Raising Elite Competitors

[Athlete Tip] How to Separate Yourself as an Athlete

• Coach Bre • Season 2 • Episode 227

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Have you ever felt like no matter how hard you work, everyone else is just as good… or even better? At some point, hard work doesn’t feel like it’s cutting it anymore. You’re showing up to practice, putting in the hours, but so is everyone else. What’s the secret to actually standing out? Spoiler: it’s not just about your physical skills.

In this episode, we get into what truly separates good athletes from great ones – and it’s probably not what you think.

🏆 Why showing up to practice and working hard isn’t enough anymore.

📹 How film study can help you learn faster and smarter.

💡 Tips for making your practice time more intentional and impactful.

🧠 The mental skills that help athletes handle pressure and recover from mistakes.

🔥 An inspiring story of how mental training helped an underdog team win big.

🎧 If you’re ready to rise above the competition, hit play now. This episode is your guide to leveling up!

Episode Highlights: 

[00:00:00] Welcome to the Episode. I kick things off by addressing the big question: how do you stand out as an athlete? If you’re here, it’s because you’re looking for that extra edge – and this episode is all about helping you find it.

[00:01:12] Pressure Moments Define You. It’s not just about your skills; it’s about how you perform under pressure, bounce back from mistakes, and show up mentally. These are the real game-changers.

[00:01:51] Shoutout to Skyler’s Success. Skyler, one of our Elite Mental Game athletes, shares her journey. After just a short time in the program, she’s already seeing results, including her best swim meet of the year.

[00:04:22] The Power of Watching Film. If you’re not already studying film, start now. Watching yourself and others play is one of the easiest ways to learn and improve.

[00:06:00] Be a Loud and Encouraging Leader. Stand out by being a supportive and vocal teammate. Whether or not you’re the team captain, you can lead by example and uplift those around you.

[00:08:00] Visualization. Train Your Mind. I introduce visualization as a tool to build confidence and mentally prepare for success. It’s a skill that’s accessible to athletes at any level.

[00:13:06] Your Takeaway. Mental Skills Matter. It’s not just about physical reps. Developing skills like visualization, reset routines, and positive self-talk can give you the competitive edge you’re looking for.

[00:14:03] Final Encouragement and Resources. I wrap up by reminding you that the tools I talked about today – like the ones we teach in the Elite Mental Game program – are here to help you succeed. Let’s keep working on your mental game together!

Next Steps:

Thank you in advance for joining us on our mission and leaving a rating and review on Apple Podcasts.

Speaker 1:

Welcome back to the Raising Elite Competitors podcast, athletes. This is a special athlete tip just for you. So, talking about how to separate yourself as an athlete, that is what we're getting into today, because if you're listening to this, then you probably are looking for that extra edge. You may or may not realize that as you go up higher in your sport, the more teams that you get on the higher levels that you climb, the more teams that you get on the higher levels that you climb, the more you're noticing that everybody is good, everybody is getting better, everybody is improving. So what are you doing to separate yourself as an athlete? Now? I'm coach Brie. I'm a mental performance coach for girl athletes. I'm also a head volleyball coach. I've been coaching volleyball for the past 12 years club and high school and even if you don't play volleyball totally fine, this will relate to you as well, because what I see in my athletes and I coach at a very high level is that it's not just their physical skills that is separating them, because when my team is getting to state and they're getting into those games in the post season where it's competitive, it's not just the physical skills that are separating you, it's really. How are you meeting these big pressure filled moments? How fast are you coming back from mistakes, all of these things? So we're going to talk about all of that today in today's episode. If you want to give yourself an extra edge as an athlete, if you want to separate yourself, there are some key things that you need to be doing, and I want you to almost see this as like a little quiz, like a little self quiz. Are you doing these things or are you not? Or where can you improve?

Speaker 1:

Before I do, I want to give a shout out to an athlete inside our program, the Elite Mental Game. The Elite Mental Game is our self-paced mental training program for girl athletes to increase their mental strength and separate themselves, give themselves a competitive edge. And Skylar is one of our athletes inside the program. So she is a swimmer and this is what she texted us the other day. She goes hi. The program has been going really great for me right now. Last weekend I had a swim meet and it's the best meet I've had this year. Now also, in a week and a half, I have age group state. We call it flags. I'm super excited for this meet because I know I'm going to drop in all my events, and have a lot of fun. So, skylar, congratulations. She's actually not too far into the program, so for her to be able to learn some skills that are giving her a competitive advantage and edge and then she's seeing it already happen in her competitions, where she's dropping times and she's doing really well is amazing. So, skylar, congratulations, super proud of you. All.

