Journal Your Success

Mind of Steel


Journal Your Success

Dr. Christopher Stankovich

www.drstankovich.com

In my experience working in the field of sport psychology, one of the most beneficial training techniques athletes can do is keep a journal of their goals and daily experiences. Sadly, far too many athletes devalue this technique, and instead assume they will be able to remember everything in their head. In reality, this is simply not the case – don’t believe me? Try to remember what you had for lunch yesterday – see what I mean?!

Keeping a personal journal of your athletic accomplishments can be a very effective tool when it comes to improving focus, increasing self-confidence, and for breaking slumps when they occur. There are as many ways to journal your progress as there are types of people playing pool, so don’t get caught up trying to do this one specific way. Instead, find a style that works for you and try to be as consistent as you can with your entries. Below are a few tips to get you started.

1. Buy a journal or notebook with a lot of pages and personalize it. If you have favorite quotes or pictures you might consider adding them to the journal for additional inspiration.

2. At least once a year, and possibly even more frequently, you should write out all your goals in your journal. Be sure to write daily, short-term, mid-term, and long-term goals; and always try to set your goals so that you can measure your progress (i.e. if you have a goal to shoot for an hour a day, it is very easy to quantify whether or not you accomplished this goal).

3. When making an entry, try to include the date and any other information that will help you conjure an image in your mind when looking back at this entry down the road. For example, you might say “June 4, 2008, Smokeys Pool Hall – 9 Ball Tournament.”

4. The first question I encourage athletes to ask themselves is “What did I do well today?” By prompting yourself to think of at least one good thing each day it will improve your attitude and confidence levels.

5. The second question that I think is good to ask yourself daily is “What do I need to improve?” Here you might quickly list one or two things, like work on breaking or pay better attention to my shot selection.

6. The last question I like to add is “Other notes.” Here you can list things like a reminder to get your tip replaced or the date of an upcoming pool tournament.

These are just a few suggestions to help you get started. Another good thing to do is to mark specific entries where you really played well (i.e. perhaps a tournament you won). This way, when you hit a bad stretch in the future you can quickly look back and feel good about yourself again after re-reading one of your better days!

Dr. Christopher Stankovich is a nationally acclaimed expert in Sport Psychology and the Founder of Advanced Human Performance Systems. For more information on performance-enhancement products, including the exclusive “Mind of Steel for Pool Success” and the world’s first Sport Performance Assessment for Pool, please visit www.drstankovich.com