As an athlete it can be exhausting and overwhelming to think about and execute on ALL the things you need to execute on in order to be "successful".
There are only 3 buckets you need to fill. Just 3. Learn about them by watching this video or reading below.
Every athlete needs three things to be successful, just three. Take any one of these three things away and you will achieve a lot, you may accomplish a lot, but you will never feel fully fulfilled or successful as an athlete, and you will never perform the way you want to, make the contribution that you want to, or leave the legacy for the program that you are a part of that you truly desire to leave.
Take two of these three things away and at best you have either a player who achieves great statistics. Maybe you have a player who is positive, but that's it. Maybe you have a player who is optimistic, but that's it. You've got a player who is a great encourager and a great teammate and loves to help people, but they don't make the full contribution that they want to make. So they need all three of these pieces in order to be fully successful.
The first one is P for performance, they need to perform well physically. And what goes into that is of course nutrition, rest and recovery, strength training, and skill development. All four of those pieces make up a high physically performing athlete.
Second piece is mindset. Mindset, and in particular self-belief, the ability to overcome self-doubts and mistakes and errors quickly, and confidence, confidence in one's ability to figure something out and move forward even though they might be scared. In other words how to overcome fear, how to get out of your head quickly. This is what it takes to have a strong mindset and to truly master the second pillar of this athletic performance triangle. And it's not just about athletic performance.
Remember it's about legacy. It's about will you leave the program that you're a part of, will you leave it better than you found it? And how are you doing in each of these categories? As far as mindset goes how much are you nourishing a positive, dominating, champion mindset?
On the physical performance side how well are you taking care of your nutrition, your hydration? How well are you taking care of your rest and recovery, your flexibility? How well are you doing with sleep? How well are you doing with strength training? And finally, how well are you doing with skill development, getting the ball in your hand, doing the reps?
Finally we get to the last of the three categories, and this is the one that if you remove it, you will only ever be a great player or contributor as an individual. This third part is leadership. Without this, you can only make an incremental impact over time. The better you become, the better you perform and the bigger impact you make. But when you step into leadership you make an exponential impact.
It is exponential because not only have you done well for yourself and figured out how to perform high yourself, but you've taken those skills and passed them on to somebody else. You've passed them on in the form of physical performance enhancement for them, you've passed it on in terms of confidence enhancement for them.
You’ve spoken belief and encouragement into your teammates every single day of the week, every practice, every game. You've helped them grow as a person, you've helped them grow as a player, and if you make it to the highest level of leadership as an athlete, then by the time your career is over you will have helped help them become a leader in their own right who goes and passes it on, paying it forward to the other teammates. Exponential impact.
And my friend, if you accomplish part three, in addition to the first two pieces of this triangle, you will transform the program that you're a part of. You will leave it better than you found it. They will, even though you didn't do it for this reason, talk about you 10 years down the road when they talk to their teams. When the coaches talk to their teams they will talk about you and the impact that you made. You will have plays named after you, you will have terminology named after you, and that's not why you do it but that's just the reality of performing high physically and taking care of all of those pieces of your bucket, taking your mindset to a new level. And then number three, leadership, becoming a great leader who builds other leaders.
Now your homework is simple-- which of the three areas, not all three of them, let's not try to tackle all three at once, but which of the three areas are you the strongest in? Which one do you feel great about? And then which one do you need to kick up a notch or two? Where do you need to invest your time right now because there's a huge return on that investment of time and energy, a huge return. It could take your game, your team, from a 7 to a 10. There is a big opportunity here. Where is your biggest opportunity, and then what does that look like in terms of three simple action steps?
Simple is not always easy, but three simple action steps. It's likely that these are things you don't really want to do, you're not comfortable doing because hey, you've never done them before. Just like me if I stepped on the soccer field right now I would be horrendous because I haven't picked up a soccer ball in 20 years. So these are things that you might not be great at but you know they'll make a difference. And I want you to lean in, lean in, do not fear the incompetency, lean into it and start becoming a player who leaves a legacy today, the best performing leader you could possibly be.
Dedicated to your success on and of the field,
Coach Andrew and the PFP Team
