Gymbag Wisdom - Achieving Your Potential
by Gary Simmons
Smashwords Edition
Copyright 2011 Gary Simmons
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
PREFACE:
Gymbag Wisdom is a collection of my unique motivational and mental training techniques that I jotted down and stuffed into my gym bag while developing athletes. They have helped hundreds experience greater success in sports and in life. Now... it's your turn!
INTRODUCTION:
Dear Athlete,
Yes it's true! You have more ability than you think -- you just need to put your mind to it.
Take it from me, Gary Simmons, I've been training high school, college, pro, and recreational athletes for nearly thirty years. You will be amazed at how much better you'll be if you work on the mental part of your game. Sports, as they say, are 90% mental so "train the brain" while you develop the brawn.
Read the G-Wisdom, be inspired, absorb the lessons, and blossom into the athlete you were cut out to be.
After you read the book, I encourage you to select, enlarge, and print out your favorite passages and hang them around -- bedroom mirrors, refrigerator, lockers, etc. Surrounding yourself with daily reminders of what it takes to succeed is a great way to prevent failure.
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
Part 1:
1. It Takes Steel To Sharpen Steel
4. G.U.T.S. (Great Under Tough Situations)
10. "Can't" Never Achieve Anything
12. Practice Tuning Out Distractions
14. Always Expect To Come Back
17. L.O.S.E.R. (Lack Of Staying Emotionally Revved)
21. Another Arrow In Your Quiver
22. Feel Your Muscles Twitching
26. Work Hard At Working Smart
28. Sometimes You Can Try Too Hard
30. Think Feedback, Not Setback
32. F. I. R. S. T. (For Individuals Reflecting Superior Toughness)
40. Be The Calm That Settles The Sea
42. The Cream Rises To The Top
44. Adversity Will Make You Stronger
50. Second Best Is For The Rest
52. Pressure Can Be A Good Thing
61. My "Sign Of A Good Athletic Mind" Quiz
63. Prepare For A Perfect Practice
70. It's Not The Size Of The Trophy
Part 2:
Gary's top 100 Bits of G-Wisdom.
BUNDLES OF G-WISDOM
1. It Takes Steel To Sharpen Steel
To get better at your sport you need a challenge. Tough competition is what sharpens your skills, not the easy wins. Don't duck a better opponent because you might lose. Get up for the challenge. Look at tough competition as an invitation to get better. To sharpen your skills, you need something that can match your strength. It takes steel to sharpen steel.
2. Always Come To Compete
Become a competitor. Any time you lace them up, put the game face on. Even in practice, never drop your guard. Rise to the occasion anytime someone challenges your game. Protect your domain. Make it a pride thing - always come to compete. Allow your instincts to take over and your competitive juices to heat up. Champions are forged in the fire of competition.
3. Like An Iditarod Sled Dog
Winners have learned to go full speed ahead all the time. No matter if it's practice or the real thing, they take it on with a full head of steam. They never have to give a second effort because they only play with continuous effort. Winners don't have a middle gear. They don't know what half speed is all about. Like an Iditarod sled dog, winners only know one speed - flat out.
4. G.U.T.S. (Great Under Tough Situations)
When the game heats up, do you rise to the occasion? When crunch time nears, do you demand the ball - do you yearn for the spotlight? When the game is on the line, do you step forward when others around you shy away? When it's time to perform under pressure, do you perform at your best? If this doesn't sound like you, start treating every moment in practice like it was the big moment in a game, and you too, will develop GUTS.
5. They Paid Their Dues
Champions are developed in the off-season. All the hours of practice, all the hard work, and all the sacrifices - these things will not be forgotten. When the season rolls around and crunch time nears, champions will take what they deserve. They know how much was invested, and they understand that they are the most prepared. They paid their dues - they refuse to lose.
6. No Luck About It
People who work hard always seem to be luckier. They always seem to be in the right place at the right time. The truth is they create their own luck. They're masters of their own fates. When opportunities pop up, they're always in a position to seize them. Chance will always play a part in everything you do, but if you work hard, chances are in your favor.
7. Be Coachable
Always remain coachable. Always be ready for advice. Even if you think you have it all together, listen to what coaches have to say. Always keep an open mind and a receptive ear to constructive criticism. Sometimes you become so comfortable with what you're doing, you can't believe that you're doing things incorrectly. Never become set in your ways; conquer your resistance to change. A successful athlete is a coachable athlete.
