Have you ever heard of the 5 P’s? They are a fabulous learning tool for any aspect of our lives. I didn’t make them up but attempt to use them in all I do in life.

Proper
Preparation
Prevents
Poor
Performance

To become a complete athlete, you have to have proper physical preparation, mental preparation, and most importantly, spiritual preparation, and when I say proper, I mean thorough, exact, and doing the extra.

Physical preparation comes from sport specific training (wrestling practice), weight training, and cross training (running, swimming, hiking, basketball ect.) Most athletes know you have to work hard to achieve success, but a key to maximum performance is the extra effort. Extra physical effort comes from the additional time spent after practice and outside of practice training the body. For example, if practice is over at 5 pm, instead of calling it a day, you do 10 extra sprints, or 100 extra push-ups and sit-ups. 15 extra minutes after or outside of practice doesn’t seem like much if you do it one time, but if you do it four times in one week, it’s an extra hour of extra practice. Over a month that’s 4 hours of extra practice, and over 6 months, that’s a whole 24 hours of extra practice. This commitment to doing the extra is where the time really starts adding up and eventually paying off.

When it comes time to compete, your extra physical training should be funneled into a tremendous level of confidence over your opponent, and confidence is belief in yourself and your ability to win. This is where physical preparation becomes connected to mental preparation. The best tool in mental preparation is visualization, which is seeing yourself excel and seeing yourself accomplish your dreams. Visualization should be very precise. See the venue that your going to compete in and the fans that will be watching, see your opponents face and color of uniform, see yourself precisely executing each and every one of your skills, and see yourself enjoying the thrill of victory. While training for the Olympics, I used visualize myself scoring points on my opponent, getting my hand raised after a win, and saw myself many times on top of the podium with the gold medal around my neck. If you can see it, you can do it. If you believe it, then you can do it.

To increase your confidence and ability to see yourself excelling, I’m a huge fan of watching video of your opponents competing. Video allows you to see your opponent’s weaknesses and proves they are human just like you. After seeing a particular opponents weakness, you can develop a solid winning strategy. Video also causes your visualization to become more real because you know what your opponent looks and acts like.

A final tool in mental preparation is getting rid of negative thoughts. Many athletes, before they compete, tend to have negative thoughts running through their head. For example, athletes may doubt if they can actually win, see their opponent winning, or lose confidence in their preparation. These negative thoughts and many others are very common and need to be eliminated. I believe in developing your own framework for eliminating negative thoughts. I chose to use a baseball framework. For example, when I have a negative thought before competition, I mentally take that negative thought and turn it into a black baseball. Then, I visualize that black baseball (negative thought) coming towards me at home plate. As the black ball crosses home plate, I blast it out of the park, into the sky, and out of my mind. Now you may have to blast many black balls (negative thoughts) out of the park and out of your mind, but it’s better than keeping those destructive thoughts in your head.

You don’t have to use the baseball framework to eliminate negative thoughts. You can create your own. For example, imagine that negative thought as a black piece of skeet. Let that skeet be pulled, see it soaring through the air, then blow it to smithereens with your sawed-off 12 gauge with a scope J Many frameworks can be created. Just make sure your negative thoughts get disposed of and disappear.

Throughout high school, college, and my first year at the Olympic Training Center, I prepared physically and mentally and performed OK but didn’t reach my goals. In high school I got 2nd in the Junior National Tournament, in college earned two 2nd place finishes in the NCAA tournament for Penn, and in 1999, I placed 6th in the World Team Trials. My goal was to win all of those competitions. Is winning everything? No, of course it’s not, but I didn’t feel like I was tapping into my full potential. I believed that I could be the National Champion, but something was holding me back. There was a void in my life that kept me from reaching my potential. What was causing the void? What was holding me back? The answer was I. I was holding myself back by continuing to live a life of sin and selfishness away from God. When I was 7, I asked Jesus Christ to come into my heart and save me from this world, but when I got to be about 12, I forgot about the decision I made for Christ. From age 12 to 23, I was focused on using my own power to win in life. The truth is: our wants, our plans, and our strength will only get you so far and will leave you with a void in your life. Without God, we are weak and will be lost throughout life. But, with God in our lives, we can accomplish anything He needs us to accomplish. To achieve our goals in life, we must prepare spiritually. You prepare spiritually though prayer, Bible study, fellowship, worship, and by getting rid of the junk (sin: missing the mark) in your life. Preparing spiritually will give you the blessing of using God’s Strength and Courage.

The old way to win was completely relying on myself for victories in life. The old way leaves you empty and always wanting more. There is a “New Way to Win.” The new way to win consists of admitting our weakness to God and asking for His Strength and Courage before we go into battle. The Complete Athlete prepares physically by pushing their body further then they think possible, prepares mentally by visualizing themselves reaching their goals, and most importantly, prepares spiritually by living their life for Jesus Christ and using His Strength and Courage during competitions. The Complete Athlete knows the New Way to Win and realizes that winning isn’t everything. Having Jesus Christ in your heart, being obedient to His Word, and giving your best effort in all you do is everything.

Do your best and let God take care of the rest!




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