Five baseball players were sitting on a bench. Three of them decided to go practice.
How many baseball players were left?
Answer: Five.
Just because three players decided to go practice, doesn’t mean they did.
Just because you say you’re going to start working out, doesn’t mean you will.
Just because you say you’re going to start eating healthy, doesn’t mean you will.
I don’t care about what you DECIDE.
I care about what you DO.
What are you going to do today?
Did you know, in addition to coaching, speaking and writing, I am in sales?
I actually have the most difficult sales job—I sell people on themselves.
Let me explain…
I feel that the biggest sickness in this country is low self-esteem. Many people don’t believe in themselves, or feel that success is possible.
“I can’t beat that player.”
“I can’t start my own business.”
“I can’t get good grades.”
I was coaching a high school tennis player the other day and by the end of the lesson, he was a totally different player.
Guess what?
I didn’t work on his technique much at all.
I worked on his attitude, effort and reactions to situations. I was selling him on himself.
In my recent TEDxPrincetonLibrary talk, I spoke about the greatest joke.
The greatest joke is the one-liner we keep telling ourselves. A limiting belief.
You can only become as good as your self-image.
What’s YOUR self-image?
For a free 10-minute peak performance consultation, call 609.558.1077 or email .
Ed Tseng
Director of Mental Conditioning
Monroe Sports Center
609.558.1077
Your focus is your future.
-Oprah Winfrey
There’s something called selective focus. It happens when you buy a new car and then all of a sudden, you start seeing the same car on the road constantly. They have always been there.
How about when you meet someone new who is also at your place of work or school? Don’t you start seeing them all the time? They have always been there.
Simply put, selective focus means you get what you focus on. Success is where you look for it—it’s all around you.
Recently, I was listening to the radio while stringing a racquet and Survivor’s Eye of the Tiger from Rocky came on. I started getting motivated. Then, I started paying attention to the words.
Guess what? I found peak performance in it. Below are some of the powerful lyrics…
*Went the distance, now I’m back on my feet
Just a man and his will to survive
So many times, it happens too fast
You change your passion for glory
Don’t lose your grip on the dreams of the past
You must fight just to keep them alive
Chorus:
It’s the eye of the tiger, it’s the cream of the fight
Risin’ up to the challenge of our rival
And the last known survivor stalks his prey in the night
And he’s watchin’ us all in the eye of the tiger
Face to face, out in the heat
Hangin’ tough, stayin’ hungry
Risin’ up, straight to the top
Have the guts, got the glory
Went the distance, now I’m not gonna stop
Just a man and his will to survive*
Ready to REALLY get motivated? Here’s the song. I dare you to NOT kick butt today after listening to it.
Affirmations are powerful.
Limiting beliefs are weak.
This morning, while I was working out, I dropped down for some pushups. The average person can do 20 pushups. When I was in serious training years ago, I would perform pushups with a 15-pound plate on my back, so that when I would do regular pushups, I could do 60 almost effortlessly.
It’s been a while since I have done pushups, and an even longer time since I have done them with a 15-pound plate on my back, but I was warmed up and optimistic.
I dropped down, and was able to do 20 pretty easily and at 30, I began to feel it and thought that I couldn’t do anymore. I wanted to stop.
But I didn’t.
I pushed through the feeling of “I can’t do anymore” and then reached 40. And then 50. I had to really reach down and push to get to 60, and I did.
How many times have you been at the gym, at work or at school and thought, “I can’t do this” or “I can’t do that” and then you stop? It’s happened to all of us.
The secret is that you can act differently than how you feel.
Push through it.
Say “No, thank you” to your limiting belief.
Muhammad Ali said, “Suffer now and spend the rest of your life as a champion.”
Now, doing 60 pushups probably does not qualify me as a champion, but that’s not the point.
It’s the principle. I am training myself to act differently than how I feel.
That’s what champions do.
Why would you condition yourself to give up?
Why would you tell yourself you can’t do something?
What if you asked yourself a more powerful question, like, “HOW can I do it?”
If you remember nothing else from this blog entry, remember this…
Success doesn’t come in bottles, it comes in “CANS.”
You can do it.
Leave your comments below.
Ed Tseng
Director of Mental Conditioning
Monroe Sports Center
609.558.1077
Today’s message is especially dedicated to the great Debra Wachspress.
