Mind Over Sports

Words of Wisdom from former UCLA coach John Wooden. From a personal perspective, every time I conduct a workshop/seminar with athletes and teams I always learn something new. And that’s been happening for the past 27 years. Some of the things I’ve learned: How beliefs impact performance, both positive and negative; The importance of religious beliefs to an athlete’s high performance; How high self-esteem lays the foundation for an athlete to be successful in sports and in life; How athletes’ problems and unresolved issues negatively affect their ability to visualize; How helping others less fortunate than yourself enhances athletic performance; When athletes are happy and their lives are in harmony they perform close to their skill levels on a consistent basis; What takes place away from the field of competition affects what takes place on the field of competition; How coaches’ expectations often become self-fulfilling prophecies; and finally, How coaches who believe they know everything are not open to suggestion and are depriving themselves and their teams from learning. In the words of Zen Master Suzuki Roshi: “There are many opportunities, but in the expert there are few.”