About book 10-Minute Toughness: The Mental Training Program For Winning Before The Game Begins (2008)
My daughter knew when a girl on the opposing volleyball team was mentally freaking. Her coach knew it. They all knew it. They could see it in her eyes and body language. And they exploited it. They would try to serve or hit the ball to that girl because more often than not she’d shank it or miscommunicate with the girl next to her or hesitate. They were easy points. And as the mistakes piled up, the freaking only intensified. Which is why many of the opposing coaches would pull the girl back or take her out to let her get her mind straight because someone who is losing their mental game makes all sorts of mistakes they normally don’t make.There are two parts to any performance—(a) the ability to do the required tasks and (b) the ability to stay focused, loose, and remain positive while performing, especially under pressure. Both skills are critical because you can be a super star in practice, but if you can’t handle the pressure of a game, including your failures, you will end up performing like you haven’t practiced at all, even if you practice at game speed. On the other hand, you can be mentally tough, but if you still don’t have any skills, your mental toughness only allows you to demonstrate the best version of your lack of skills. And this isn’t just with physical performances like team sports, teaching, public speaking, and drama. I’ve found the same thing with my writing, which is a cognitive performance. John, you ask, a performance? You’re all alone with a computer or pad of paper. There is no audience watching you write. And that’s correct. Nobody wants to watch someone write. Can you imagine? Bill, look at how he strikes the keys on his keyboard. He’s really smoking along. That’s got to be a four-page-per-hour pace. But wait, what’s this? Now he’s looking something up on Google. He’s scanning, scanning. Now he’s reading. Let’s watch him read...Pure heart-stopping excitement. Which is why we don’t have programs that watch writers. But it’s still a performance. It’s just that with novels the telling and receiving happen at different times. And, more importantly, even if we authors sub-vocalize or do a bit of acting as we write (my daughters will often catch me talking to myself while writing), the telling and the receiving are in the heads of the writers and the readers. Which means that when you watch a writer write, you are not watching the performance. You can’t watch it. You can only create the performance in your head as you read it. And many writers can attest to the fact that one of the hardest parts of the performance is the mind game. Neil Gaiman is a best-selling science fiction and fantasy author. He’s related the following anecdote many times which illustrates this.***QUOTE***The last novel I wrote (it was ANANSI BOYS, in case you were wondering) when I got three-quarters of the way through I called my agent. I told her how stupid I felt writing something no-one would ever want to read, how thin the characters were, how pointless the plot. I strongly suggested that I was ready to abandon this book and write something else instead, or perhaps I could abandon the book and take up a new life as a landscape gardener, bank-robber, short-order cook or marine biologist. And instead of sympathizing or agreeing with me, or blasting me forward with a wave of enthusiasm—or even arguing with me—she simply said, suspiciously cheerfully, “Oh, you’re at that part of the book, are you?”I was shocked. “You mean I’ve done this before?”“You don’t remember?”“Not really.”“Oh yes,” she said. “You do this every time you write a novel.”More: http://nanowrimo.org/pep-talks/neil-g.... ***END QUOTE***Writing can sometimes be a complete head game. Let me assure you. So whether you’re performing physically or cognitively, you need both the task and the mental skills.There are lots of places to learn the task skills. But where do you go to learn how to manage the mental game? What actually works? Who knows this stuff? In this case, you can follow the money right to professional sports. There are folks whose whole job is to help athletes with their mental game. They’re called sports psychologists, but don’t let the word “psychologist” mislead you. These are not pipe-smoking Germans who have you lie down on a couch and discuss your childhood traumas. No. These are folks who apply research-based techniques to help the athletes set goals, perform mental routines that include visualization, and focus on the right things. This is about your mind right before, during, and after your performance, not while you’re lying on a couch. So does it work with kids? During my daughter’s basketball season as a high school junior, Nellie and I realized she was always running herself down. She was discounting what she was doing well to the point that she thought she wasn’t adding to the team. We told her she was nuts, but who listens to parents? They’re supposed to say nice things. So we started keep stats on every player in every game so she could get a more accurate and healthy view of her performance levels. The stats told her exactly how well she was doing, but all by themselves they didn’t really do much to help her improve. So when the season ended, I went looking for yet another program that would help her with her shooting skills. At the same time, I ran across an article about mental toughness and immediately knew this was something I should look into. I found a shooting program that was different from all the others we’d tried. And different in a very good way. I’ll plug it in another review. I also found a slim, information-packed book written by Jason Selk called 10-Minute Toughness: The Mental-Training Program for Winning Before the Game Begins. Selk is the sports psychologist who works for the St. Louis Cardinals and has also worked with NFL pros and Olympic gold medalists. And what he shares in his book is a three-step program to getting focused and staying on target. The three steps include scientifically proven routines, the same ones he uses with his professional athletes. So Lovely Daughter #3 and I read the book. And then she started applying the three-steps to her off-season basketball. The results? Well, so far she’s gone from hitting 30% of her shots to over 60-70% of them. And it’s not just with her mid-range shots and free throws. This last week we went in to practice, and she shot about 60 three-pointers from different spots and made 40 of them. It was just an awesome series of boom, boom, boom. Then she repeated that performance in the practice session the very next day. Yes, the new shooting method has been amazing. Yes, she’s put in lots of hours. But she wouldn’t have been able to realize the benefits of the hours nor the shooting program if her mental game was wacked. There were simply too many times during practice that things didn’t go so well. And it was the 10-Minute Toughness routine that got her back on track. Let me give you another example. For whatever reason, Lovely Daughter #3 didn’t create a mental toughness routine for her off season volleyball. The team went to a spring tournament, and she was the girl who was shanking the balls, serving out, and unable to hit. She was the girl who was mentally freaking. She began to think she just didn’t have what it took and figured she might not even start in the season, which was going to be her senior year. At one point between games, she went off alone and broke down in tears of frustration and disappointment. Her mental game was wacked. She called me. We created a routine based on the book. And she did better the rest of that tournament. She didn’t do great, but she did better. Then she continued to use the routine during her off-season practices. And she used it big time during the season. Her coaches also helped the girls focus on forward thinking. By the end of the season, her performance had risen to the point where she was a solid contributor on the team with her serving, receiving, and hitting. She made the all star team, and was named one of two Utah athletes of the week by the Deseret News. There’s no doubt all the hours playing helped. There’s no doubt the great coaching helped her improve her volleyball skills as well. But she wouldn’t have been able to take advantage of the coaching and time if her mental game had been wacked. It would have been like pouring water into a sieve.Now Lovely Daughter #3 isn’t the only one who has benefited. I immediately saw application to my writing. I created a routine for myself and started using it this spring to help me finish the first draft of Awful Intent. Not only was I more productive, I had a much better time developing and writing those scenes. The routine has done wonders for my mental game. I still face the same types of fears that Gaiman does, but the difference in my response to them has been night and day. If you’re engaged in any type of performance and feel you want to up your mental game, let me suggest Selk’s book. It’s been great for us.
Do You like book 10-Minute Toughness: The Mental Training Program For Winning Before The Game Begins (2008)?
Somehow I managed to buy this book without realising it was aimed at professional athletes! I wanted to read a book about resilience - how to become tougher, emotionally. And this book claimed to have a formula for this, lasting ten minutes a day. Sounded good. And to be fair, it did say it could apply to any area of life - but all the examples were of professional athletes, and the author seemed to forget that he had initially said this could apply to job situations and other things. The advice was fairly sound. Deep breathing is important. Choosing what one says to oneself is also important. Not worthy of a whole book though. So I returned this book to the Kindle store and got my money back.
—Gail
