👋 Hey.
Welcome to issue #20 of The Everyday Athlete Newsletter. Thanks for being here!
Here are my 3 favourite ideas, learns and resources to help you improve your performance this week (4 min read):
📱 The Performance Confidence Operating System
Confidence is arguably one of the most important skills an everyday athlete can develop to perform successfully.
I say ‘skill’ because it can be learnt. It’s not a trait. Confidence is built.
In fact, mental performance wizard Ben Crowe has a formula for it:
🔋 Performance confidence =
🤾♀️ Training (practice and preparation) +
🧠 Mindset (language and physical anchors)
“Performance confidence only comes to us after continued practice on our skillset, in whatever field that may be. That and the words you send to your mind during the moment of performing.” – Ben Crowe
What are (language and physical) anchors?
Anchors remind us of who we are when we’re at our best.
They can be words or physical actions that pull us into a performance-ready state.
Then how can we design useful anchors for ourselves?
The exercise Ben Crowe recommends doing is to:
- 🏆 Identify a time when you were at your best.
- 😀 How did you feel before and during that performance?
- ✍️ Can you describe those feelings in words? Calm? Strong? Confident?
- 👀 What did it look like? Chest out? Smiling?
Then create an anchor that reminds you of that feeling.
⚓ It could be repeating the words you’ve come up with: “I’m calm. I’m strong. I’m confident…”
⚓ It could be a deep breath, a powerful posture and a smile.
⚓ Dylan Alcott performs best when he puts things in perspective and soaks up the moment. So his performance anchor is to remind himself: “F*ck it. How good is this.”
“Our minds are a muscle. And they get stronger and stronger and stronger and stronger when you connect with the best version of you. It doesn’t mean that you’ll win. Look at the formula. Because you can’t control the outcome. But what it does guarantee, is that you’ll bring the best version of you to that performance.” – Ben Crowe
So here it is, the Performance Confidence OS:
- All the practice and preparation we've done gives us the belief that we can execute when we need to
- Then in the moment, we use anchors to pull us into a ready state
A reliable system for consistently delivering our best.
🗓 30 days to better habits with James Clear
It’s the time of year when NY resolution and 2023 goals chat comes in hot from all angles.
Which makes it easy to get caught up in it. “F* I should be setting goals. I should be doing this, this and this.”
Well, this free email course from James Clear (New York Times best-selling author of Atomic Habits) is the antidote to all that 👆
Evidence-based. No BS. Actionable stuff.
It’s a simple step-by-step guide for forming habits that stick. In 11 short email lessons.
My favourite takeaways so far:
1. Set habits not goals. Sure we’ve gotta know where we wanna go. But our habits are the only thing that’ll get us there.
- Goal: run a marathon 🏃
- Habit: run every day 🗓
2. Lasting change only comes from changing the beliefs about the person we are. Create identity-based habits. And then each time we do it, we’re casting a vote towards that identity change. And over time we slowly become that.
- Habit: run every day 🗓
- Identity-based habit: I’m the type of person who runs every day 🧠
3. Create a 2-minute version of our identity-based habit. And if we just do that, it’s a win. Master the art of showing up. Build from there.
- 2-minute version: put runners on 👟
It’s seriously good. You can check it out here.
🤲 The bar hang
The bar hang.
Simple as it sounds.
Hang from a bar. Hands over head. For 60 seconds.
Why?
If you lift weights at the gym, your spine is being compressed.
If you carry loads at work, your spine is being compressed.
If you live on Earth under the pull of gravity, your spine is being compressed (astronauts come back to Earth taller because the spine lengthens in space without the compression of gravity 🤯).
And a 1-minute bar hang decompresses the spine. Which can ease back pain and tension.
Plus it’ll improve our:
- 🖐 Grip strength
- 🚶Posture
- 💪 Shoulder, elbow and wrist health
Tack it on at the end of a gym session. Or use a strong (👈 important) door at home.
That's it!
- If you've got a mate who'd enjoy this, please pass it on
- Is there a specific topic you want to see in future issues?
- Also, if you have anything interesting to share, I'd love to hear about it.
Have a great weekend 
Matt
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