Improving your performance when it comes to sport can be frustrating work. Our bodies are expert at adapting to the strains we put them under, and whilst this is a driving principle that makes us fitter, it’s also the reason that we often find ourselves in a plateau.

It’s relatively easy these days to find advice on how to improve our fitness, but I think it’s less well-recognised that when it comes to improving at sport, the psychological factors hold just as much weight as the physical factors.

So rather than focusing on how to get stronger, or how to increase your endurance, I wanted to look at how we can give ourselves the edge from a psychological point of view. Essentially, is there something we can do to improve our performance aside from working harder and sweating more?

Lessons can be learnt from examining the psychological characteristics of the top performers in sport. One thing that really differentiates the highest performers from the rest is the way they attribute their successes in sport.

Before we go into this, just ask yourself the following question and make a quick note of your immediate answers. Firstly, think about a time you were successful in your chosen sport. What were the reasons for the success? What caused it? What factors can you attribute the success to?

Having done that, you might be interested to learn that the top performers tend to attribute their success in the follow ways:

Attributing success to their own skills and talents

They say they won because their technique, skill and fitness were the best. They do not believe they won because the competition was weak.

Attributing success to stable factors

They say they were successful because of their experience, or their genetic talent, a factor that will always be there. They do not put their success down to luck, such as conditions on the day.

Attributing success to factors in their control

They will tell you they came top because they stuck to the training plan and ate well. They’ll talk about factors in their control. They’re less likely to talk about a supportive crowd or how the competition performed: factors out of their control.

So what can take from this? We need to learn to view our successes in the same way that a top sports person would. At the end of a training session we need to look back on what went well and remind ourselves how these things are down to our own skills and our own hard work. Importantly we need to remind ourselves that the progress we make is largely in our control.

Essentially, talking to ourselves in this positive way is all about increasing our motivation. If we are able to recognise what we do well we will feel more motivated to continue. Similarly, if we can attribute our success in sport to internal factors in our control we will feel more pride in our success than we would if we put it down to luck.

So, looking back on the answers you just jotted down, what can you change about the way you talk to yourself? Could you do more to recognise what you do well?undefined

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