An athlete is commonly defined as a person who is trained or skilled in activities requiring physical strength, agility, or stamina. A Mind Athlete is therefore a person who is trained or skilled in activities requiring mental strength, agility, or stamina – or to put it simply: mental capacity. Mental training will help you develop mental capacity to perform in all areas of your life.

Does your performance suffer due to anxiety, distractions, or frustration?

Do you wish you could consistently feel motivated, confident and focused, even in the most demanding and stressful situations?

Through coaching based in sport & performance psychology and leading research in stress resilience, we work to help you identify precise areas for growth, then create a training program that includes tangible mental skills practice. Training is structured to develop five elements of focus, which increase mental capacity: awareness, intention, self-regulation, attention, and self-trust.

Awareness is knowledge and understanding that something is happening or exists.

At any given moment while climbing, preparing to climb, or resting we can be aware of what is happening. Things to be aware of that specifically impact our climbing are body awareness, thoughts, emotions, nervous system arousal level, hazards, what we enjoy, why we enjoy it, etc. 

Cultivating the skill of awareness is the foundational element of focus. If we are unaware, we won’t be able to effectively develop and apply the additional elements. Therefore, the Mind Athlete system begins with basic awareness exercises before moving on to other elements.

Intentions is a determination to act in a certain way with a purpose or goal in mind.

Intentions can be made based on our goals. They can be larger intentions made in preparation for a day at the crag or a training session at the gym. Or they can be smaller route by route or move by move intentions. The goal is to clarify intentions, first between training and performance, and second specifically on desired outcome. Once we cultivate the ability to direct our attention, we are more able to direct attention towards our intended actions/behaviors. 

Intention is very closely related to motivation. If you struggle with motivation, get frustrated easily, feel a lack of self confidence, suffer from performance anxiety, there’s a good chance working on clarity of intentions will help improve your climbing experience.

Self-regulation is all about managing nervous system arousal. Arousal is a physiological and psychological state of being alert and ready to respond to stimuli.

Nervous system arousal, correlated with stress and engagement in an activity, directly impacts our performance. Arousal can be on a spectrum from disengaged to panic. To perform at a high level, we want to be somewhere close to the center.

Attention is the act or state of applying the mind to something.

At it’s core, training the mind is all about cultivating the ability to pay attention to what is important now.

At any given moment our attention can be internally or externally directed, broadly aware or narrowly focused, observing or processing. Our goal in training is to be able to direct our attention on the appropriate thing based on our intention.

Trust is the firm belief in the character, ability, strength, or truth of someone or something.

Self-trust is about making committing decisions. It is the necessary component in the space between intention and execution of a behavior. I think of the self-trust element of focus as having three distinct parts: 

• Having an accurate perception of your ability and the hazards

• Making a decision to act based on analysis of risk

• Then releasing attachment to outcome