Menu
If you are like most athletes, your best showings have happened
when you weren’t “trying” to perform perfectly.
You simply went out to play a sport you love, and magic happened.
You must realize you face a dilemma every time you start an event.
Your dilemma is that you want succeed so much, yet
you cannot control whether or not you win or perform well.
Since you want to succeed, you’ve done a fair bit of practising.
You’ve worked out.
You can’t wait to use the new tip your coach gave you last week.
And then you start event and “try” to use all
the great things you know.
You “try” to score.
You “try” to explode with lightening speed.
You “try” to land jumps, execute tricks, or hit winners.
Notice how this never works?
In fact, the harder you try, the worse you get.
Here’s a radical alternative to “trying harder.”
It’s called “trying softer”.
“Trying softer” is a radical thought because it’s the opposite of
what we have been taught in sport.
It’s letting go.
It’s allowing it to happen rather than “making it” happen.
This is not just New Age mumbo-jumbo.
There’s actually a technical reason why “trying softer” works.
Golf is a perfect example. As Deepak Chopra says about golf, “Each of us is endowed with a natural swing.
Through non-doing, you let go of all the bad habits you’ve added
to the simple motion of a club head falling to earth on its own accord.”
Paula Creamer used “trying softer” to win the 2010 U.S. Women’s Open Golf Championship.
Creamer was facing extreme pressure to win “the big one”.
She had been trying to win the U.S. Open Championship for so long.
She was disappointed time and time again.
In fact, Creamer was called ‘one of the greatest players to never
win the U.S. Open.’
Ouch.
Holding the champions trophy, Creamer explained her victory.
It came about by trying softer: “Four weeks after thumb surgery I arrived at Oakmont.
My game was a mess, and I was struggling on the range.
During a practice round Monday I realized I couldn’t and
shouldn’t play my typical aggressive game.Instead my goal would be to string together pars,
which I knew would move me up the leaderboard.
After working with my swing coach I felt better about how
I was hitting it and thought, ‘Just keep making pars.
There are a lot of days left.'”
When you “try softer” you let the magic happen.
Winning athletes understand this concept.
They’re not holding on too tight.
It’s a simple mindset that anyone can learn with a bit of practice. The fastest way to learn it is through my Ebook, The Courage to Win in Sport.
You can even download it for FREE with our seven day trial. Check it out here:
https://www.thecouragetowin.com/sportebook.html
And make sure you sign up for free mental toughness tips too. They will change the way you approach sport forever.
Light it up out there,
Lisa B.