Success as an athlete comes in many different forms and is the result of a multitude of skills. Depending on the sport you play, the talents necessary for success will vary. To gain all the different talents and skills required, athletes employ all kinds of training tools and techniques. Each one tailored to their specific needs based on sport and position. Though there is one tool that, no matter the sport you play, is going to have a profound impact on your chances of attaining success. The tool I am referring to is meditation. The sooner you begin a mediation practice as an athlete, the sooner you will experience, firsthand, all the benefits it has to offer. Slow But Steady Start There has [...]

I’ve had a difficult time in my life balancing perfectionism and ambition. Why is it that the two seem to be almost inseparable? Can we actually have a high drive to succeed without the ever present need to simultaneously be perfect? For me, I began to notice the link between perfectionism and ambition early on. In high school, my main focus was landing a spot on a college team for baseball. This meant putting in countless hours in hopes of attaining that goal.  While I am proud of the consistent effort I put forth, another more crippling trait began to develop. After every training session or game, I would feel as though I didn’t do enough.  Do you know that feeling? The sense [...]

Have you ever wondered why some people handle failures so well? They take setbacks in stride and don’t let anything keep them from working towards their goals. How do they do this? Are these people that much tougher than you and me? Yes, they are. Well, yes and no. You see, mental toughness is a complicated idea, not easily summed up by saying one person is more tough than the other. But in this regard, if we are comparing ways we handle failure, someone who takes it well is much more mentally tough in respect to failure than someone who doesn’t.  That’s because the ability to be resilient and bounce back from failure is one of the six attributes that make up mental [...]

Once you have a clear picture of what success will look like for you, what’s the next step? Many times, people will have the desire to reach a goal, but for whatever reason they lose motivation along the way. I’ve seen this happen to friends, family members, and myself.  One of the best examples of getting all excited for a new goal, only to quickly stray from the path is exercise. Now, not everyone will view working out or achieving a fit physique as a success, but it serves as a good example of how easy it can be to fall short of a goal.  Growing up, my family owned a gym. Like clockwork, every January I would witness an influx of new [...]

Could you imagine getting into a car, planning to go somewhere, and yet have no idea as to when you’ve arrived? This seems absolutely ridiculous. How could you get anywhere without being aware of the destination? Yet, the truth is, this is how many of us work towards success. We have the idea in our mind that we’d like to be successful, but there is no clear picture of what this success would be. In other words, we have no destination. I played college baseball, so this failure to define success was quite evident within myself. Before a game, I would say that I wanted to play well, as most athletes do. But what I failed to realize was what playing well truly [...]