The CEP Mindset Podcast

The ability to block out the ‘noise’ is key to having a clear mind and playing free.

 But this is easier said than done - many athletes have trouble blocking out the ‘noise’ and end up:

Overthinking

Doubting their abilities

Worrying about things out of their control When you lack alignment within your thoughts, feelings, and actions, you end up losing the ability to play in the flow state.

The best strategy to clear and block out the noise is a Reset Routine.

The magic is not in the routine itself, but in what the routine represents.

Here are the ABC’s to creating an effective and personalized Reset Routine: 

STEP 1: Accept

 Most athletes get caught in the ‘need to, have to, and shoulds’ of performance - this leaves them:

Feeling the burden of expectations

Distracted by the results that are not in their control

Primed to be frustrated if they fall short of their expectations

The key to letting go of this noise is acceptance, but the problem is our society thinks acceptance is a weakness.

However, if properly understood and effectively used it is one of the most powerful tools to getting centered, grounded, and becoming the hero of your own story.

That is why this step is the most important - without it your Reset Routine will not be effective or reliable.

The Pink Elephant and the Bubble

One of the analogies we like to use is the pink elephant and the bubble.

If I say “don’t think of a pink elephant.” What do you think of?

A pink elephant…

This is not an effective strategy, yet that is exactly what most advice is for athletes:

Don’t worry about it

Forget about it

Be positive

These might be the results we want but they do not tell us how to get those results.

Think of your focus and awareness as a bubble, and what we want is to have a clear bubble - where you are dialed into the process.

But the problem is pink elephants show up - aka distracting thoughts and feelings.

The solution is to go to them, to understand them, to embrace them, to accept them.

By doing this the pink elephant is not necessarily gone forever, but it will move outside your mental bubble, and your mind will become clear and free.

Finding Your Pink Elephants

The hardest part of acceptance is knowing what to accept.

There are two common problems:

The pink elephant is in your blind spot: You can feel it but have a hard time seeing it and understanding it - which therefore makes it hard to accept and clear.

A lack of perspective: When you are too zoomed in on the situation, you often have a hard time seeing the bigger picture. It’s like only seeing part of the pink elephant, but you can’t clear it unless you can see and understand the whole thing.

This is a skill that takes a lot of practice. You use it every day so that you can continuously ge