Less Is More

No matter how physically strong or mentally tough a person is, substance abuse is a major obstacle to success.

If you have a strong belief in your ability to perform well, then the chances of your actually performing well greatly improve.

If we do not choose our thoughts carefully, they can (and many times do) have a negative impact on performance.

Extensive research in the sports psychology world confirms that an athlete’s internal dialogue significantly influences performance. When athletes keep their minds focused on positive performance cues, they are more likely to experience success.

Cognitive psychology has taught us that the mind can fully focus on only one item at a time. In short, if you are thinking about what is going wrong in your life, you cannot be thinking about what it takes to make it right.

A visualization is a powerful tool in athletics. According to some studies.

By visualizing a positive emotional experience from your past, you, too, can learn to release endorphins into your bloodstream on a regular basis, which is very helpful for increasing your confidence and consistency.

Your self-image is essentially how you view yourself—what strengths and weaknesses you believe you possess.

Self-image is a proven agent of behavior control. When you truly believe in your ability, the self-image motivates the behaviors needed for you to live up to your expectations. You can’t outperform or underperform your self-image for long.

The key is to create the self-image desired—decided who you want to be and how you want to live­—and then continuously tell yourself that you have what it takes to be that person. The self-image will guide and direct actions and behaviors until the self-image becomes a reality.

The three concepts that turn ordinary goal setting into effective goal setting are these: (1) Process goals produce results, (2) No excuses; go public, (3) Keep goals alive, and live the dream.

If the motivation behind your selected goals is anything other than true passion and love, then the reward attached to their ultimate accomplishment will be irrelevant.

If you have set goals congruent with who you want to be and how you want to live, it will be much easier for you to muster the self-discipline essential for working through the tough times, and you will be much more likely to achieve great things.

The way to tell if you’re giving 100 percent effort is to do everything you know you have to do to be your best.

It doesn’t always play out so neatly. There will be times when you try things that don’t do much for you. You have to keep an open mind and channel energy into researching ways to improve. Be willing to do everything that you think could help.

Excellence is achieved through a solution-focused mind.

The solution does not need to produce perfection. It merely has to promote improvement.

We frequently get confounded by how much work it will take for our problems to be completely resolved. We become paralyzed, unable to take action toward improvement. You do not need to arrive at perfection; you need to slowly but surely make things better.

The first step to figuring out the “I don’t know” is to stop saying “I don’t know”.

Once you nail down what is causing you to feel uncomfortable, immediately make the shift to the solution side of the board by asking yourself what one thing you could do differently that could make things better.

If you do not put action into the solution, your problem is bound to linger.