As a competitive athlete, you have your eye on the prize. After countless hours of blood, sweat and tears, you have made the sacrifice. You let go of junk food, late nights with friends, and sleeping in, just so you can show up to a competition at your best.

As you go through your warmups, preparing your body to burst into action, you might also go through a mental warmup as well. You might tell yourself to relax and let your training take over. Or you might decide now is the time to get serious, much more than you have before. However, if you are an athlete who only gets serious during competitions, you are setting yourself up for failure.

Peak performance in sports does not begin when you get serious in competitions. It begins with your mindset.

The More Serious You are in Competition, the Lower Your Performance

When athletes get serious during competition, they are inadvertently creating a mental block that impacts their muscle memory and ultimately, their performance. Once the competition starts, the athlete’s mind is not prepared. Instead of entering their flow state where they can perform at their best, they are stuck thinking about whether or not they can achieve a specific outcome.

An athlete might think:

“I need to win to get 1st place, no matter what…”

“College Scouts are watching me, I have to show them I am the best, or else they won’t pick me…”

“I hope I don’t get a cramp halfway through this race…”

However, the moment they start having these thoughts, their body freezes up. Instead of entering the flow state, they enter a state of fear. This constricts the blood flow to your muscles, leading to a decline in performance. When the athlete starts to realize they are unable to perform as well as they could, their morale drops, resulting in further decline.

As a result, the athlete falls into a downward spiral. As they become more critical of their performance, their ability to execute the right techniques diminishes. This inverse relationship can result in choking during a competition, heartbreaking failures, and in extreme cases personal injury.

Adopt a Serious Training Mindset

Instead of getting serious during competitions, focus on getting serious during training. This is the best and safest time to push your limits, fine-tune your technique, and excel. When you train, you can create a controlled environment where you can focus solely on skill development.

It all boils down to showing up and creating a judgment-free environment for yourself to analyze and track your progress, making small adjustments to your technique to improve your performance. You can lower your chances of burnout and injury while safely testing your limits. Not only will you feel more energized and passionate, but you will also have more fun when you are training.

When you get serious in training, you will put yourself in an upward spiral of skill growth. You will discover ways to improve your execution, which boosts your confidence in yourself. With this rising conviction, you can stay motivated to keep advancing yourself. You will be able to build a habit where training will consistently help you be better than you were the day before.

When you enter a competition, there are some things you cannot control:

• The outcome of the competition
• Whether College scouts pick you or another athlete
• Whether you can hit a specific result

What you can control is how you show up to the competition. You can control how you prepare yourself physically, mentally, emotionally, and technically. By focusing on what you can control, you will feel more empowered when you enter the arena.

That is how you will be able to enter your flow state.

So what does a healthy serious training mindset look like? Well, there is a wrong way and a right way to approach this.

The wrong way would be to tell yourself things like:

“I am going to land this jump today…”

“I will finish this lap in a certain amount of time…”

Focusing your attention on these kinds of thoughts will hinder your progress. Instead of focusing on what you can control, you are trying to control your results. It will not work. If you want to get serious in training, you need to focus on the right things.

The right way to get serious about training would be to say to yourself things like:

“I am going to do twenty-five reps of this specific skill…”

“I will complete the entire training plan that my coach gave me…”

“I will make sure that I am focused when I show up for training…”

Ultimately, you want to focus on what you can measure. When you can measure your goal, you have a greater chance of being able to successfully achieve that goal. Whether you are doing reps of a specific skill or working through a training plan, you can measure your progress easily. Completing these tasks will directly improve your performance in competition. Additionally, you feel accomplished for completing them during your training. Your body will feel more relaxed and you will feel more confident.

Enter Your Flow State through a Serious Training Mindset

During competition, peak performance comes down to one thing, entering your flow state. To do this, you must let go of the “serious mindset.”

A serious mindset has no place in competition. Worrying about hitting record times or executing a technical skill flawlessly during competition can create doubts and fears that lead to sport performance anxiety.

Use a healthy “serious” mindset only in your training. Your training is the best place to measure your progress as you take the needed steps to grow.

A healthy serious mindset during training is when you give 100% of your effort, take the time to do your reps, and complete the training programs that your coach has given you. These are measurable steps that you can take to grow your skills.

When you step into the competitive arena, ditch the “serious mindset.” All training and practice is done for the time being. Now it’s time to take a deep breath and trust the training you have put in so far. Only then will you be able to enter your flow state.