Welcome to 30 Days of Mental Skills, where I’m breaking down the 9 core psychological skills of peak performers. Each day, I’m posting a new video discussing a key aspect, including Mindset, Motivation, Goal Setting, People Skills, Self-Talk, Mental Imagery, Managing Stress, Emotional Agility, and focus and attention. This material is adapted from my lectures on the Performance Psychology module, which I taught to undergraduate students. Be sure to check out Essential Mental Skills to find out more.
The first thing to say is that you can’t. Motivate yourself, that is. You cannot muster sufficient willpower to overcome the challenges that await you. Willpower has limits, it is a finute resource. You know this already, surely. Despite our best and honest intentions, most of us fail in our pursuit of goals. They say, don’t do the weekly shopping when you’re hungry, avoid social gatherings when you’re off the drink, and don’t go on holidays when you’re in the middle of a fitness plan. It’s all because these things are potential banana skins in the pursuit of goals. In moments of weakness, our best intentions let us down. There are other factors, of course, such as maybe we took too big a leap, or we didn’t create the right environment, or we didn’t have sufficient peer support. In other words, motivation is not something you can switch on and off.
Motivation, just like other mental skills, is not a conscious faculty. Instead, you either have it or you don’t, and it’s either intrinsic or extrinsic. It’s something we tap into once our goals are aligned with our values. I’ll discuss this more in the next video, but for now, it’s essential to know that motivation comes more easily when our goals are aligned with our values. Willpower, or self-regulation, comes into it too, but researchers seem to agree that it appears to be a finite resource. You can influence it, however, and you do so by building a support group around you, hiring a coach, and creating a structure that will help you succeed. That's where this material is headed.
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Essential Mental Skills Is Launching Soon
The Essential Mental Skills Course is launching soon. It is a structured introduction to mental skill development and contains lecture videos, slides, resources, a workbook, and kicks off with a live group Zoom orientation call. This course brings together what I’ve learned from my 30 years in business, 10 years in psychology, lecturing and private practice experience in a single system to help you achieve better mental health and optimise your performance in work, sport or business. Find out more and join the waiting list here.
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