This morning I ran into Debra Wachspress, Director of Community Engagement at the Boys and Girls Club of Trenton at the Princeton Regional Chamber of Commerce breakfast meeting. I had never met her in person, but we had exchanged emails as I prepared to speak at the Boys and Girls Club last month. At the end of the Princeton Chamber meeting, Debra came up to me and said, “I have to tell you something. Prior to your speaking at The Boys and Girls Club, I was on your website and watched some of your videos. Now, because of you, I exercise every night!”
Wow, that motivated ME! I didn’t even know she has been on my website!
Now, because Debra has been working out consistently for the past three weeks, it is actually harder for her NOT to exercise than it is for TO exercise.
It is now a habit.
Here’s another way to look at it…
It’s better to do a little, A LOT than it is to do A LOT, a little.
If you know the goal you want to attain, make it important enough and you will stick with it.
Thank you for the motivation, Debra!
Decide that you want it more than you are afraid of it. Hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard. Work is the most fun of all. —author unknown
Recently, Lauren Embree clinched the NCAA title for the University of Florida Gators women’s tennis team. She beat Mallory Burdette, 5-7, 6-3, 7-6 (6) after losing a 5-1 lead in the first set and overcoming a 0-4 deficit in the final set.
I caught up with Embree after her incredible win.
“I had different thoughts racing through my mind when I was down 4-0 in the third. I kept fighting. I knew I still had a chance no matter what the score was.”
“I just told myself, ‘one point at a time,’ ”
“I kept telling myself positive thoughts.”
Embree’s goal was to fight her way back and instead of focusing on the situation, she focused on the process and just tried to get the ball back deeper.
So what did Embree do?
1. She went all-out.
2. She played in the present moment (not the past or the future).
3. She told herself affirmations to keep her performance, focus and energy levels high.
She could have easily fallen apart after losing the lead in the first set, but she didn’t—she fought back. Even when she was down 0-4 in the final set, she went all-out until the very end.
And we can all do that…it’s a choice.
You may not be an NCAA champion, but you can use Embree’s strategies to succeed in sports, sales or school. And you can begin today.
Thank you Lauren and congrats again.
In Steve Siebold’s book, 177 Mental Toughness Secrets of the World Class, Secret #92 is “The World Class Catapults Their Consciousness By Overcoming Obstacles.” On the page, there is a quote by author, Thomas Carlyle…
The block of granite which was an obstacle in the path of the weak, becomes a stepping-stone in the path of the strong.
The action step Siebold recommends is: Make a list of the three biggest obstacles you currently face. Next, determine the worst thing that could possibly happen if you decided to mount an all-out assault to overcome them. If you can live with the worst-case scenario, suspend your fear and attack your obstacles as if it is impossible to fail. If you succeed, your self-confidence will soar. If you fail, you will live to fight another day.
Wow. That’s powerful stuff.
Recently, cognitive science and performance expert, Sian Beilock sent me a copy of her new book, “Choke.”
People choke all the time, in sports and life. Below are some anti-choke techniques that Beilock recommends.
1. Distract yourself—Sing a song or even thinking about your pinky toe as Jack Nicklaus was rumored to do can help prevent the prefrontal cortex from regulating too closely movement that should run outside awareness.
2. Don’t slow down—Don’t give yourself too much time to think and to control your highly practiced putt, free throw, or penalty kick. Just do it.
3. Practice under stress—Practicing under the exact conditions you will face in a do-or-die situation is exactly what is needed to perform your best when the stress is on. Get used to the pressure so competition is not something you fear. Also, by understanding when pressure happens, you can create situations that will maximize the stress in your opponents.
4. Don’t dwell—Take that past performance and change how you think about it. See your failures as a chance to learn how to perform better in the future.
5. Focus on the outcome, not the mechanics—Focusing on the goal, where the ball will land in the net, helps cue your practiced motor programs to run flawlessly.
6. Find a key word—A one-word mantra (such as smooth during a golf stroke) can keep you focused on the end result rather than the step-by-step processes of performance.
7. Focus on the positive—Don’t be helpless. If you focus on the negative this can make you feel out of control and increase the likelihood that you will not work as hard to obtain future performance goals.
8. Cure the yips by changing your grip—An alteration in your performance technique reprograms the circuits you need to execute your shot, hopefully clearing your brain and body of the motor hiccup.
Thank you, Sian.
Ed Tseng
Director of Mental Conditioning
Monroe Sports Center
609.558.1077