WINNERS MIND is an association of sports mental trainers, coaches, doctors, sports psychologists, and musicians under the leadership of renowned mental trainer Thomas Zerlauth. We provide coaching for individual athletes and teams, online courses, performance-enhancing support, and globally train aspiring sports mental coaches.
Success will only come to you if you’re willing to try new paths, if you’re open to experiments and alternatives. Only those who are ready to break through familiar boundaries will stand out from the crowd. The pinnacle of high-performance sports has become microscopic and tightly contested today. The number of talented youth pushing forward is immense, all striving to stand atop the highest podium someday. Consistency, an iron will, endurance, and the ability to depart from familiar paths are prerequisites for the elite athlete of the next millennium.
Therefore, you can decide right now if you’re fundamentally ready to try something new. If your inner voice answers with a no, you can save yourself the time and effort of reading further. Dedicate yourself to „more meaningful“ pursuits. Improve your technique and speed, or regenerate your body and go to sleep.
I admit, this calculation may seem a bit exaggerated. Nevertheless, it remains undeniable that major decisions and competitions are won in the mind. Nowadays, practically all athletes are more or less fully trained technically and physically. Of course, there are still differences in technical perfection or physical fitness among exceptional individuals. However, I am referring to the most essential dimension of success (assuming the technical and physical foundations have been laid), which most athletes tend to overlook. Forgotten? Suppressed? Or simply ignored out of ignorance? The mental game!
→ understand what it’s about… or sense the interactions between the content (technical know-how) and the method or process;
→ establish a working foundation… clarify what I want, what my protege wants, and what we can mutually agree upon (clarifying our goals and intentions);
→ perceive what is happening right now… or observe, appreciate, and use the process in daily training and competition to achieve our goals;
→ know how to establish connections… with the athlete being coached, other coaches and support staff, the athletes‘ parents, the training goals set, etc.;
→ understand which framework is most beneficial for the entire development process… or create a framework and uncover potentials;
→ provide the athlete with opportunities to access their own resources (abilities, beliefs, etc.) and use them for extreme situations (such as a difficult competition);
→ „actively do“ – not just understand complex connections or perceive situations.
→ Every person is a unique system and has the right to be treated as such.
→ The coach (trainer, etc.) has an undisputed role model function and should live up to this expectation.
→ Integrity and authenticity are essential traits of successful coaches.
→ Tasks should be delegated as simply as possible and as complex as necessary.
→ Athletes should have the opportunity for free development.
→ Ultimately, results matter in sports.
→ Every athlete possesses potential resource states, and it is among the coach’s responsibilities to discover the maximum possibilities.
→ Good advisors must develop the ability to consider a problem or task from various perspectives.
→ Communication is essential and a visible key to the transmission of knowledge and information.
→ Resistance is feedback indicating a lack of flexibility and foresight, and also fear of losing influence.
→ Listening and understanding are prerequisites for comprehending a person and utilizing conveyed information for further decision-making processes.
→ Satisfaction, coupled with necessary curiosity and commitment, creates the conditions for an optimal working and improvement climate.
→ You cannot solve a problem at the same level of thinking that created it (according to Albert Einstein).
→ The coach has the obligation to provide the appropriate framework for training and competition performance and to continually question the correctness of their decisions.
→ Successful coaches continually set adapted goals and assess which resources are needed at what time to achieve these goals, whether achieving the goals has a positive ripple effect on the overall system, or if there are overlooked aspects.
→ Mistakes provide us the opportunity to try new approaches and are primarily feedback from which one can and should learn.
→ „Effective“ coaches and mental coaches shift their focus between their current specialty (e.g., teaching a new technique) and taking a holistic view.
