Hi Everyone and welcome back to the Hockey Journey Podcast, episode number 52,
Mental Toughness, presented to you by Online Hockey Training. I'm your host, Coach Lance Pitlick. If you're new here, please make sure you subscribe, so you won't miss out on any future episodes.
Before we pay the toll, jump on the highway and begin this conversation if you want to learn more about me, my hockey experiences, what I know, and most importantly, how I've been helping hockey players get good with a stick and puck, just head on over to onlinehockeytraining.com and gain instant access to my 10 part video series where I'll show you everything. Consider it my gift to you.
So for me, summers are my busiest time from a work perspective, because kids are off from school and I get to do as many lessons a day as my body can handle, which is usually 2-4 of them most days from June through August. Most of the players I train listen to the podcast, thank you everyone, I really appreciate all the love, support and positive feedback I'm getting from ya. Thank You The past week, I've asked everyone that stopped over for a lesson what should be the next podcast episode topic. I think I asked 15 players and I was surprised that 10 of them requested the same thing, and that was how to become metally tougher or something to do with mental training.
I have to admit, I didn't anticipate everyone being so similar in their suggestion to me, but it immediately drew me back to my years as a player, and I vividly remember how challenged I was each week to manage my thoughts in a more positive way. My 1st year pro with the Philadelphia Flyers organization, playing in Hershey Pennsylvania, my mind was running wild and it was affecting my on ice performance, so I finally threw in the towel, trying to figure it out on my own, and sought out someone to see if they could help me. Enter Don Olivett (The Ollie Man), who showed me a different way of doing things, which resulted in practices I still use today. If you want to hear that story, I believe it's episode 13, Don Olivett, The Mind Mentor.
Now, though I practice mental toughness training regularly, I'm definitely not an expert in the field, but there are many, who have made the investigation of mental training their life's work and I'd like to share with you some of their most important findings and how impactful this type of mind development is paired to excellence.
For the following books I'm going to reference, know that I'm only scratching the surface of all the learning nuggets in each of the titles. If something resonates with you from a certain book, by the end of this episode, I highly encourage you to pick up a copy of your own and read it in its entirety. I'll put the links to each of the titles in the description. With that being said, let's begin.
Book Number 1
Grit
The Power of Passion and Perseverance
by Angela Duckworth
Quote #1
“Why were the highly accomplished so dogged in their pursuits? For most, there was no realistic expectation of ever catching up to their ambitions. In their own eyes, they were never good enough. They were the opposite of complacent. And yet, in a very real sense, they were satisfied with being unsatisfied. Each was chasing something of unparalleled interest and importance, and it was the chase— as much as the capture—that was gratifying. Even if some of the things they had to do were boring, or frustrating, or even painful, they wouldn’t dream of giving up. Their passion was enduring. In sum, no matter the domain, the highly successful had a kind of ferocious determination that played out in two ways. First, these exemplars were unusually resilient and hardworking. Second, they knew in a very, very deep way what it was they wanted. They not only had determination, they had direction. It was this combination of passion and perseverance that made high achievers special. In a word, they had grit.” (End Quote)
Quote #2
BEAST + THE SCIENCE OF GRIT
“By the last day of Beast, seventy-one cadets had dropped out. Grit turned out to be an astoundingly reliable predictor of who made it through and who did not. The next year, I returned to West Point to run the same study. This time, sixty-two cadets dropped out of Beast, and again grit predicted who would stay. In contrast, stayers and leavers had indistinguishable Whole Candidate Scores. I looked a littlecloser at the individual components that make up the score. Again, no difference. So, what matters for making it through Beast? Not your SAT scores, not your high school rank, not your leadership experience, not your athletic ability. Not your Whole Candidate Score. What matters is grit.” (End Quote)
Quote #3
WANT GRIT? REMEMBER: EFFORT COUNTS TWICE
“I have been working on a theory of the psychology of achievement since Marty scolded me for not having one. I have pages and pages of diagrams, filling more than a dozen lab notebooks. After more than a decade of thinking about it, sometimes alone, and sometimes in partnership with close colleagues, I finally published an article in which I lay down two simple equations that explain how you get from talent to achievement.
Here they are: talent x effort = skill ——————> skill x effort = achievement Talent is how quickly your skills improve when you invest effort. Achievement is what happens when you take your acquired skills and use them. Of course, your opportunities—for example, having a great teacher—matter tremendously, too, and maybe more than anything about the individual. My theory doesn’t address these outside forces, nor does it include luck. It’s about the psychology of achievement, but because psychology isn’t all that matters, it’s incomplete. Still, I think it’s useful. What this theory says is that when you consider individuals in identical circumstances, what each achieves depends on just two things, talent and effort. Talent—how fast we can improve a skill—absolutely matters. But effort factors into the calculations twice, not once. Effort builds skill. At the very same time, effort makes skill productive.” (End Quote)
Quote #4
GRITTY PASSION = COMPASS (VS. FIREWORKS)
“What I mean by a passion is not just that you have something you care about. What I mean is that you care about the same ultimate goal in an abiding, loyal, steady way. You are not capricious. Each day, you wake up thinking of the questions you fell asleep thinking about. Youare, in a sense, pointing in the same direction, ever eager to take even the smallest step forward than to take a step to the side, toward some other destination. At the extreme, one might call your focus obsessive. Most of your actions derive their significance from their allegiance to your ultimate concern, your life philosophy. You have your priorities in order.” (End Quote)
Bonus Quote #5
HOW TO GROW YOUR GRIT (THE 4 PSYCHOLOGICAL ASSETS)
“In fact, when people drop out of things, they do so for a reason. Actually, they do so for different reasons. Any of the following four thoughts might go through your head right before you quit what you’re doing: ‘I’m bored.’ ‘The effort isn’t worth it.’ ‘This isn’t important to me.’ ‘I can’t do this, so I might as well give up.’ There’s nothing wrong—morally or otherwise—with thoughts like these. As I tried to show inthis chapter, paragons of grit quit goals, too. But the higher the level of the goal in question, the more stubborn they are about seeing it through. Most important, paragons of grit don’t swap compasses: when it comes to the one, singularly important aim that guides almost everything else they do, the very gritty tend not to utter the statements above. ...
