Upgrade your Performance Mindset and Achieve your Goals in 2025 - Five Ideas for Action!

Are you hoping to improve your sport (or work) performance in 2025? I find that whilst people will often talk at length about how important the ‘mental side’ is for performance, when I ask them what actions they take to work on this, they look a little blank! It is very easy to place so much focus on the physical requirements of our success, that we neglect the mental elements. In this blog post, I offer a few suggestions for actions you could try as a starting point.

1. Get clear on your goals!

This one may sound extremely obvious, but you will be surprised by how many people have not sat down and got really clear on exactly what it is they want to achieve. Have you?! Even those who perhaps are clear on their ‘end goal’, have not taken the next step of specifying what actions they will need to take in order to achieve this, and considering how they will measure whether they are on track. This may all sound like a lot of work and thinking, but it really doesn’t need to be onerous. Allocate yourself some time with a pen and paper and get scribbling! (Or if you feel you would benefit from some help, get in touch!)

2. Notice your self-talk, and if needed, change it!

What are you telling yourself? Have you ever taken the time to notice? What we say to ourselves (our self-talk) can have a huge impact on how we feel and how we behave. Take a moment to consider this now. If you are constantly telling yourself “I have the skills to do this and the ability to succeed” compared to “I am not good enough and always fail” – which do you think is going to make you feel and perform better? Often, we can find that our self-talk has a bit of a ‘theme’. For example, “I’m not good enough” or “I’m a failure”. Noticing what we say to ourselves on a day-to-day basis can be hugely informative. If you notice unhelpful statements, start taking pro-active action to adjust these – what could you say to yourself instead that would make you feel great?

3. Sort your attentional focus

Where are you placing your energy and attention? Is it on things that are in your control? Or are you ‘wasting’ attentional energy and focus on things that are not in your control? Are you focusing on the ‘right things’ at the ‘right time’? By actively thinking about what you are focusing on and when, you can start to identify whether you would be better served by placing your attention elsewhere. Once you have noticed this, you have made the first step to take action and change it. By getting really clear on what is most helpful to focus on at different times during your sport (or pre-event build up) you can ensure you are fully prepared to mitigate any ‘in moment’ nerves that may try to throw you off course.

4. Actively build your confidence

Did you know that confidence can be created?! That’s right, it absolutely can be built and improved. So, if you feel that you suffer from low confidence (either in general or in certain scenarios), the good news is that it does not have to stay that way! Our self-talk (point 2) is a great place to start – what can you say to yourself each morning, or at key moments, to help you feel great? And don't forget your posture! How do you stand when you feel confident? Take that stance! Whilst many people realise that our thoughts and feelings can affect our behaviour, often they don’t realise that it also works in the other direction! Our behaviour affects how we think and feel. So if we choose to stand tall (or however ‘confident’ would look to you), we will automatically begin to feel more confident. Do you know what actions you would take if you were feeling confident? Take them! ‘Fake it ‘til you make it’ is a real thing!

5. Incorporate rest and relaxation

When we are determined to achieve something, we can sometimes forget that rest and relaxation is a vital part of the process! In our desperation to succeed, we don’t allow ourselves the time to recover. Consider how you currently build rest and relaxation into each day or week? Even taking just a few moments each day to ‘step away’, take some deep breaths, and calm our minds, can be beneficial. With the busy lives we all now lead (and phones that seem to constantly demand our time!) prioritising our downtime is not easy. You will however, benefit greatly from doing so. How could you incorporate just a little more rest time into your life?

So there you go! There are so many things I could suggest here but I do hope that the ideas I have included are helpful. I always say that making just one ‘small change that you can sustain’ will be far more beneficial than ‘lots that you don’t’. So perhaps take the time to consider one or two things that you feel would help you most to work on this year. Making change is not always easy, so if you feel that you would benefit from further support with any of the ideas I have highlighted in this post, or any aspect of your mindset, please do drop me a message and let’s see if our working together could help you!

Thank you so much for reading! Should you wish to get in touch with me you can do so via my contact form here, or email me directly, laura@laurarowe.co.uk.