Finishing short-term and long-term goals and performing one’s best requires effort, persistence, and optimal focus. Focusing is directing attention toward things relevant to meeting one’s goals (e.g., task relevant information). Athletes, students, employees, and other performers face challenges but also facilitators that help them finishing their goals. Sport psychology research shows that mental preparation, mental skills, and optimal focus can certainly improve performance, helping performers effectively finish and attain goals.
Challenges
Performers must sustain both physical and mental efforts consistently to perform their best. As they approach their goals, performers may begin to experience diminishing physical and mental resources.
- Physical adversity, competition, injury, and fatigue can strain their resources.
- Mental challenges can include:
- intrapersonal factors (e.g., attentional strain, distraction, increasing stress, anxiety, diminishing coping resources, fatigue, exhaustion)
- interpersonal factors (e.g., teammates, coworkers, students, coaches, supervisors, instructors)
- environmental factors (e.g., weather, infrastructure, distance)
Mental Skills: Goal Facilitators
In order to sustain physical and mental energy and finish goals, performers should adopt the following mental skills:
- Adopt a mindful focus on the present
- Use clear, objective, nonjudgmental thinking
- Tailor attentional style to the task (e.g., broad, narrow, internal, external)
- Focus on doing what works
- If possible and appropriate, take breaks to reset
- Use effective time management strategies and prioritize
- Adopt a growth mindset to foster grit
- Use positive, realistic thinking and self-talk
- Use bargaining (e.g., “just a little longer/faster/farther, and you’ll be done)
- Adopt autonomous, intrinsic motivation
- Focus less on outcomes, more on effort, process, and performance
- Prepare for and learn from setbacks, adjust efforts and strategies accordingly
- Stay positive even when mistakes and setbacks occur; use both simply as information to learn more about the self, adjust, and perform even better
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