Every athlete at his peak is going to perform with a different mental cocktail. I thrive in the underdog, reserved, it's-not-over-till-it's-over mindset.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
A good athlete always mentally replays a competition over and over, even in victory, to see what might be done to improve the performance the next time.
To me, when people say, 'Oh, you're a freak athlete,' it's bittersweet. It's a huge compliment to say, 'O.K., you have physical abilities that are kind of above and beyond.' But at the same time, I feel like it diminishes the mental side of the game.
When you reach that elite level, 90 percent is mental and 10 percent is physical. You are competing against yourself. Not against the other athlete.
People don't think an athlete nowadays can have a team-first mentality and I do.
Some athletes feel they have to show they're confident and talk about what they're going to achieve. I don't think there's anything wrong with just quietly believing in yourself and just getting on with it. You don't have to talk about it all the time; you want your performances to show for it.
You need to think outside the box. You need to think differently if you want to sustain what, for me, is my peak performance: the very best that I can achieve as an athlete every day.
I mean, as an athlete, as a competitor, you have to have that belief in yourself.
I think one has to understand that there are stages in life, and that the life of an athlete has its limits. It's short, and then it stops, and sooner or later you have to accept that.
In the marathon a crazy athlete can just keep pushing from the beginning, at a championship you don't need a time just to win the race.
All athletes speak about the mental element of athletics, and it usually boils down to the same thing: if you can remove your ego from the game, you can function with much more clarity and you are more likely to succeed. Wouldn't it be interesting if we all began speaking about the mental element of our lives in this way?
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