These final sessions serve as your roadmap for implementation of Mental Skills, providing a structured approach to developing these skills systematically while maintaining momentum through the inevitable challenges that accompany any meaningful change process. The journey from knowledge to transformation requires more than understanding—it demands deliberate practice, strategic implementation, and sustained commitment to growth. In other words, show up, do the work, and see positive results.
Your Daily Mental Skills Practice: An Evidence-Based Framework
To help you begin immediately, here's a structured daily practice that feeds the development of all nine mental skills while building sustainable practice habits. This program requires only 15 to 20 minutes in the morning and again at night, but creates the foundation for lifelong mental skills development. You can even use spare moments during your day to revisit some of these practices. Each component is grounded in extensive research from positive psychology, neuroscience, and performance science.
Your Daily Mental Skills Practice
1. Journal Daily
Buy a small black journal, size A5 is good, and write your thoughts daily. In the morning, before the demands of the day take hold, write in the present tense how you wish your day to go ideally. At night, write about how your day went. Be truthful about it–if it didn't go according to plan, say so. However, don't end on a negative note. If something didn't work out, find a positive aspect to that thing. Ask yourself, what did I learn here? What advantage can I take from this experience? Finish by identifying three things that went well today. No matter how shitty your day was, mine for the good. It’s there; you just need to see it. You've got to mean what you write–this is very important, because you can only move on from difficult conditions if you accept them for what they are. If you fall asleep on a negative tone, you'll wake up with it.
2. Meditate for 15 mins Daily
Meditate for 15 minutes, either last thing at night before you fall asleep or first thing in the morning before the day begins. Meditation helps you calm your nervous system and purge yourself of negativity. Meditation in the morning helps you “get out ahead of the day, so to speak. When you engage in meditation regularly, there is a compound effect that allows you to approach difficulty with composure.
Meditation represents perhaps the most scientifically validated intervention for stress reduction and cognitive enhancement. Pascoe et al. (2017) reported that when all meditation forms were analysed together, meditation reduced cortisol, C-reactive protein (protein produced by the liver in response to inflammation in the body), blood pressure, heart rate, triglycerides (high triglyceride levels are associated with increased risk of heart disease, stroke, and metabolic syndrome) and tumour necrosis factor-alpha (produced by immune cells when the body detects threats or damage).
3. Monitor Your Thoughts
Human beings have a negativity bias, perhaps as an evolutionary survival mechanism, and so the inner critic is always waiting to pounce. So stay alert. When you catch yourself giving yourself a hard time, stop and ask yourself if your thoughts are true. Ask yourself, “is this accurate? It might be true, but am I so sure that it is?” Look for a counterargument. Ask yourself, what might be an equally plausible and less negative explanation for this situation?
Take time and tease that out. Understand that although these automatic responses may accurately reflect past experiences, they do not necessarily have to be true of future events. You have a choice, so learn to question these negative sentiments. You see, you've been conditioned by society and by your immediate environment to be hard on yourself–it’s supposed to motivate you, but it doesn’t, not for very long. Most of the time, other people are concerned for themselves and don't think that way about you. In fact, they don’t think about you at all, so treat yourself like you would a best friend.
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4. Mine for the Good
The world is shaped by our opinions, beliefs, biases, culture, and other factors. It trains us to notice threats even when our environment is overwhelmingly supportive. When faced with unsavoury conditions, acknowledge them and then look for evidence to the contrary. Ask yourself, what am I missing here? Where is the good in this? What am I supposed to learn here? Even when you are otherwise in good form, look for and acknowledge the good in your life. Be grateful for those ordinary, everyday things that make your life better, even though you regularly take them for granted.
As mentioned above, take a moment at night to reflect on three things you did well or that worked in your favour today. These things don’t need to be dramatic or stand out; they can be ordinary things that always go your way, but you fail to notice because it has always been this way. So instead of ignoring them, give them credit. Finish the day on a positive note.
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5. Visualise Daily
Most people go into their day on autopilot and end their day exhausted and relieved. They face tomorrow with the anticipation of “here we go again”. To a greater extent, they are not in control of their lives. The demands of life impress upon them, leaving them exposed to whatever comes their way. If we imagine at all, we tend to imagine things not going our way. We imagine all day long, often without realising it. What mental imagery asks us to do is see today and tomorrow as we would like them to be. We went into detail on this in chapter 7; however, it serves to repeat what research has shown us about the effectiveness of mental imagery conducted regularly.
How To Use Mental Imagery
Find a quiet place where you won’t be disturbed. The location doesn’t matter once no one interrupts you. It can even be a toilet cubicle if necessary.
Sit comfortably but upright, and close your eyes.
Take three deep breaths, holding each one for a couple of seconds, and then exhale.
See yourself preparing your equipment or materials. See yourself on the journey to and arriving at your venue or place of work.
See yourself setting up or warming up in the space where you’ll perform.
See yourself, either from your own perspective or from the standpoint of others watching, perform your task as you intend.
See the crowd or the audience, see their faces and their positive response
Run through this as often as is necessary. All the while, remind yourself, either quietly in your own head or whispered to yourself, that you are well-prepared, you’ve done the work, you have the skills and experience, and you have the answers to problems as they arrive.
Trust yourself. Regardless of the outcome, you’re ready to go. See yourself perform your thing from start to finish and see the positive response you receive from others around you.
6. Technology Downtime
Don't bring your phone or other digital device to the bedroom. Leave them downstairs, or if you must have your phone for an alarm, make sure to turn it off and leave it out of arm's reach. Your mobile phone is a distraction device designed to grab your attention and keep it. This device, and all the applications that operate from and within it, is quite literally designed to capture and maintain your focus and attention. This is not good for you if you want to be effective and make good decisions.
Decide to make these tasks non-negotiable. Create a checklist and tick off these tasks every day. Set reminders in your phone for each task and make time in your day to execute them. You’ll be glad you did.
Mental Skills Basics Course
Suffering stress and anxiety is not a prerequisite for success in self-employment–there's a better way. Mental skills provide you with the means of coping effectively with difficulty and achieving your goals. I created the Mental Skills Basics Course to introduce business leaders, self-employed individuals, freelancers, consultants, and small business owners to the psychological and emotional skills associated with success.
