Mindsets of Competitive Success: Perfectionism

Today we have reached the third and final mindset for competitive success: perfectionism. Before go into perfectionism, I wanted to do a short recap of the other two mindsets. First, we went over mastery. This was the mindset of simply wanting to have exceptional skills or knowledge in an area. It was not necessarily wanting

Mindsets of Competitive Success: Bestism

Last week we talked about the mastery mindset. This week we move forward into the next mindset, bestism. Whereas mastery is the mindset of simply having exceptional skill or top percentile knowledge in an area, bestism takes it a step further. If you remember from the first post in this series when we overviewed the

Mindsets of Competitive Success: Mastery

I want to start off with the most basic of the three competitive mindsets that we mentioned last week: Mastery. When we first hear the word “mastery” we often think of someone who does something better than everyone else. However, that is not the case. In the sense that we are talking about mastery, the

Mastery Vs Bestism Vs Perfectionism

I was recently studying about mastery. It got me thinking about the differences between perfectionism and mastery. The question of perfectionism then came up in conversation with a friend and it got me thinking about whether perfectionism is always perfectionism. While processing this, I thought of the term “bestism”. This is kind of a middle

The Nitty Gritty

“And yet, in a very real sense, they were satisfied being unsatisfied. Each was chasing something of unparalleled interest and importance, and it was the chase – as much as the capture – that was gratifying” (Duckworth, 2018). Man, I have never felt something so true. “Why are you never satisfied”? “Happiness is not in

Assertive Aggression

Sports at its roots is a competition. The best of the best fighting for dominance. It is natural to see this competitive nature as aggression. This is especially true in certain sports like martial arts, wrestling, boxing, football, rugby, etc. These “violent” sports that praise physical contact as a way of dominating your opponent really

It Takes A Team

Last week was about how coaches play a crucial role in their athlete’s lives and performance beyond just skills and tactics. Coaches need to be knowledgeable to at least some degree about sports psychology, but they already have so much on their plates. So, how can athletes, parents, their peers, and especially sports administrators help

Opening the Playbook

This topic was touched on in the interview with Rony Argueta, but I also wanted to talk about it a little more. Kids will be kids, but often times, we forget what it is to struggle as kids. Some kids have friends that come and go (families with constant moving jobs such as the military).

Coaching Sport Psychology

As coaches, there is a lot of emphasis on the physical and tactical side of the game. Your main objectives are scheduling practices, determining what skill areas need improvement, and studying the next opponent to devise a winning strategy. A lot of outside coach training has started to also focus on player safety. How to

Full Rony Argueta Q&A

Below is the full Q&A with Rony Argueta. I want to give him a lot of appreciation for his willingness to take the time to answer my questions. Not only did he allow me his time, but his responses were absolute quality that showed intention and thought and because of this, I could not simply