The Route to Peak Performance
If you are seeking to unlock your potential, and are ready for the challenge, you can follow the pathway taken by an elite cyclist. Travel through the key stages, from training to competition, to acquire the psychological skills required for performance excellence.
Create
To start on the route to peak performance, it is crucial that you understand the powerful role your mind can play in creating success on your bike and in your life. You are in charge of your psychological state, and learning the central principles of performance psychology will lay the foundations for you to compete at your best.
Train
Behind every performance gain is a considerable amount of planning and a lot of hard work, and psychological gains are no exception. Training your mind alongside your body will enable you to develop the behaviours required to succeed.
Control
Critical for all cyclists is the ability to stay calm and in control of thoughts and emotions when confronting challenge. Taking charge of your mind when under pressure will allow you to discover your optimal psychological state to perform.
Believe
The next stop along the route is to build confidence in yourself, and believe in your capacity to succeed on and off the bike. When you strengthen your self-esteem and develop belief in your ability, you will push yourself past previous performance standards and excel.
Compete
Equipped with the core psychological strategies to self-regulate your thoughts and emotions, you will be able to deal with the pressure of the high performance environment. Attaining and sustaining an automatic psychological state when racing will facilitate a peak performance.
Recover
The ability to recover from one race and reset for the next will ensure you maintain the capacity to perform at your best level over consecutive days of competition. Psychological recovery strategies for training and competition will facilitate your ability to recover from performance stress and sustain your best psychological state over time.
Thrive
The ability to thrive under pressure is imperative for performance success, and developing a resilience to stress will allow you to bounce back from setbacks. Keeping your mind fit will contribute to both personal and performance excellence.
Excel
You can apply the skills you have developed to train and compete at your best to all areas of your life. When you arrive at the finish line, you will be equipped with the psychological ability to excel at cycling and in daily life.
1 Create
You hold the power to create the psychological state that will allow you to compete at your best.
When you understand how your thoughts impact on your performance, and the psychological process that is required to make change, you will have the knowledge required to succeed. You can plot your route to peak performance by creating the mindset that will take you there.
2 Train
The daily grind of training is difficult. It takes discipline and persistence to overcome physical and psychological barriers and surpass your previous limitations. By developing the winning habits of a champion and acquiring an elite mindset, you will train with intent and establish the training base required for excellence. To be motivated to consistently work to be better, you must hold a clear mission and set the targets required to accomplish it.
3 Control
If you are seeking to challenge yourself, and to improve your capacity for performance at a higher level, then anxiety is inescapable. Performing under pressure will be an overwhelming experience if you are not ready to take control when it counts. It is essential that you understand how you respond when anxious, and hold the tools to stay calm and composed during critical moments of performance.
4 Believe
When feeling underconfident, athletes will be unable to execute their skills effectively when the pressure rises. Overconfidence is as detrimental to performance as a lack of confidence, and occurs when athletes’ confidence levels exceed their level of ability. This is false confidence, and it will contribute to poor preparation in the lead-up to performances, and will lead to skills breaking down under pressure. At some point throughout their career, every athlete will experience doubt about their capacity to achieve, or fear they don’t have the skills required to meet an impeding challenge. You can develop the ability to combat these thoughts and create a belief that will hold strong across all performances and during high-pressure situations.
5 Compete
athletes are unable to cope with adversity, they will be unprepared and will quickly become overwhelmed. The athletes’ village is full of potential distractions and a multitude of factors can negatively affect a rider’s preparation to perform – including sleep difficulties, illness, transport issues, training disruptions, food limitations, the new course, and weather conditions. The use of social media prior to performance can also negatively interplay with a rider’s performance expectation and confidence when the attention of the world is focused on the event. How you choose to manage the competition environment will directly impact on your capacity to perform at your best. This is a skill to master.
6 Recover
Critical for all competitors in their quest for peak performance is finding ways to maintain their optimal physical and psychological states throughout both the lead-in to competition and the duration of the competition period. The ability to physically recover from a performance, and prepare for the next, is commonly recognised as a crucial aspect of training and competing, but significantly less attention has been paid to the psychological aspects of recovery. Integrating psychological recovery strategies into your competition planning will complement your physiological recovery and enhance your ability to perform. Finding ways for you to recover from performance, create healthy sleep habits, and maintain your psychological well-being will ensure you optimise your body and mind and perform at your best.
7 Thrive
You are close to the finish line, but working on one last area of your psychological development will take you from just coping with pressure to thriving. If you equip yourself with the skills required to achieve peak performances but neglect your psychological well-being, you will risk breaking down under the stress of competition and life. The last stage on the route to performance excellence is to learn how to maximise your psychological well-being and to keep your mind fit. You will perform at your best when your well-being provides the necessary platform required for you to attain automaticity. As your mental health becomes compromised, it will take more effort to achieve your optimal performance state prior to racing, and it will inhibit the automatic execution of your race. If you do not cope with stress, or are struggling with an unresolved mental health issue, your symptoms will intensify when pressure increases. Keeping your mind fit, and building a resilience to stress, will positively influence your ability to bounce back from setbacks and adapt to adversity – in sport and life. Once you can thrive under pressure you will grow, perform, and succeed.
8 Excel
Up to this point you have created a champion mindset and acquired the psychological strategies to succeed on your bike. If you are motivated to strive to be better, you don’t have to stop there. Why restrict yourself to peak performance only on your bike when you can create a successful life? Take a moment and consider how you want to live and work. Do you just cope and get by, or do you seek to excel in everything you do? Unless you make the decision to pursue excellence across all areas of your life, you will let opportunities pass you by and you will not discover your full potential.
You will live at your personal best if you transfer the knowledge you have developed for your performance in cycling to all aspects of your life. Make the choice to apply to all that you do the psychological skills you have gained along the route to performance excellence, and you will maximise your ability and thrive. You are in charge of defining how you want to live, and you can set your mission to challenge yourself every day to be better and do better. Once you have found your way to your champion within on the bike, move forward to empower yourself to excel in work and life.