Podcast E7 | Sporting Edge | Uncovered: The Essential Mental Skills For Ambitious Youngsters |

Instead focus on what you can control.

Surely winning is the ultimate goal but you shouldn't talk about that all the time. Work on the things you can control. Training, your mindset, the work you put in to succeed.

Sir Dave Brailsford, famous Olympic winning coach focuses on training and behaving like a champion rather than just winning. He also focuses on being clear about the target, the dream. Its about developing that behaviour of a champion and being able to control what is within your limits.

Many of us are self critical. We tend to bash ourselves after a failure for a very long time. Being analytical is one thing and self critical another.

We tend to think we're useless, in the wrong field, not deserving etc. Don't let that happen.

Give yourself time to feel bad. But limit that negative talk time. Set a timer say 20 mins. In these 20mins you can bash yourself all you want but beyond which you won't talk or think about it. If timer isn't possible keep a physical sign say at your doorstep you'll stop thinking no matter what.

Train your brain to do it in limited time.

Imagine you are at the start of a race. You see your competitors. All look built up like proper runners. You start feeling that you've got no chance although you've been practicing well.

This thinking already sets the tone for your race. You wouldn't win even if you tried now because your mind already told you that you're not going to win. You will try hard but it will be difficult to get on from there.

Don't feel overwhelmed by the people around you. Stay confident. Push that negative thought out as soon as it comes.

All of us know this. It's self explanatory. Sweaty palms, nausea, muscular movements, faster heart rates and what not. We have all been through this a lot many times to know we're in stress. The human brain wasn't meant to deal with stress thousands of years ago. The occasional threat was a predator. All these physical changes were preparatory phase to fight and flight.

However today it means different. This stress response has the power to spoil our performance. Nervousness and anxiety make you commit mistakes.

To perform at your highest level you need to be able to fight off this stress response.

Slow down. Don't rush. Take a deep breath.

When you slow down, you allow your body to be able to adjust to the stress hormones in the system and make sense of it. Decisions taken in a hurry often are wrong.

To make it easier to remind yourself to calm down, you can use tactics like see a picture or an act like tapping your fingers to calm down. This will train your mind to start being calm once you see this picture.