I can't even imagine how frustrated Lindsey Vonn is. I would assume she must have had high hopes of multiple gold medals at the 2010 Olympic Games. But a deep bruise from an accident resulted in pain, which she had to ski through. If she didn't have the pain, could things have been different? Perhaps they might have been.
To do your very best under pressure, to perform your very best in competition, you need to have 100 percent of your skills, ability and experience, of your potential, focused on the moment. Skiing through pain, like doing anything else through pain, takes away a percentage of your focus, of your potential, and it is impossible to do your absolute best.
Although she had trainers and physicians helping her, she was missing a very important component - the mental game.
The mental game is all about pressure and pain is a large part of that. What Lindsey and her people apparently didn't know is that we all have the mental ability to block pain. What she could have done was learn to block her pain for 30-minute intervals. Then, she could have focused 100 percent on skiing her very best in her events.
When I work with people for pain management, they are amazed by their ability to turn off pain. We all have it hard-wired inside us and we can all learn to use it. In a couple of hours I could have taught Lindsay Vonn to block that pain and reinforce it before every event. But, people make their own decisions whether to allow their minds to be open, or closed, to solutions "outside the box."
We can all learn something from Lindsey Vonn's experience. Is your pain getting in the way of reaching your potential? What are you doing about it? Are you getting the results you want? If not, are you allowing your mind to be open, or closed, to solutions outside the box?
*****
David Kenward - The Mental Coach
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