8. The Mark Of A Champion
Turning weaknesses into strengths is the mark of a champion. It may be easier and more fun to practice what you already do well, but that won't do much for improving your game. Champions make a habit of spending the majority of their practice time working on their weaknesses. If you're going to compete with the best, don't practice like the rest.
9. The Opportunity Of Summer
Seize your summer. Be the one to come back the most improved player. Brew your skills all summer long, and when you show up for the season - blow in like a hurricane. Pour your heart into your workouts. Give yourself a real opportunity to blossom. This summer, be the storm brewing on the horizon.
10. "Can't" Never Achieve Anything
"Can't" is not part of the vocabulary of winners. You create your own barriers, and set your own limitations. " I can't," never accomplished anything. " I will try," has produced wonders. When you turn your attention inward, listen to the part of you that is saying, " I can." You have to believe to achieve.
11. The Key To Success
Even with all the great sports equipment available today, a combination of practice, hard work, and guts is still what separates the winners from the losers. Good equipment is important but you can't buy success. Keep in mind that it isn't the expensive machinery that brings out your best, but the condition of the machine using the equipment.
12. Practice Tuning Out Distractions
In order to improve your focus skills, you need to learn how to tune out distractions. Here's a great drill. Take out a book that you need to read for school and crank the music. For thirty seconds, mentally tune out the music and focus only on your breathing. Then switch and for thirty seconds listen to the music as intently as you read.
Change back and forth ten times. Perform once a day. Work hard at staying focused, and in a few weeks your concentration will improve dramatically. Whether it's in sports or in the classroom, possessing strong focus skills will take you to the next level.
13. The Reset Generation
"Hey coach! Two strikes...two outs...bottom of the third...we're down by five, can I just reset it? Heck, that's what I do when I fall too far behind in a video game." Are you part of the reset generation? Does the reset button make quitting easy for you? Quitting is a habit -- it doesn't matter where you pick it up.
14. Always Expect To Come Back
When you are behind, put your pride on the line. Time might run out on you, but never quit. Always expect to come back. Develop a bad attitude toward giving up. Even in obvious defeat, never accept it, go down a fighter. This attitude will eventually turn you into a winner. Keep in mind, the more you quit, the easier quitting gets.
15. The "Sixth Sense"
Develop a winning instinct. When you have the lead late in the game, don't let your mind drift -- don't start patting yourself on the back prematurely. Always expect one more big effort from your opponent that can steal the game from under your nose. Keep the intensity one step above your opponent's at all times. Stay in control of the momentum until the final whistle blows. Never give your opponent the feeling that he can recover. Develop a sixth sense for winning.
16. Yo-Yo
Do you find yourself performing like a yo-yo? Do you find yourself playing up or down to your opponent's level? If so, it's time for you to take control. It's time for you to show up for every game mentally ready to control the pace. In order to become a consistent winner you must first learn to play with consistent intensity. Never allow your opponent to control you like a yo-yo on a string. Develop the mental stability to always play up to your athletic ability.
17. L.O.S.E.R. (Lack Of Staying Emotionally Revved)
Winners stay charged up -- they never let up the intensity until it's over. From somewhere deep down comes the inner strength to keep them fired up until they have what they're after. They just can't seem to let go. They're turned on the entire time they are competing. Winners keep the pedal to the medal -- they stay emotionally revved.
18. To Make Real Progress
You can't accomplish much if you work hard only on the days you feel great. Nobody feels a hundred percent every day, but the people who succeed give a hundred percent all the time. Build a tolerance for discomfort. To make real progress, to experience great things in life, you have to work through some discomfort. You have to give consistent effort no matter how you feel.
19. Self-Pride
Have self-pride with an "attitude." Whatever you do, don't let anybody outwork you. It's one thing for somebody to beat you because they have more talent, but it's another thing to let somebody beat you because they have outworked you. When it comes to work ethic, everyone is on an equal playing field. A strong work ethic is the most important piece of the puzzle for success. There are many unsuccessful talented people out there walking the streets.
20. Pack Of Wolves
Showcase your talents, but within the constraints of the team. Individual effort can never outperform the team. A team playing as one unit has a collective focus, a combined force -- it's members share a common goal. Together they can accomplish more. Teamwork is when everybody plays a role and nobody plays out of control. In the wild, a wolf doesn't stand a chance alone, but when it teams up with the pack, it's nearly unbeatable.
