Olympic athletes: They’re not like us. They eat differently; they sleep differently; and they definitely think differently.
Mindset is a huge part of what makes elite contenders elite, says Kai Laird, who leads a sport and performance psychology group based in Illinois and Virginia. “Athletes who have reached that level are typically all around the same athletic standard,” he says, but what sets champions apart from the rest “really comes down to that mindset.”
Laird coaches both athletes and non-athletes who want to improve their performance, and has found similarities between the high performers, whether they’re on a race course or in a classroom. The best of the best stand out by being able to replicate top-caliber accomplishments on a more regular basis than others, he says, which is more complicated than it sounds. Consistency requires resilience, which requires confidence, which requires prior success, which requires discipline, which requires motivation. “We see the final product on TV,” he says, but it’s “that accumulation of skills that they’ve used every day that has gotten them there.”
You might never run, jump, or swim quite the way an elite athlete does, but sports psychologists say we can adopt some of their strategies to live better everyday lives. Here’s where to start.
Olympians tend to focus their improvement efforts on specific athletic events, rather than trying to get better at lots of things at once. That specificity is one of the keys to their success, says Francesco Dandekar, a sports psychiatrist at Stanford University.
“I’m pretty sure I could beat Michael Phelps in a sprint on land,” says Dandekar. That’s because Phelps dedicated himself specifically to training as a freestyle and butterfly swimmer, not a runner — so all of his physical and mental skills are honed to excel at those specific tasks. “Nobody performs at a high level at everything,” says Dandekar.
“I’m pretty sure I could beat Michael Phelps in a sprint on land”
Finding and staying on a path to improvement is easier if you try to get better at a specific task, and you’re clear with yourself about what that task is. Instead of generically aiming to get fitter or learn a language, choose more specific goals, like safely lifting a percentage of your body weight overhead or reading a short story in a foreign tongue.
“The unsexy reality” is that getting better at anything is all about repeating that thing over and over again, and having some way of tracking your progress, says Dandekar. For elite athletes, having a focused goal makes that repetition sustainable — and it can make normies feel less overwhelmed by their own ambitions.
The best athletes know where they shine and where they don’t — and as much as possible, they put themselves in situations where they’ll excel. That means training and competing in only their best events, but also, anticipating any obstacles they might face during those events. Expecting the unexpected — and having a plan for how they’ll respond — allows them to more easily maintain a high level of performance in the moment, even when fans get rowdy or the weather gets ugly.
We can gain a lot from adopting these strategies in our own lives. For example, instead of planning to just guzzle wine at dinner with a group of people you’re kind of dreading, think in advance about what makes the situation anxiety-provoking, says Dandekar: “Is it, ‘That person just never really laughs at my jokes,’ ‘That person always talks over me’?”
Being clear-eyed about the challenges makes it easier to plan a strategy, he says. If you can’t stand one person’s flat response to your quips, perhaps you plan to focus less on their response and more on other people’s reactions. If somebody’s chronic interrupting bugs you, plan for less one-on-one conversation with them. You could plan to excuse yourself for a quick break halfway through dinner to take care of yourself and check in on your feelings.
“It’s not that it’s going to be the most fun you’ve ever had,” Dandekar says, but “it may not be as stressful, as overwhelming, as generally vaguely unpleasant.”
One of the best evidence-based mental tricks for improving athletic performance is visualization — that is, creating mental images of yourself successfully doing a movement before you actually do it. Athletes who visualize consistently have a much greater chance of success than people who don’t, says Andrew Jacobs, a Kansas City-based sports psychologist who’s worked with Olympic cyclists and a range of professional and collegiate athletic teams.
Visualization can look different depending on what works best for different people, but it typically involves physical relaxation, getting yourself in a positive and confident mindset, and mentally rehearsing an event in your head as you want it to unfold — often including all the sounds, sights, smells, tastes, and physical sensations that would go along with the performance. Some of Jacobs’s clients do these exercises the night before a big event, while some like doing them mere minutes before competing.
Mental imagery can also help you prepare to cope with challenges, says Jacobs. “If you’re going to give a speech and it’s to a rowdy audience, or an uncomfortable situation, or the lighting is bad,” he says, “visualize how that’s going to be so you’re more prepared.”
The best results come from imagining not only the physical activity, but also the sense of calm and control you want to feel when you’re executing it, says Laird. Although people may start the exercise imagining a raucous setting, “You’re bringing back the focus to what they can control,” he says. Concentrate less on the annoying coworker who will interject during your presentation and more on your breathing and movement.
Here’s a walkthrough from sports psychologist Andrew Jacobs.
Successful athletes have a pre-performance routine that tells both body and mind that it’s go time, says Kensa Gunter, an Atlanta-based sports psychologist who’s worked with both NBA and WNBA athletes. These routines might last anywhere from five to 30 minutes and include anything from a meditation to a playlist. Whatever the routine includes, if it’s done habitually just before a performance, it becomes an important signal that puts the athlete in a state of readiness.
Routines are different from superstitions, Gunter says: “Superstition is, ‘If I don’t do it, then something bad will happen, or I’m not as prepared as I need to be.” They’re rooted in fear and anxiety, and they cede control over your success to some external phenomenon.
You might have a pair of lucky socks, “but they do not determine your ability or your capacity, and they do not impact your preparation,” Gunter says. Increasing both your confidence and your level of competence at a task can help shift your perceptions about what it takes to succeed.
You’re going to give a killer presentation not because you have your lucky socks on but because you’re prepared and you know the topic. “That is shifting from an external source of success to an internal one,” she says.
A lot of what distinguishes the elite athlete’s mind happens outside of actual competition, but they also have some tricks to deploy at crunch time.
In those high-adrenaline moments, elite athletes also do a lot of positive self-talk, which might include cue words or positive affirmations
We’ve all been nervous at various moments of truth; those sweaty palms and that pounding heart are part of our body’s natural response to stress. The most successful competitors interpret that physiological response as a sign of something positive, says Laird. Instead of telling yourself you’re nervous, “frame it as being excited, like, ‘This is a challenge. This is an opportunity, versus a threat.’”
In those high-adrenaline moments, elite athletes also do a lot of positive self-talk, which might include cue words or positive affirmations that trigger a sense of confidence and strength, or take the pressure off. Olympic snowboarder Shaun White liked to ask himself “Who cares?” before each run, and the high school football team in Friday Night Lights got a real jolt from “Clear eyes, full hearts, can’t lose” (even if they were fictional). High-performing people effectively apply these strategies outside of sports, too — witness the pep talk Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez gave herself before a televised debate during her 2018 primary, for example.
Different people need different kinds of exhortations at different points in a performance. Finding words or phrases that speak to your own biggest challenges can help you maintain the mindset you need, when you need it.
Gunter, a self-described “acronyms person,” says it’s important for athletes to R.E.S.T. — that is, to Restore Energy through Stillness and Time. Rest isn’t just about sleep, she says, although sleep is also important: “Rest is really about taking a break, having a pause where you are not engaged in activity that is geared toward some type of outcome,” she says. Recharging your batteries is what enables continued engagement in high-level activities, so take breaks on a regular basis.
However you replenish your energy, be as selective about the mental strategies you use to improve your performance as elite competitors are. “Rarely are they trying to do things because everybody else is doing them,” Gunter says. Rather, “they are doing the things that they have learned work best for them.”
In today’s comparison culture, it’s worth remembering that pursuing performance is an individual journey, she says: “There is no one way to do any of this.”
