Mental Game

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Welcome to the Mike Hartman Show. Mike is a performance coach and former Stanley cup champion with the New York Rangers. Topics on this show are focused around stories, mindset and champions. Mike will also go into details about helping you with your pain points and struggles and finding motivational solutions on how to have the mindset of a champion. Now, here's your host, Mike Hartman.

Welcome back here and excited to talk to everybody today about this topic. But before we go, I just want to share a little bit about myself. My name is Mike Hartman, founder of the Hartman Academy and the book Healthy Mindset. It's a workbook for athletes and the workplace athletes found on Amazon and we're here to help you. We're here to help you with your pain points and struggles. Our show talks a lot about stories, mindset and champions. If you haven't listened to before, I want to thank all the listeners that have been with us. Some of us have been through the beginning. We've done over 160plus episodes and I'm very excited to, you know, to keep doing these and helping people. We help the workplace athlete as well as the athlete. So today we talk about the, the game in your head. Again, this could be for the workplace athlete as well. But let's talk a little bit about the athlete. I had a gentleman who, more than a gentleman, this person name is Don Luce and he actually drafted me to the Buffalo Sabres. I think if it wasn't for him, I don't know where I would be today. Sometimes we say things happen, a little bit of luck, I don't know if I ever would have made it. But thanks to him. And I actually wore number 20, the same number he wore, but beside the point. Don asked me once, many, many years ago, he says, what percent of the game or any sport is mental? What is the mental side of the game? And I usually, you know, ask, sitting here thinking about it, probably the same thing that most people would say throwing out numbers. Well, it's 80%. And he said, you know, Mike, it's a hundred percent. Everything you do, you have to think about, you have to think about your pregame meal, you have to think about going to the bathroom before the game, you have to think about tying your skates. So all sports have to be 100% mental. Now where's the other percentage come in for working out and everything else that you do? Well, that's a different conversation. So everything we do is in our head. So sports is all about your mental toughness and your mindset. Because if you're in the right frame of mind, then you'll be ready to play, is what I say. Now, the physical part is every bit as important. Let's not forget that. And you have to have some sort of talent. So you can't just be mentally tough and not have the skills to play. But I think a lot of us will understand. So when it comes to the mental side of sports, the physical side of the game is certainly important. Let's never forget that. But you need. You need your agility, right? You need your strength. However, the mental skills are so important when you're playing any sport, it doesn't matter what it is. So we talk about, like, your confidence. Some of us say, well, how do you gain confidence? How do you get confidence? While the mental side of the sport is all about confidence, confidence comes by continuously doing the right things and appreciating yourself for those things that you do. We don't just get confidence. I told one athlete once, he was said he's struggling with his confidence. And then a week later he says, well, I feel much better. I say, well, what happened? Well, I went out there and I scored a couple goals, and the first shift I did very well. So I gained my confidence. I said, that's fantastic. That's right. You're going to get confident by doing something well. Baseball players said the same thing to me. Man, I'm hitting the ball really well. Finally got out of my slump. Well, that's great. But how do you keep the confidence going? What happens when you face adversity the next time and all of a sudden you're striking out or you're not scoring those goals? How are you going to remain confident? You need these different tools that I believe. And again, I keep going back to the word tools that could help you with the mental side of your game, including focusing. Well, how is that going to improve my confidence? Focusing? Improved focus is so important. Focusing on the task at hand. I mentioned this in one of our previous episodes. The ability to cope with certain things not going your way. Coaches and plan you, Things aren't going perfect for you. It's the same thing in the workplace. You work in a company, things are great. All of a sudden you made bonus. Oh, my gosh, things are awesome. And then all of a sudden, things are going south. Covid hits, problems happen. Layoffs. No matter what it is, you have to be able to remain balanced. You ever hear the expression in sports, you hold. You hear these cliches? Well, you never get too high, you never get too low. You want to Be balanced. Well, of course. And that will help with your confidence. That is the mental side of the game. And there's so many ways, like I say, any athlete could develop that mental side of the game. It's essential for athletes that want to reach their potential to remain focused, stay positive, be in the moment, manage your emotions. How do you handle your emotions when things don't go your way? All of a sudden you're winning a game. I watched a baseball game the other night and it was a great game. And they brought a pitcher in. All of a sudden the score was 3, 3 going in the 10th inning. And they brought one of their other. I think he was a reliever that. That came in and got like four hits off of him. He did. I mean, he just. Sure, he could blame himself for, for the loss. You know, it takes a whole team to win, but he really came in and that game really went in a different direction when he did. Felt bad for this, this young pitcher. He was up from the minor leagues. Actually think they had to use them because of the rotation. They had so many injuries and they, they needed him to pitch well. It's easy to lose your confidence, right? But you have to stay strong. Even self talk, no matter what. It is the imagery that we talked about in previous episodes. Using all of these tools to help you get better. You know, visualization techniques are so important. I would try to use them as an athlete when I played. Okay. So I have to see myself doing well. I remember there was a game, I made a terrible play. I took the puck, I threw it right up the middle of the ice. I was a young player playing for the Sabres. We were playing in Montreal back then. One of the hardest buildings to play in. So what happens the next shift? I go out again, I take a. A penalty. Now I think I'm done for the night. And to make things worse, there was a too many men on the ice call with like three minutes left in the game and the score is 3, 3. And I'm sitting there. I, I served the penalty and not gonna blame the coach. It wasn't my fault. I just happened to be the left winger that was on that line. But usually back in those days, I was not on the ice the last, you know, five minutes of the game anyways. Especially a tight game in Montreal. They would have. We'd have some of our veterans out. I was a rookie, but I was out there. Maybe the coach, he tapped me, said, our line is up, somebody else jumped and I'm serving a penalty and I Watched Stephane Riche score big goal in Montreal in the Montreal form. Now I'm feeling terrible. And I felt, oh boy, that that just hurt my confidence. But what? But I knew that I had to dig deep and visualize things that, okay, what can I do to get better? How can I not make that stupid pass up the middle of the ice next time? Or what am I going to do? Maybe I should be more, we say, mindful in being in the present and making sure it's my shift. Or even asking a player next to me, hey, am I up? Are you up? Who's up? Just to be in the game. So we talked a lot about visualization. I'm not going to go too deep into it here. You can listen to our episodes or you could reach out to us. But my goal is to guide you through some of these topics and help you to the best I can so you can have that clarity while you're playing. I mentioned I'm practicing focusing in the present moment. How do you practice that? Get yourself in the moment. Maybe you don't feel great tonight. I've used this line before, it's one of my favorites. Sometimes you only feel like 60% but you still have to give 100% of that 60% that you have. So how do we do that? Let's get in the moment. Get yourself up, minimalize the game. Don't look at the game as one big 60 minute hockey game or a 9 inning baseball game or you know, it's an hour football game. Whatever it is, basketball, whatever sport you do, even if it's golf, it's a long day. Focus in on one hole at a time. If it's golf, focus in on being in the moment, one shot at a time. Same with hockey. That first shift, make it a good shift. Okay? The next shift you're going to do this. Do some self talk. These are ways that will help your overall game that you could win in your head. What I call is the mental game. And there's so many other factors that go along. I didn't want to get into too many details. We have that. Again, thank you for everybody that went out and purchased the book. I like to lead you through the book at any time. All you need to do is go to Hartman Academy. You could purchase the book there or on Amazon. And our book again is the Healthy Mindset, A work book for athletes and the workplace athletes. Until next time, keep your head up, keep your head in the game and looking forward to to the next time.

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