21. Another Arrow In Your Quiver
Before a game or even a practice, take a few moments to picture yourself performing at your best. If you take the time and energy to mentally rehearse, you can gain an edge before the whistle even blows. Don't just show up and hope to do your best, first visualize what you need to do to be your best. Visualization is another weapon for competition. It's another arrow in your quiver.
22. Feel Your Muscles Twitching
When you're learning a new skill or trying to improve on an existing one, take time to visualize it first. Run it through your mind several times before attempting it for real. First in slow motion to get the perfect technique, then see yourself executing it perfectly at game speed. Concentrate so hard you can feel your muscles twitching as you run the image through your mind. When you go to practice the real thing, don't think about it -- just do it. Allow the muscle memory that you developed from visualization to take over.
23. Enter The Zone
Reaching the "zone" is the pinnacle of sports. Once experience, it's what every athlete strives for the rest of his playing days. Playing "in the zone" is the ultimate lure of sports. It is a special time when your mind quiets and your senses take over. It's when everything you can do in practice flows out in a game like it was second nature. Stay focused on the "now" long enough and everything will become easy and effortless -- everything will begin to click. Suddenly, it will feel as if you were switched to automatic pilot -- you'll have entered the "zone."
24. "Paralysis Thru Analysis"
The sure way to fall into a slump, or to stay in a slump, is to over-analyze. Athletes often think themselves into a frenzy. They get their minds so preoccupied with over-analyzing, and giving themselves instruction they freeze up when it's time to perform. They develop "paralysis thru analysis." In sports, there is a time to thing and a time to do. When it's time to do, suppress the thinker and activate the doer. A great baseball player once said, "you can't think and hit a baseball at the same time."
25. A Natural Athlete
Everybody starts out as a natural athlete in childhood, but very few continue to be one as they grow up. Somewhere along the way most lose the gift. A child's approach to play is natural -- free of self-concept, free of emotional barriers and fears. Approach sports as you did when you were a child, and you will rediscover the natural athlete that lies within us all.
26. Work Hard At Working Smart
Work smarter, not just harder. When it comes time to take your game, or any activity to a new high, improve your efficiency before you put in the extra hard work. Find out the smartest way of getting it done before you bear down. Strain your brain before you begin to strain your body. Work hard at working smart and you'll achieve more with less work.
27. It's All About Confidence
The secret to gaining confidence in sports is preparation. Sit down with your coach and plan each practice in the off-season with an attainable goal in mind, then work the plan. Prepare your practices so you can succeed one step at a time. Success breads success. With hard work comes competence, and with competence comes confidence.
28. Sometimes You Can Try Too Hard
You never can work too hard, but sometimes you can try too hard. When you practice something over and over and just can't seem to make progress, back off for a bit. Take some time to clear your mind. Learning skills cannot be forced. After taking a short break, go at it again. You'll be amazed. As with training a dog, you'll make more progress if your training sessions are shorter but more frequent.
29. No Sweat
Even when you're not practicing, you still can get better at your sport. How? Simply visualize yourself practicing. When you get free time throughout the day, engage in mental practice. Mental rehearsal trains the neural pathways. It helps you develop muscle memory without even playing. All it takes is a few moments here and there. Professional and Olympic athletes take full advantage of mental imagery to enhance their skills. Don't pass up on an opportunity to get better without even breaking a sweat.
30. Think Feedback, Not Setback
Feel your losses, but don't feel defeated. If you can't feel the pain from a loss, you can't experience the joy of victory. Take a loss to heart but keep it in perspective. Champions are known more for how they handle their losses than their wins. A loss will always hurt, but it should never make you feel like giving up. Look at it as only a lesson, not a final exam. Sometimes losses are necessary. They help you figure out what doesn't work. A loss should be perceived as feedback, not setback.
31. Learn To End Up In First
It's harder to hold the lead than it is to come from behind. When you're behind, you have nothing to lose. You can gamble and let it all hang out. Never underestimate a person who has nothing to lose. When you're in the lead it's a different story. You have the burden of keeping up the intensity. Although you want to start congratulating yourself, you can't let down -- you must not allow your mind to drift. All the pressure is on the leader. When you become one, stay focused, and you'll learn to end up as one.
