Ever heard any of these?

“Take one for the team.”

“There’s no “I” in team.”

“No pain, no gain.”

“You’ve got to be mentally tough and play through it (i.e. injury, sickness, personal problems).”

When you are injured, people are forgiving (at least for awhile). But if you step back for your mental health, you are branded a traitor, selfish, not a team player, mentally weak, a quitter—or worse.

Those labels are false—an illogical, incomplete Hollywood illusion of mental toughness.

And that messaging needs to change.

It is a myth that blindly pushing forward through adversity is always the better choice. It presumes pressing on always produces the better result.

There’s no question. Mental toughness and coachability are important traits for competitive athletes.

But resilience and adaptability and emotional intelligence are also elements of mental toughness—having the strength and courage and...

Ugh.

It’s happened again.

Your motivation has crashed in the face of overwhelming odds. You want to crawl under the covers and curl into fetal position.

What were you thinking? What made you think you could write the next Game of Thrones epic fantasy or win a world championship in dog agility?

This dream is paralyzing, out of your league.

It feels hopeless, doesn’t it?

Don’t give up.

Your dream matters.

You can get through to the other side. But you have to avoid one simple mistake.

A mistake I made recently.

Step through the barn door with me and I’ll show you…

Shearing Day

We’re ready to catch, trim the hooves, and take the wool off of 150 sheep. We fidget like thoroughbreds impatient for the start of a race.

The rusty clock on the wall strikes 7:30 a.m. sharp and the shearer plunges into the work like a man possessed.

I catch a sheep. Flip it onto its butt. Trim its hooves.

Each sheep tips the scale at around 150 pounds. It’s a full...

Crap…

You’ve done it again.

The same mistake that defeats you every time.

Why do you keep doing it? You know better.

You practice hard, you do the work.

But when you are right on the edge of a breakthrough you sabotage yourself every time.

Frustrating, isn’t it?

It’s like being in a glass cage that you bang your head against. Trapped with a monkey that keeps harassing you.

Would you like to finally get that monkey off your back and break out?

You can, you know.

Come on, make a break for freedom.

Ready?

You Believe a Lie

Why the heck do you sabotage yourself anyway?

It’s so stupid, isn’t it?

Sabotage is your safety net. It’s your mechanism to stay safe and comfortable.

You have a set of beliefs about the world around you and where you belong in it.

You believe those beliefs protect you. You believe a lie.

When you step out of your comfort zone, the little “sabotage” monkey hops up on your shoulder. He whispers that you...

Impossible.

No chance.

Nothing is going right. Your confidence is shaken.

You feel like a salmon swimming upstream against the current.

Do you feel like you’re fighting a losing battle? Ready to give in?

I’ve been caught in that riptide too. But I want to share some hope with you.

Professional athletes use 3 simple mind hacks that you can use to turn things around.

These hacks also work in art, business and life.

Want to know what they are?

Have you overcome something like this before?

Wimbledon. 2016 quarter-finals. Centre Court.

Tennis great Roger Federer was down 2 sets to love against the powerful 6’6 Marin Cilic.

It was match point for Cilic, who was on a roll.

Do you think Federer was thinking back to their previous match in 2014 when Cilic crushed him?

Nope.

Federer focused on other times when he had come back from a two-set deficit to defeat other opponents.

“I thought of the Tommy Haas match after I saved those breakpoints, went up 4-3, I...