaten by their own thinking, but they're not even aware of it. Then you start to see patterns. You start to see the language of your own mind. Your inner voice is extremely powerful; it can literally build you up or break you down. But most people don't stop to ask themselves what their inner voice is saying. So notice it. Question it. Ask yourself if the thought is true, if it's helping you perform, or if it's just getting in the way.

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Awareness isn't the end goal. It's just the first step toward control. It’s the foundation on which you can build everything else. Once you know your mental strengths and weaknesses, you can train them. So know yourself, train your mind, and unlock your full performance.