Fear is the component that more often than anything else can steal defeat from victory. Fear, an attitude of the mind, will inevitably thwart and slow ones ability to direct the body physically. Fear produces apprehension and uncertainty that slows or even stalls the necessary communication between mind and body. Your eyes see the gate in front of you, your mind knows you need to turn your body and skis, but the response is slowed. An extra few milliseconds are needed to negotiate with your fear laden mind what your body should do.
At the Olympic level, those few milliseconds are the difference between victory and defeat. But those milliseconds are spent in the darkness of the mind willing one self to move and react to the course.
Fear produces uncertainty; uncertainty produces apprehension, which inevitably leads to slowed response time. Fear necessitates that we conduct a conversation in our minds. When fearful, our knowledge, skill and experience has to literally negotiate with our weakened confidence, subdued desire and general uncertainty – and while the outcome may result in a proper mind-body response, too much precious time has ticked off the clock. The gate is too close now to correctly turn, the corner is already upon the athlete, and the puck is already stolen by the competitor.
In a nutshell, fear robs time; time is the key to success. While your body is trained and physically able to athletically deliver – it receives instructions a little later than is necessary to compete at the world class level. No – clearly the key to success is in the mind.
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