The most powerful and accessible, yet ignored tool in the world – Motivation By Mark Schwab

You train your body, muscles, techniques, skills, and conditioning daily but what about your most powerful resource? You may think since you’re doing ok or not currently struggling; you’re on track. Way too many people wait until they’re in doubt, struggling, or broken before they address the quality of their mindset. This is like not paying your bills until you’re in heavy debt, not filling your car with gas until you run out, not completing your assignments until you flunk the class, or not tending to your health until you’re already sick. All of this sounds ridiculous and obvious. Yet, we do just that with our mental climate in a sport, training, and competition.

WE physically exert daily, month after month, and year after year; in fact, our entire career. Why? In order to reach our potential, get an edge and ideally achieve excellence. Actually, everyone exercises the physical aspect of training until necessary skills are second nature. Yet, we do all of this while ignoring our inner voice who speaks loudest of all. We’re at our best when mind/body are in tune. Think about it, who do you hear, what do you hear and feel when you’re training, fatigued, or competing? There’s always an inner voice/sub-mind, and this magnificent potential of power must be disciplined, supported, and trained as well. Think about it; we continue to condition long after we’re already well conditioned physically; yet, pay little attention to the mind until there’s a problem and then we’re consumed with our problem.

Motivation-by-Mark-Schwab-300x250Do you wait until you’re injured before you strength-train? No! You strength-train just to be even with others, to feel powerful, to execute, for injury prevention, and to hold-up so you can automatically engage the body. However, if not supported, you’re only engaging in the body, and it’s impossible to achieve potential/excellence without the support/influence of the mind.

Few INTENTIONALLY discipline their time/focus on elevating, upgrading, and shaping their mindset. The road to deepen and optimize your mindset is paved by being INTENTIONAL. Your thoughts create you; think about this my friend because it is LAW.

Every day you start back at ZERO. This is how your sub-mind works. If you’re not intentionally saying out loud, writing it, thinking it, visualizing and rehearsing the way you want it, your sub-mind/automatic mind is way too busy and skeptical. You have to get its attention. You have to be convincing, persistent, loud, enduring, committed, and make it IMPOSSIBLE for your mind to avoid joining forces with you and your movement.

Your mindset is in court and on trail each and every day. If you become comfortable, satisfied, pleased with yourself and keep everything convenient, your effectiveness will be diluted. We often don’t feel it happening. We’re unaware of its potential or destruction until it’s too late.

There’s a daily warrant out to disrupt, impair, and disable your possibilities, capabilities, and outlook/mindset. You MUST DIRECT, be deliberate, active, enthusiastically and consistently impact, and further your march towards progress, goals, and excellence.

You have to give conscious attention, repetition, over and over to line up with your sub-minds potential. You must purposely stimulate, encourage, reinforce, enhance, and subject your mind to CONSTANT RENEWAL of positive, optimistic invigoration. At the end of the day, you don’t break-even mentally. You either fortified your mindset, or you didn’t.

Your sub-mind is a powerhouse with unlimited capacity. You have a choice to program/re-program in your favor or be a victim of current and prior conditioning. By being intentional and actively stimulating your belief systems, you open yourself up to a new level of experiences and possibilities.

Your thoughts and feelings are pure, intense energy. What we say, think, feel, write, visualize, dream, and carry as beliefs, heavily influence our possibilities, expectations, and realization.

Hammer your vision with the weight of your conviction, passion, and sincerity. Convince yourself! Challenge yourself! Go as deep as you can to claim the strengths that lie within you. I’m challenging you to overcome your existing standard. Get ahead of yourself! Win yourself over! What’s your word worth? Make a decision and pledge devoting yourself completely to your goals, dreams, and quest for growth, achievement, and excellence.

You don’t need to be at an official practice or have your workout gear on to awaken and improve your mind. Develop the habit of thinking, visualizing in your mind’s eye, writing, verbalizing and rehearsing your goals and dreams over and over and over, wherever you are. When you’re striving for excellence, you’ll be consumed, and in a constant state of aliveness. Practice channeling this pure energy into your vision and objective. Anticipate and envision realizing your greatest possible outcome. The essential ingredients for outward realizations can only be found within. YOU are the exclusive distributor of your potential and dreams.

Awareness – Intentional – repetition – endurance – optimism – change – growth = Excellence and dreams come true

Mark Schwab was recently an assistant coach at the University of Northern Iowa. Previously he spent nine years as assistant coach at the University of Minnesota, helping the program to seven top-three team finishes at the NCAA Championships and two NCAA team titles. As a wrestler, Schwab was an All-American for the University of Northern Iowa during the late 1980s. Schwab earned his bachelor’s degree in 1990 from the University of Northern Iowa and his master’s degree from the University of Minnesota in 2003. Schwab returned to the University of Minnesota to get a second emphasis in sports psychology on his existing master’s and completed that in 2010. Email Mark at mark@opportunitiestosucceed.com.

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