Your Tool Kit for Success

My goal is to provide you with the best mental-training program for excelling at your sport, and I want it simple and concrete. The 10-MT program asks you to undertake three steps that will take you no more than ten minutes per day in all: 1. Fill out the Goal Setting for Greatness Work Sheet once a year. Place it somewhere you will see it on a regular basis. 2. Perform your mental workout before practices and competitions. 3. Complete your Success Log after every practice and competition; review it just prior to completing your mental workout before the next day’s practice or competition. Filled-in samples, including a form to record your mental workout, appear at the end of this chapter, and blank forms for you to use are provided in Appendix B (remember to copy them first if you’d like to reuse them) and on my website at mysportsworld.com. Completing the work sheets helps athletes with their mental training, as I can attest from personal experience with my clients. In performing this task, you will assemble your personalized tool kit for success. Place your work sheets in a folder, and keep it in a place that is easily accessible before and after practice and competitions. Many of my clients stash their folders in their lockers or gym bags. You don’t need to worry about making your entries letter perfect. The important part of entering the information is undergoing the process from start to finish. There will be days when you will need to fight to get through your mental work, just as practicing or training on certain days feels better than on others. It won’t matter if you miss a day or two here and there, and don’t be concerned if on some days the work feels better than on others. Your work doesn’t need to be pristine, but you do need to get your work done. Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz expound on the power of goals and rituals in their groundbreaking book The Power of Full Engagement. Rituals are the act of creating positive habits. Rituals occur when individuals connect positive behaviors to specific times, days, and dates. For instance, let’s say that instead of going about completing your goal sheet arbitrarily once a year and reviewing it monthly during the season, you commit to completing your goal sheet one month after the season ends and reviewing it on the fifth of every month during the season. How can you make sure this happens? Mark the dates on your calendar. Remember, for goals to work for you, you will have to work for them. Once you have blocked out your goals and your personal vision, you owe it to yourself to give your best effort to meet those challenges. Giving your best effort means doing anything that will help you become the slightest bit better, and the research clearly confirms the benefit inherent in using goals. The 10-MT goal-setting program relies on seven principles for optimal effectiveness. Here’s a recap: 1. Process over product. Each day, focus on your process goals, or “what it takes” to achieve your product goals. 2. No excuses. Take full accountability for growth by not offering excuses for underachieving. 3. Go public. Write your goals down, and tell others what they are, to increase your consciousness of your goals and your accountability for reaching them. 4. Keep goals alive. On a daily basis, fill out your Success Log to enhance motivation and results in practices and competitions. 5. Vision integrity. Choose goals aligned with who you want to be and how you want to live.  Personal reward preference. Attach rewards to your goals to burnish motivation and commitment. 7. MP100 + 20. Let goals embellish and control your work ethic by aspiring to follow 100 percent of training plans and committing a further 20 percent of your energy into outworking the competition. When you make it a habit to use Success Logs after each practice or competition, you will be utilizing the seven principles on a regular basis, as the Success Log questions are purposely designed with the principles in mind. Whether the context is sport, business, or even a facet of your personal life, if you will complete the Goal Setting for Greatness sheet yearly and use Success Logs daily, you will enhance your productivity and results.