The Mistake Athletes Must Avoid the Week of a State Championship
This week is the week of the high school wrestling state championship in Georgia. I have one message for all the wrestlers in Georgia I work with. Do everything you can to avoid the mistake of focusing on the importance of this event.
If there is one thing that causes athletes to underperform more than anything else, or as popular culture says “choke”, it’s focusing on the outcome of an event that is put on a pedestal. Yes, outcomes are important. However, outcomes are meaningless if an athlete fails to master their process.
Teaching Athletes to Value Process over Outcomes
The week of a state championship the #1 lesson to teach an athlete is that their process is the most important thing. From what they eat and how much sleep they get, to how they warmup, train and rehydrate.
Unquestionably, a winning mindset starts with prioritizing process over outcomes. Parents and coaches just can’t make the mistake of over emphasizing outcomes with rewards and punishments. Instead, parents and coaches must remember that this is the week to focus on performance goals and the process to achieve those performance goals.
A performance goal is a personal goal that focuses athletes on what they must do to perform their best. Performance goals are the what and process goals are the how. For example, in the sport of wrestling the performance goal may be to get to an offensive takedown attempt within 20 seconds of the starting whistle. Correspondingly, the process may be to move forward off the whistle in a low stance, hand fight using a specific technique the athlete is good at, transition to the athlete’s go-to setup, then finally execute the takedown attempt all within 20 seconds.
This basic example of a performance and a process goal is simple but illustrates that simplicity in focus is critical when the stakes are high for an imminent outcome goal. Moreover, every performance and process goal does not have to be technique either. Other goals can relate to positive self-talk, rhythmic breathing, encouraging teammates, and having fun.
The point of all this is simple. Athletes must have goals to help them achieve the outcome they want without focusing on that outcome. In other words, before an athlete can be a state champion, they must have a state champion process.