How to Harness Your Inner Athlete and Train Your Mind to Reach Peak Professional Performance It is important to make yourself the primary force driving your growth. Here are several strategies to channel your inner motivator for success.
By Nancy Solari Edited by Kara McIntyre
Key Takeaways
- Adopt an athlete’s mindset for career success by visualizing goals, tracking progress and using affirmations to overcome mental blocks.
- Maintain high energy levels throughout the workday with physical activity, strategic breaks and energy-boosting habits for sustained creativity and endurance.
- Embrace cross-training in your professional development by pushing boundaries, trying new things daily and organizing your workspace for growth.
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
Just like how an athlete trains for peak performance, your career growth demands passion, resilience and daily action. Tapping into your inner competitor will guide you to build the momentum needed to thrive professionally. Here are some strategies to help you stay focused and energized in your journey.
1. Strengthen your mindset
Just as athletes visualize their performance before a big game, you need to be able to let your mind guide you in making your professional dreams come true. It is a matter of using your intuition to navigate uncertainties that lead you to success. You will learn to adopt a sense of purpose when you envision your future and take steps to make it a reality.
Use your senses to bring to life what success will be like, and this will motivate you to pursue it further. Observe the turf, hear the crowd, feel the adrenaline. When you achieve a desired level of success, what will your new car smell like? Imagine being able to travel and see destinations that have been on your bucket list. Tasting foods that seemed too splurge-y at one time are now a bite away.
Being legally blind, I have come to rely on my heightened senses and mental focus just as an athlete trusts their instincts when the road is not clear. My motto has always been "You Don't Need Sight To Have Vision" meaning in my mind, my dreams are fed through all my other senses and that translates into giving me the energy to keep going on those long days.
The best way to know if and how you are progressing is to track your performance and reflect from week to week. Journaling is a great way to keep track of your efforts and consider if you are satisfied with your growth. Having this log is like reviewing game footage and will enable you to see where you should focus your greatest efforts and if there are any new issues that may need attention.
I use an audio recorder as my mental fitness tracker for my list of to-dos and projects completed. Being able to listen to my voice also allows me to hear my state of mind. This can be revealing to see how positive I was in a moment of indecision or even how strained I may have been in the height of a busy day. Sometimes exhausted but often with that intentional focus, I see mental blocks and doubts fade away as my intellect grows.
A runner's mindset is their biggest advantage before a long race, fueling their body through belief and determination. Consider using affirmations to boost your spirit on those days you are challenged. Many people shy away from being proud of their achievements but truly, the inner athlete in me knows that with every effort, I am doing my best and am taking a step further into my journey of growth.
2. Energize your day
Growing in one's career takes laps of deadlines and expectations that require grit, pacing and inner strength. These can feel like an unnecessary weight to carry which can impact your thinking and functioning ability. To navigate these strenuous times, it takes channeling your inner athlete to have the stamina to keep up.
To build endurance, runners need to know when to take breaks and recover. If you find that you are sitting at a desk and you know that you have a long day ahead of you, consider making sure you are consistently stretching your back and maintaining good posture so that you can get through the long day without feeling pain from all the sitting. Consider even massaging your fingers in between typing or rubbing your own neck and shoulders to keep them from getting tight as you look at your computer screen.
I believe in maintaining my energy level through quick, spontaneous bursts. That might be a cold or hot shower, often multiple times a day, enabling me to be alert so I am creative. I also use ankle weights and do leg lifts in virtual meetings to provide energy to the rest of my body. This way I can dedicate the top of my body to be present and engaged in leading a presentation, while at the same time I can get my lower body working out to keep my endurance at peak level.
It is important to push the envelope from time to time. Just like how an athlete is constantly striving for their personal best, you need to be comfortable extending past your limits. This means that you may physically commit to more in a day than normal. Consider looking at your schedule: can you get in an additional call to a client or one night a week, go to a networking function? Those extra efforts can open doors for your career.
Cross-training is vital to develop balance and agility. I wake up every day looking to do one new action I have never tried before. That might be exploring how I can use AI to move an initiative forward, expanding my brain in a way that is new. I might also choose to physically organize a room at the office. This often has me finding items I had forgotten about or opens space to expand within the office with less clutter, allowing for room to grow.
Harnessing your inner career athlete means showing up in the arena with purpose, breaking boundaries and celebrating your successes along the way. Your mindset is your playbook, your energy is your fuel and your daily actions are your drills. Through proper conditioning and training, you create a powerful rhythm of growth, driving yourself forward until you cross the finish line.
