Becoming HeadStrong

Practice, practice, practice, practice, practice.  It allows you to fix mistakes, gives you time to improve, a chance to accomplish new tasks.  However, do you practice performing? This podcast will teach you how to practice performing.

I don't care who you are, what sport you play, or how good you are - if you look for reasons to fail, you will find them.  But the opposite is also true.  Searching for reasons to succeed increases the opportunities for success!

As you grow and improve in your sport or your performance, the more difficult it becomes to improve.  The more elite you are, the smaller the gains are.

Thoughts on what it means to be an underdog and what it means to be a favorite as well as how to use either of those to your advantage.

Everyone gets nervous at some point in their lives. Nerves can be a good or bad aspect of the situation - it all depends on your perspective.

This episode tells the parable of an old farmer and a mule. It will help you learn a strategy to overcome adversity.

In today's world, communication is instant. Both personal and professional, we can communicate very quickly with today's technology. However, we often neglect communicating with ourselves deliberately. 

Research tells us that the human mind has thousands of thoughts per day.  The Theory of Ironic Processes explains that our minds are not good at registering words like "don't". Learn how to spend more time in "do" thinking in this episode.

The grade of execution is a figure skating scale that ranges from -5 to +5. In this episode, you will learn how you can use the grade of execution in your life and performance.

There are 3 factors that almost always destroy our motivation: Perfectionism, Expectations, and Comparisons.  Learn about them here.  This episode is from the book, "Don't Leave Your Mind Behind" by Dr. Keith Henschen with Dr. Nicole Detling.

The book, "Why We Sleep" by Matthew Walker, MD is incredibly relevant and has powerful information.  Sleep is vital to our existence. Learn the sleep stages and how they are helpful for your performance in this episode.

This podcast is the reading of a blog post written by Melissa Atkins Wardy on August 3, 2011.  Great read to recognize that we are all full of awesome - and it's time to re-find that awesome.

Many people play the "what if" game.  Although it's a natural game to play, it doesn't help you perform your best. Learn 2 strategies to win this game in this episode.

Putting energy into things that are out of your control is a waste of time!  This episode walks you through typical performance concerns that are OUT of your control and discusses focusing on those that are IN your control.

We are all the sum total of 2 aspects: (1) the decisions and choices we have made and (2) the things that have happened to us in our lives. Yet, we have the respond-ability for both.

Your bucket is your mental and emotional self.  When it is full you feel good, happy, and positive.  When your bucket is empty you may feel sad, depressed, and negative. Learn to fill your bucket in this episode with 4 main questions.

In an important moment, have you ever felt you lost focus in a pressure moment? This episode teaches you how to maintain your focus in any situation.

Defining the type of athlete or performer you want to be in the future can help you achieve just that. This helps you pour yourself into your performance and the process to achieve the results you are working for!

Did you know that at any one moment we can only have 1 thought in our heads?  Learn the 3 types of self talk and how to use the 1 thought at a time deliberately to improve your performances.

Do you have a tendency to want to put difficult things off until later? This episode is based off a quote by Mark Twain, "If the first thing you do in the morning is eat a live frog, you can go through the rest of the day knowing the worst is behind you."

How to mentally check-in with yourself to identify what you may need in any moment of your performance.

A quote of the day can be a powerful motivator.  Perhaps you use the same quote or you may use a different quote each day.  Regardless, you can use quotes to get you moving!

In order to master your craft, you must first master your self.  This includes taking care of the foundation by doing what makes SENS. This episode walks you through SENS and gives tips for taking care of each aspect.

The importance of reflection cannot be overstated. We often neglect reflection because we get so busy with our lives.  However, self-reflection is one of the best ways to create self-awareness and live a more positive life. Learn 3 specific ways reflection can help you in this episode.

How are you preparing for competition? When practice and competition are vastly different, athletes tend to not compete as well as they would like. Learn strategies for best preparing yourself for all that may happen during a competition.