Peak performance in sports refers to you playing up to your full potential. You performing the best that you can on any given day.
As an athlete, reaching peak performance is a lofty goal. It’s one all athletes strive for, but few actually attain.
So how can you get to the point where you’ve reached peak performance within your sport?
There is a strategy you can follow that will help you get the best out of yourself each and every game. It doesn’t mean you will always perform at your peak, but you will be drastically increasing your chances of doing so.
What I have done below is outlined what leads to peak performance, what can keep you from reaching peak performance, and how you, as an athlete, can get to peak performance for a game.
What Leads to Peak Performance in Sports
There are three elements of you performing your best during competition: physical preparation, mental preparation, and getting into the right mindset.
Let’s take a closer look at each element and how it leads to peak performance.
Physical Preparation
How ready are you to compete?
That is a question you must ask yourself if you want to perform at your peak. In order to get the best out of yourself every game, you need to be sure you are as physically prepared as possible.
Physical preparation involves fine-tuning your mechanics, rest and recovery, nutrition, practicing with intent…pretty much anything and everything that goes into you being physically ready to perform your best.
The reason physical preparation is critical to peak performance is due to two reasons:
- The more ready your body is to compete, the better you’ll play
- You must have trust in your physical skills on game day.
The first reason has to do with recovery and making sure your body is primed and ready for the competition. If you are not where you need to be from a physical standpoint, it will be difficult to get the best out of yourself.
The second reason is all about trust. A key aspect of a strong mindset during games (as we’ll discuss more in a second), is letting go. Not worrying so much about what will happen.
In order to let go, you must trust yourself and your skills. To trust yourself and your skills requires work to have been put into fine-tuning your mechanics and developing muscle memory.
In short, the more physically prepared you are to play, the more likely it is you’ll perform at your peak.
Mental Preparation
How mentally ready are you to compete?
That is another question you must ask yourself. If you have not put in the work to mentally prepare for the game, it’s less likely you’ll be able to go out there, let go, and play your best.
So what does mental preparation look like?
Well, it’s not quite as straightforward as physical preparation.
Mental preparation involves everything you do to get your mindset right for the game. This can include confidence building exercises, calming exercises like meditation, as well as game planning and research you do looking into your opponent.
We can break mental preparation down into two categories:
- Work you do to build confidence and calm your mind.
- Work you do to mentally prepare for who you will play.
The mental work you do to build confidence and calm your mind will help ensure you are in a peak mental state to compete.
The work you do to mentally prepare for your opponent will give you a competitive edge. The information you gather can help you decide on your game plan and strategize for the competition.
In addition to physical preparation, you must ensure you are doing everything you can mentally to prepare for the game.
Getting into The Right Mindset to Compete
Once you’ve gone through all your physical and mental preparation, you want to work to get yourself into the right mindset to compete.
Now, as we will discuss later in the article, the right mindset for you to perform at your peak will vary from player to player. This variance is largely due to the difference in player’s personalities.
However, there are some core principles to a peak mindset we want to focus on. With one of the main ones being letting go and trusting.
If you do not trust yourself, you will find yourself trying to control the outcome of the game. Unfortunately, the outcome is not fully within your control. Therefore, any aim to control it will only result in stress and tension while you compete.
If you can let go of the need to control the result and simply trust in yourself, that will put you in a great position to perform at your peak.
Mental preparation will help you get into the right mindset. But you also want to put emphasis and importance on generating your peak mindset for games. If you do, you will find yourself reaching peak performance more consistently.
What Keeps Athletes From Peak Performance in Sports
Physical preparation, mental preparation, and getting into the right mindset will help you reach peak performance as an athlete. But what can keep this from happening?
Well, even if you focus on the three keys to reaching peak performance, yet you still struggle with one of the challenges outlined below, peak performance will evade you.
There are four key mental game challenges that will work against your ability to perform your best, including: sports performance anxiety, fear of failure, self-doubt, and perfectionism.
Sports Performance Anxiety
Anxiety in sports is all about you stressing and worrying about what may or may not happen. When you worry about what the result will be, this is where you find yourself trying to control the future.
Peak performance in sports happens when you let go and trust yourself. Letting go is close to impossible if you’re trying to control the future.
Anxiety also leads to physical tension that inhibits your play.
Fear of Failure
Fear of making mistakes, also known as fear of failure, is a common challenge athletes experience. Mistakes can lead to losing, poor stats, and getting benched.
It can also seem like when you fail, you will embarrass yourself and others will think less of you.
All of this only increases fear. But when you play with fear, you play to avoid mistakes. This leads to timid play and you playing it too safe. Neither of which result in peak performance.
Perfectionism
When you play with fear and play with anxiety, it’s natural to then feel like you need to perform perfectly.
However, when you strive to play perfectly, while this may seem like a good idea, it only leads to more pressure and can make it more difficult to move on from mistakes when they do happen.
Let’s say your goal is to play perfectly, yet you make a mistake. Even if it’s a small mistake, it still signifies that you weren’t perfect. This increases the chances of you losing your composure and not being able to reset and refocus after the mistake.
Self-Doubt
Peak performance requires confidence. You must have trust in yourself and your skills. Self-doubt is the opposite of confidence. It means you are questioning yourself and your skills.
Self-doubt will manifest in the form of negative self-talk. You will be thinking down about yourself and having thoughts of doubt.
These thoughts decrease confidence, increase fear, and lower your level of play.
If your goal is to perform at your peak, it will be a goal you fail to achieve as long as self-doubt is around.
Reaching Peak Performance in Sports
How can you attain peak performance?
Well, first and foremost, we want to view reaching peak performance on a game by game basis.
Instead of thinking of it as a point in time when you will have become the best you can possibly be, you want to view it as you striving to reach your peak for the upcoming game.
This simplifies things for us and also gives you a clear target to work toward. Every action you take will be directed at helping you unlock peak performance for your upcoming game.
To accomplish this goal, we want to follow a set structure. I already outlined this structure in the previous section on what goes into you performing at your peak.
Here’s what you want to make sure you do:
- Prepare physically
- Prepare mentally
- Get into the right mindset for the game.
For your physical preparation, make sure you’re doing all you can from a training and rest and recovery standpoint to ensure your skills and your body are primed and ready to go on game day.
For mental preparation, focus on building confidence and calming your mind. Mental training tools such as mindfulness meditation and visualization are great to utilize as part of your mental preparation.
And then for getting into the right mindset, be sure you know what your peak mindset is. Click here to read an article where I outline how you can create your own peak performance mindset and work to generate it on game day.
The bottom line is, reaching peak performance is not an accident. It requires you to follow a predetermined system that puts you in the best position to perform at your peak on game day.
Mental Coaching for Peak Performance
There is a lot that goes into you generating a peak mindset on game day. And if any of the mental game challenges I outlined are currently holding you back, they will make it even more difficult for you to reach your peak.
Which is why working with a mental coach can be a great option.
I offer one-on-one mental performance coaching for athletes looking to reach peak performance.
We will work together to overcome any mental blocks you’re experiencing, develop strong confidence, and identify a system to unlock peak performance during games.
If you’re interested in mental coaching for peak performance in sports, please fill out the form below, or click here to schedule a free introductory coaching call.
