How to have a more positive mind

The topic I would like to share with my readers is my experience and knowledge as a professional athlete thus this blog will be an account of my journey to the Olympics and my journey to my second one in 2020. The Olympics, an event that occurs every four years, where millions of people prepare their whole lives to get a chance to perform but only a few thousand people have what it takes to get there. There are several different sports categories that take place at the Olympics but there are some sports events that are more prestigious such as swimming and athletics (Berg, 2016). After a very successful 6-year swimming campaign which only begun in 2012 shows that there was a very rapid progress in my swimming talent but this rapid climb to success could be due to the support of my sponsors. It is extremely important for any professional athlete to have some kind of financial support to help them in their athletic goals.(Saunders, n.d.). Therefore this blog will  also cover a week’s training in more detail as well as a few mental tips and experiences where I have learned to apply these tips. Swimming also requires analyses of every movement that I make in the water to become more hydrodynamically efficient this process takes time and usage of technology such as photos and videos to see where we can be faster and shave off those hundredths of a seconds (Australian Dolphins Swim Team, 2013).  Swimming is not a difficult sport just because of the amount of training that is required but because the athlete must be prepared for disappointments as well as victorious moments (POIRIER-LEROY, 2016). In this section of the blog I will talk about my experiences and the experiences I have read from other swimmers that have helped me learn in my sport which I then hope can help other athletes in their careers.

1. Commend yourself for your victories. No matter how small the victory maybe it is a sign of progress in your ability, you should appreciate that victory the same way you would if you won a gold medal at the Olympics because it is those small victories that will make that day a reality. (POIRIER-LEROY, 2015)

2. Training is the competition: A lot of swimmers including myself in the past get to a competition and start to wonder how they are going to race their race when all of that development should have been done during training such as the mental toughness, the consistent visualization of the technique which you will use on race day all adds up and only then will you achieve the goal you set in place. (POIRIER-LEROY, 2018)

3. Failure gives you the chance to learn something new. If you fail and take the opportunity to see why you failed, then you are giving yourself the chance to discover and learn a skill which will help you to succeed the next time. Thus, failure is not the end but an invitation for a new change although if you let the failure decide to be the outcome of your performance you are letting that failure define you as a swimmer furthermore you are only setting yourself up to repeat the same failure again. (POIRIER-LEROY, 2015

4.Atittude is king. According to researchers the average amount of remotely conscious decisions an adult makes each day equals about 35,000.(Simenon, 2013)  Thus swimmers are not the average person meaning the decisions we take in the water for 4 hours a day everyday during training will definitely impact your performance. Thus, if you come to training and you feel like your attitude is a bit bad you must make it good and if its good you can make it great. But how do you go from a bad attitude to a great attitude in single session? Well you can start the session off with a dive instead of just jumping in like monkey, you can do 4 body dolphin kicks underwater instead of just one lazy one, you can ask your coach three questions during training about your technique or make sure you don’t breath under the flags, there are many other choices you can make that can change your attitude in your training set and turn a bad day into a great day.(POIRIER-LEROY, 2015)