Preparing for the Competition

The two keys to being fully prepared and having unwavering confidence in yourself are, first, to put the time and energy into doing everything you know you need to do to be prepared and, second, to be aware that you are fully prepared. You will gain from knowing you have done everything in your power to ready yourself for the event in question, and that confidence will emanate from you throughout. The opposite also pertains: if you have an idea of something that might be helpful for your training but choose not to follow through, when you go into competition, you will know that you haven’t done everything in your power to be at your best. This will put you in a weakened position, because you are forfeiting the natural confidence that preparation imparts. Here is an exercise I like to do with my clients to help quantify how much effort is needed in training to be fully prepared: 1. Write down the name of your toughest competitor, the person you most enjoy outperforming (preferably, not someone on your team). 2. On a scale of one to ten (where one is very little effort and ten is as much effort as possible), how much effort do you think this person puts into training? 3. On the same scale, how much effort do you put into training? 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 If you gave yourself a number less than ten, what changes would need to be made for you to feel as though you are putting a ten-level effort into your training? (Avoid citing reasons you can’t accomplish a ten; answer only what the ten would look like.) I am a firm believer in the precept that winning versus losing is determined more on training days than on game days. I think the person or team who prepares more fully in training wins more often. Let your toughest competitor spur you to become better and better. Every day, pledge to outwork your rivals and put an effort rating of ten into your training. You will guarantee yourself of being more prepared for your opponents than they are for you You may think you need to train for longer and longer hours to be fully prepared. Sometimes it isn’t obvious when enough is enough already. Don’t forget that your body needs rest. You can’t accomplish the objective of doing everything you know how to do if you overdo it with training. This is where goals come front and center. Let them help you keep structure in your training so that you can feel fully prepared without going to extremes. From a training standpoint, I use the MP100 20 approach for work ethic and training. “MP100” means following 100 percent of your mental-training program and 100 percent of your physicaltraining regimen, and the “+ 20” symbolizes an additional 20 percent of energy put forth to make sure you are more prepared than the competition. Lanny Bassham, an Olympic gold medal shooter, says that 5 percent of the people do 95 percent of the winning. I concur. Only 5 percent of your competitors will be willing to do everything their coaches tell them plus 20 percent beyond from their own ideas for improvement. You are virtually guaranteed success in life if you consistently perform in the top 5 percent. If the coach advises you to shoot one hundred free throws, then that is exactly what you do. Ninety-nine free throws will not produce the true self-confidence essential for you to perform at your best. It may be subconscious, but something inside of you will know you have not fully delivered on your training plan. Most coaches these days have specific training plans for athletes. Set a goal to follow the training plan 100 percent of the time. For your mental conditioning, do the same: set a goal to follow your mental-training plan 100 percent of the time. If you complete your mental workouts before every practice and game, and you do everything your coach asks of you in practice, you should feel certain that you are fully prepared (MP100). In addition to adhering to 100 percent of the physicaland mental-training plans, root out a way to personallycontribute 20 percent more effort. Find a means to do a little extra from both the physical and mental standpoints. On the physical front, that may translate to spending an extra two hours per week taking ground balls and working on your swing in the cage. Some of the athletes I counsel have such tight schedules that they don’t have additional hours at hand, so instead they add 20 percent to every assignment the coach gives them. For example, if the coach wants them to bench-press three sets of ten at a given weight, they might do three sets of twelve. In such cases, you must make sure that the intensity of training stays the same; do not allow more reps to equal less intensity. An example of +20 on the mental side might be doing the mental workout twice a day at times or committing to using more visualization during competition. It may also be spending more time breaking game film down. Use MP100 + 20 as a guideline. Always look to do a little more than what is expected. If you do 100 percent, you will be only as good as the coach wants you to be; by topping off that effort with + 20, you can be as good as you want to be. Athletes who subscribe to MP100 + 20 tell me they often feel that their training is harder than competition. When athletes begin to feel as if competition is easier than training, that is an undeniable sign that they are prepared from head to toe and supremely confident.