Together, the research reveals the psychological assets that mature paragons of grit have in common. There are four. They counter each of the buzz-killers listed above, and they tend to develop, over the years, in a particular order.” (End Quote)
Bonus Quote #6
GRIT + WISE PARENTING (VS. NOT-SO-WISE PARENTING)
“Indeed, over the past forty years, study after carefully designed study has found that the children of psychologically wise parents fare better than children raised in any other kind of household. In one of Larry’s studies, for example, about ten thousand American teenagers completed questionnaires about their parents’ behavior. Regardless of gender, ethnicity, social class, or parents’ marital status, teens with warm, respectful, and demanding parents earned higher grades in school, were more self-reliant, suffered from less anxiety and depression, and were less likely to engage in delinquent behavior.” (End Quote)
Bonus Quote #7
YOU’RE A GRITTY GENIUS
“‘You’re no genius,’ my dad used to say when I was just a little girl. I realize now that he was talking to himself as much as he was talking to me. If you define genius as being able to accomplish great things in life without effort, then he was right: I’m no genius, and neither is he.But if, instead, you define genius as working toward excellence, ceaselessly, with every element of your being—then, in fact, my dad is a genius, and so am I, and... if you’re willing, so are you.”
(End Quote)
Book Number 2
The Champion's Mind
How Great Athletes Think, Train, and Thrive
by Jim Afremow
Quote #1
“Champion yourself. We all experience similar struggles and deal with demanding challenges in our pursuit of excellence, regardless of the sport or fitness activity. To be a champion, your true best self becomes key to personal and athletic greatness. You know, as we all do, that only those performers who think gold and never settle for silver will continue to strive for and reach their highest, or gold, level. A champion makes greatness happen, despite what may seem impossible odds. Of course most of us are not Olympians or professional athletes. But all of us can acquire a champion’s mind-set. Any athlete can learn to think like a champion. Every one of us can be peak performers in the game of life by achieving our own personal best. We can strive to be the best version of ourselves. It is possible for us to stay ‘professional’ whenever adversity strikes. It is possible to ingrain mental fortitude that drives us forward. And it is possible to take a championshipapproach.” (End Quote)
Quote #2
THE VISION OF A CHAMPION
“My favorite description of what excellence in the sports world looks like comes from Anson Dorrance, the legendary University of North Carolina women’s soccer coach. He was driving to work early one morning, and as he passed a deserted field, he noticed one of his players off in the distance doing extra training by herself. He kept driving, but he later left a note in her locker: ‘The vision of a champion is someone who is bent over, drenched in sweat, at the point of exhaustion when no one else is watching.’ The young woman, Mia Hamm, would go on to become one of the greatest players in the history of the sport. Having a big dream—and a clear vision of what you will look like while pursuing competitive excellence—always inspires greatness. What is your dream goal? What does excellence in your game look like when you are fully dialed in and passionately pursuing your dream—becoming the best you can be in your sport? Make the description vivid and powerful enough to give you that burst of adrenaline when you need it, a burst that can only come from connecting completely with your heart’s true desire.” (End Quote)
Quote #3
LET’S DEFINE MENTAL TOUGHNESS
“Mental toughness does not entail clenching your teeth, trying harder, thinking more, straining your eyes to focus, or having someone scream ‘Be tough!’ at you. Mental toughness is the ability to remain positive and proactive in the most adverse of circumstances. Mental toughness is built on doing the thing that is hard over and over again, especially when you don’t feel like it. Push through on your down days when you are not feeling your best. Distraction, discomfort, and difficulties are no match for the champion.” (End Quote)
Quote #4
BEING UGLY BUT EFFECTIVE + HAVING A GOOD BAD DAY
“Take a minute right now to think about your performance when you did not believe a good or respectable outcome was possible but you still found a way to make it happen. There is beauty in being ugly but effective (UBE) or having a good bad day (GBD) while you are not at your finest. Keep your head in the game and grind it out.” (End Quote)
Bonus Quote #5
SAND IN YOUR HAND
“Achieving peak performance is like trying to keep a small pile of sand from slipping from your grip. If you hold it too tightly, the sand will be squeezed between your fingers. Likewise, if you hold it too loosely, the sand will slip through your grip. Holding the sand too tightly is analogous to caring too much about the outcome and trying too hard to achieve a result. Holding it too loosely is akin to caring too little and not being mentally disciplined. Most athletes would benefit from caring enough but not caring too much about the outcome in major competitions, so that they can let their talent be natural and unrestrained. ‘He who grasps loses,’ wrote Lao-tzu in the Tao te Ching.” (End Quote)
Bonus Quote #6
GOOD, BETTER, BEST
