Why are we Seeing Students taking Entrance Exams and Elite Athletes Equally?
I’m sure you must be thinking, “Wow! Well, that’s new”. As new as it sounds It’s an interesting connection that we are trying to build in the history of Sports Psychology.
It’s about having the ability to be at your best when it matters. For elite athletes to perform at the highest, level they need to train a lot but at the end of the day it’s about how you perform that day, isn’t it? If you can perform perfectly that day you get success and glory and you achieve your goal.
But how much soever training you do, if you do not apply the right mindset, if you do not apply the right skills under those challenges and circumstances you are not going to get that success.
Therefore, elite athletes have to train their minds, in the same way, in the same way if we look at students taking entrance exams they also have to train their minds. They go through years of intense training for that one day of success. It is the day on which everything that they have learned will be expressed and showcased. If their mind is not supporting them and not have the right mindset then they are risking their chances of success.
Just like elite athletes need to have the right mindset along with the right training for that one day when it all is going to matter. In the same way, elite student-athletes also need to have the correct mindset and training on the day of their exam.
I at MyMentalCoach call all these students elite student-athletes because they are training 95% of the time for that 5% to impart their best performance. The same is true for elite athletes they go through intensive training for those few days of glory.
Let’s look at the Mental Skills Required for Elite Athletes to Succeed
1. Elite Athletes are Highly Motivated and they have to maintain that Motivation.
They have a burning desire to succeed, and they are willing to put in the hard work necessary to achieve their goals. They also need to maintain this motivation despite the ups and downs that happen during the practice matches.
2. Elite Athletes are Disciplined Daily.
They stick to their training plans and routines, even when it’s difficult. They wake up every day and choose to go for training, they choose to eat healthy, and they choose to live a healthy and maintained lifestyle.
3. Elite Athletes are Goal-oriented.
They set clear and specific goals for themselves, and they develop a plan to achieve them. They create short-term and long-term goals so that they are clear in their vision.
4. Elite Athletes are Resilient.
They don’t let setbacks discourage them. They bounce back from adversity and keep moving forward. They will have to bounce back from those anxieties, fear, and stress that come alongside that are naturally going to affect them on the day of their match.
Check out our article on Mastering Resilience: 5 Proven Strategies to Thrive in Life to learn about the best strategies needed to develop resilience.
Now let’s connect it from here; let’s see whether these 4 things are required for a student.
What Skills Do Elite Athelet Students Need?
- Would they need to be motivated?
Yes, they would; because studying is difficult. Students take exams, they have to constantly revise content, they go through peer pressure, sometimes parents pressure students to score well, there is self-doubt that comes in, and many more things. Therefore, there could be days when their motivation fluctuates, which is why they need to know how to manage their motivation.
We agree students are motivated for the long-term goal but they need to have the power of motivating themselves every single day. So that they have the right mindset to continue to study effectively every day.
- Do they need to be self-disciplined?
Yes, and they are self-disciplined already because the kind of sacrifices they go through is unbelievable. They probably stay away from their family, miss out on parties and gatherings with friends, they have to stay alone and the factor of homesickness and loneliness comes in, which is very disheartening.
At the same time, there are some small lifestyle changes that students can make to develop their study habits. Sleep is a very important discipline especially because fluctuating motivation gets distorted.
Therefore, developing the right lifestyle and routine requires discipline and that is also something that students are going to require.
- Do they need to be goal-oriented?
They do. Now imagine if an exam is going to be conducted one year down the line. Every day if they keep thinking and connecting what they are doing to what’s going to happen during exam time; they will get extremely stressed and burnt out.
Therefore they need to learn to make short-term goals and those short-term goals will have process goals, performance goals, etc. so that they know how they are going about giving those mock and practice exams and this makes them ready for their exam beforehand.
- Performance pressure
Every entrance exam student has that one day when they have to perform extremely well so that all these years of hard work pay off. And eventually, the pressure becomes very high for students in such situations.
But if they don’t know what to do during those tough times, it makes it even more difficult for them. Therefore they need to learn the skill to control those anxiety-inducing emotions.
This stress is especially built up during the last 10 days of preparation. Students get fearful visuals, and they start anticipating the worst-case scenarios.
Therefore at MyMentalCoach, we have built a special 10-day program for those last stressful 10 days, it’s a kind of handholding to our elite student-athletes so that they can manage their performance pressure.
How Does MyMentalCoach Help Start to Develop the Right Mindset?
Mind is a very abstract concept because we can’t feel it, touch it, or even see it. At times we don’t know our strengths and weaknesses.
Step 1: Understand your strengths and weaknesses. We access 6 areas of the mind to get an understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of the student. This will help a student and a parent understand what exactly the challenges the student is going to face.
MyMentalCoach has one of its kind course in the world, specifically for elite student-athletes who are taking entrance exams which is called “The Mindset Analysis”. Through this course at a low cost, students will get a 23-page comprehensive report on their mindsets, values, and an action plan to improve each of those factors.
You can check out more information about Mindset Assessment: Zeta 6 by reading this article, it’ll give you a comprehensive understanding of the assessment.
Step 2: After the mindset assessment is done, we’ll design a peak performance program that will be customized for that student so that when the student takes that exam they can enhance their performance.
During the last 10 days, we will help the student be relaxed like an elite athlete. The student will be in control of their mind, calm, and have positive energy they will be excited about going inside the examination hall.
We will know the program is working when we see the student being in the right mental space.
Success Story
A JEE exam-giving student came to us because he was not in the right mental space. His lifestyle was distorted, he was having a lot of anxiety and stress management-related issues and was also fogged by too many thoughts and emotions.
Once he went through our program and after he took the exam he messaged me, ”I never thought I would be excited to go inside the exam hall and feel satisfied coming out of the hall”. Now the student is placed in a great engineering college and is happy at what he is doing.
That is the greatest joy, we want students to enjoy the process and we want them to come out of the hall with their heads held high saying they gave their best effort and that whatever happens this effort that they gave was fully worth it.