The next big performance edge in sports is about a mindful and self-aware athlete. I have worked with hundreds of top executives, college and professional athletes and coaches over the past 7 years. The number one factor that keeps any one of them from realizing more of their potential has to do with mindset. When a powerful new authentic belief and understanding is added to action and a whole new creative energy is released. 

In many of the cases of those I have worked with the athlete or coaching staff was doing 8 or 9 out of the 10 most important things that lead to results. It was only the last piece regarding a new awareness or understanding that had the power to shift the energy and make the critical difference. These tiny shifts in the way they processed information or responded to circumstance translated into huge experiential differences on the field of play. 

Self-awareness or mindfulness is very simply about being more conscious about how our thoughts, feelings, energy and actions create the conditions and probabilities for what we will create and experience next.  It is about the understanding of how our beliefs regarding who we truly believe that we are, directly affect and are connected to our experiences. The result of which leads to a more mindful, connected, intuitive and empowered athlete.

It is not just talent alone that produces success. Talent without heart or a strong enough belief to succeed will simply languish and go unfulfilled. The key to increasing the probabilities of success and the experience of true potential realized, relates to an expanded awareness or consciousness regarding how success materializes. The player, coach or organization looking to thrive must be willing to see things from a new perspective. More specifically it is a new awareness regarding how our energy shapes what unfolds next for us. Your deepest thoughts are either working for you and your dreams, or they are working against you. This is the new powerful state of awareness and knowledge for today’s top athletes.

The ability to evolve and change is vital to the survival of all things. Whether it is in nature, in human relations or in business and sports. Life is constantly nudging us to open to new possibility. While past methods to achieve success in sports will continue to play a significant role, it is those individuals that seek to stretch their current mindset of the way life works at a deeper and more mindful level that will separate themselves from the rest. It is the more mindful and self-aware athlete that will gain the powerful peak performance “edge” in today’s highly competitive and driven world.