Mind Over Matter

Through-out my swimming career I have known that the sport of swimming is not only physical, but also mental. If you don’t have the right attitude, your hard work will not pay off.

There are many ways this can be frustrating for swimmers. They could be excellent in practice but never receive the rewards for it. They could have an amazing stroke and technique but they lose to swimmers less skilled than them. During a big swim meet it is common for a swimmer’s confidence to disappear. It is also common to worry too much about the other competitors. Because of some of these, you can even feel sick to your stomach on the day of a meet.

But this can certainly be avoided. Swimmers should know that practice is 90% physical and 10% mental. However, when it comes to a race, it then becomes 90% mental.

By training your mind to be positive and ready to go for the race you can accomplish a lot of things. Things like, improving times without training any harder, reduced nervousness before races, less fatigue during races, a lack of concern for the other competitors, improving swimming techniques, a deep belief in yourself and swimming abilities, a calm clear mind, great inner strength and physical energy, and also a vibrant health and a positive outlook on life. And that’s not even all of the benefits!

The mind is more powerful than the body as it also controls the body. If you let your mind be free to control your stroke and be confident in them, you can accomplish more than you’d believe. You can swim fast by making it look effortless; it’s almost as if you’d be on cruise control.

By training the mind to be positive and confident, these following swimmers have succeeded in surpassing their goals. One teenage girl swam her personal best time 30 days in a row – this means that every day she was beating her previous time. A 16 year old swimmer was able to take 16 seconds off of his time – it’s hard to take even 2 seconds of a best time. A young swimmer overcame severe illness to win 3 races and make the national team.

It’s obvious that staying positive and confident will improve your swimming. But I believe this can also work for people who just do this in other sports and even life. If you stay positive, happy, and always strive for the best, you will accomplish greater things than if you were only to stay average. It’s almost like karma: if you’re nice, nice things will happen to you. If you decide to be happy and positive, your life will reflect those feelings.