32. F. I. R. S. T. (For Individuals Reflecting Superior Toughness)
First place is reserved for those who get it done in tough times. The competition for the top spot is stiff, but the ones who possess the winning combination of confidence and pride believe that the top spot is reserved for them. When the game gets tough, it's the ones who stay strong when others go weak who win. It's the one who possesses superior toughness who finishes first.
33. Play To Win
When you get the lead, don't change your game, don't let up, and don't become too conservative. If you're going to win, you must maintain the mental hustle that got you there. Keep the game face on. The momentum will change quickly if your opponent senses a letdown. Keep the pressure up but don't over pursue. Stay on your toes and off your heels. Protect the lead but look to score. Play to win, not to lose.
34. Quality Practice
It's not the time you put in, but what you put into the time that matters. Quality practice -- that's how you improve. You must practice the way you plan on playing during a game. Bring the same intensity, the same enthusiasm. You can't expect to get better if you just go through the motions. It's in practice where you develop an instinct for the game. It's where you develop the habits that lead to success.
35. Winning Is A Mind-set
Think like a winner and you'll become a winner. Look for ways to get the job done, not reasons why you can't. Winners form the habit of doing the things that losers don't like to do. Winners visualize the rewards of success. Losers picture the penalties of failure. Winning is a mind-set -- you either develop it or you don't.
36. The Big Mistake
It's not always the great plays that win the game as much as it is the big mistakes that cost a victory. If you can cut back on making crucial mistakes, if you can stop shooting yourself in the foot, it's as good as adding a new weapon to your arsenal. The best way to cut back on your mistakes is to constantly visualize yourself doing things correctly. Practice preventing the big mistakes as much as you practice performing the great plays. Learn from your mistakes; learn not to make them.
37. Program Yourself
When it comes to sport skills, your body works like a computer. In practice you program your skills, and on game day you need the right command to bring out the very best of what you have programmed. While you're playing, don't dwell on the past and don't try to predict the future. Stay in the moment, focus on what's happening right before your eyes -- that is the command that will release what is stored.
38. Success Is Earned
Achieving success is no accident. Nobody stumbles onto success. It's one those things that requires preparation, hard work, and perseverance. Some people always seem to be successful at whatever they do. They always seem to have all the luck. But the truth is they put in the time, spent the energy, and took the risk. There is no accident about it -- success is earned.
39. The Magic Is In The Air
Even great athletes get nervous and develop butterflies before competition. Butterflies are a natural and normal part of competing, but if you let them get the best of you, they can affect your performance right from the get go. When you start to feel them come on before the competition begins, sit down, clear your mind, and take five deep, slow breaths. As you exhale, sense your muscles letting go. Keep your mind quiet and focused only on your breathing, and the butterflies will slowly disappear...the magic is in the air.
40. Be The Calm That Settles The Sea
In the heat of the battle, be the one not to rattle. In the face of adversity, be the one to remain strong. When others are in need of emotional support, be the pillar of strength they can lean on. When others begin to unravel from the pressure, provide the inner strength to help hold them together. Be the calm that settles the sea.
41. Sports Rituals
The next time you're watching sports on television, observe the simple sport rituals athletes go through before they perform. They help athletes prepare; they're part of their pre-performance routine. Rituals act as a starting point. They set a beat -- one, two, three, go. They help athletes get the momentum up and rolling step by step, and when the pressure builds and crunch time arrives, rituals help athletes remain focused, relaxed, and in the true state of competitive readiness.
42. The Cream Rises To The Top
Focus on yourself. Direct your own destiny. Concern yourself with what's better for you and not with who's better than who. Keep your attention at home -- concentrate on improving yourself. Focus on what you need to do to get better and not the need to be better than someone else.
43. Be A Grizzly
Work like a bear. When it's time to work out or practice, dig your claws in and make every minute count. On every repetition reach deep down inside for maximum effort. If you're going to make a commitment to a sport, make the commitment to bring high octane energy to every session. To really make progress, you have to attack your work furiously. If you're going to work like a bear -- be a grizzly.
44. Adversity Will Make You Stronger
When things don't go your way, learn to work even harder. Instead of retreating and getting down on yourself, keep your spirits up and increase the intensity. Successful people believe that no matter how many times things go wrong, there is plenty of time to make things go right. They have learned early on that adversity makes them stronger.