Speaker 1:

Right, athletes, let's get into it today how to separate yourself as an athlete, how to give yourself the edge. And, as I mentioned at the beginning, everyone is training physically. If you are putting in the reps, you're actually not separating yourself. Now, that is one thing If you're not already doing a little bit of work outside of your scheduled training, depending on what sport you play, depending on what your training schedule is. That is one way that you can separate yourself. So everybody on your team, if you play an individual or a team sport or if you compete in an individual sport, everybody else is training during their practice time. Like you probably have a schedule where it's like a practice three days a week or four days a week for two hours and we have competitions. You showing up to do that is the bare minimum, okay. So you're showing up to practice and you're working hard to practice Great, everybody else is too. That's not actually giving yourself an edge. It's not giving yourself a competitive advantage.

Speaker 1:

Okay, if you want to give yourself an edge, I'm not saying that you have to give hours and hours outside of practice. But are you coming a little bit early, maybe? Are you staying a little bit late? Are you working on your skills outside of your scheduled practice time to refine them, to get a little bit better? That is one way that you can give yourself a competitive edge. And, like I said, I do not. I want to be careful here. I don't want you to burn yourself out and put on hours and hours of time into your sport. That, like, you don't need. But I am saying like, can you work on your weaknesses outside of your scheduled practice time? Can you give yourself another 15 to 20 reps? Even if that's like individual juggling, if we're talking about like soccer or volleyball or basketball, can you shoot a couple of more times? You know, before practice, after practice, apply this to your sport. Can you put in just a little bit more so that you are just getting just that many more reps than your competition? That's one way, okay.

Speaker 1:

Another way is film study. So if you play a sport where there is film feedback, you're being filmed. Put time in outside where you are watching yourself, and studies actually indicate that it's actually better for you to watch yourself or a model of somebody doing the skill correctly than it is for you to just critique yourself on film. Okay, now, I think it's important that you do watch and you see where the errors might be. But I do not want you to get caught up in like, oh, I look like this or that was so terrible, and then you just go down this route of beating yourself up. That's not productive. But watching film and just making note of like here is where I did the skill correctly, here's where I did well, here's where I can improve. Oh, I can see now that I needed to get my arm back further, my elbow up higher, whatever.

Speaker 1:

Okay, intentionally, watching film of yourself or of other people playing your sport and doing the skill and doing it well is another way that you can separate yourself as an athlete. Hey, here's where I'm going to get a little bit more specific using your training time. Okay, so the time that you do have training, that time that you go to practice. You go to competitions. How are you using that time? It's not enough just to show up and put in the work. Hey, are you intentionally getting better?

Speaker 1:

Practice does not make perfect. Intentional practice, where you're actually improving, that is what's going to get you closer to your goal. Now, I don't I hate to use the word perfect because there's no such thing but you can actually go to practice and get worse, because if you're not practicing with intention, if you're not paying attention, if you are not focused, you can actually get worse at your sport. So, are you using your time and you're going into practice with goals? You have a goal of what you're focusing on in that time. Are you giving a hundred percent effort, even when it's hard? It's very easy to go in and give a hundred percent effort when things are going your way and it's an easy practice, all of that. But are you giving a hundred percent and are you working hard even when it is difficult, when you are not succeeding? Those are the times you're actually going to get better. So, using your practice time to actually be intentional, have a goal going in, use that time to get better, be a connected and loud leader that's another thing is are you an encouraging teammate If you play a team sport? Are you loud? Are you encouraging other people? That is also how you're going to separate yourself.

Speaker 1:

Now, the big kicker here, and what we really focus on in our company, is the mental side of the game, because this is where matches, competitions, are won and lost. It's the mental side of the game. Okay. What I mean by that is you can practice all you want. You can put in the time, you can put in time you know outside of practice to get better. But if you show up to a competition and you're nervous and you let those nerves take over because you don't have a good pregame routine, you're not going to play well. If you put in the time, put in the reps, put in the practice, just like everybody else, and even if you go a little bit above and beyond, and then you show up to competition and you make a mistake and you don't know how to come back, and then one mistake turns into two and three and four, and now you're on the bench, you are not gonna play well, okay, so what actually separates athletes, when it comes down to it, is the mental game.

Speaker 1:

Can you deal with pressure? Can you not only deal with pressure, but can you actually meet pressure filled moments and then use those moments to play better? Can you come back from mistakes in seconds or less, or does it take you minutes and hours to get over a mistake? What does yourself talk like? What are you saying to yourself after you make a mistake? What are you saying to yourself in pressure moments? Are you saying don't, I don't want the ball to come to me? Or are you saying, bring it on, I want the ball to come to me? Okay, how are you talking to yourself before a game, after a game? All of that Are you visualizing? Okay? Visualization is a huge skill that athletes at the top levels use in order to prepare their body and mind for what they're about to get into.

Speaker 1:

Okay, I'll tell you a little story about my team. We have won the state championship for the past four years in a row. The past four years in a row. We've been doing mental training for about six years with the Girls in the Program, and the mental training that we do inside my high school volleyball program is the same exact mental training skills that I teach inside the Elite Mental Game, which is the program that I gave a shout out to Skylar at the beginning of the episode but it's a program that over 3,000 athletes have been a part of in order to give themselves a competitive edge and separate themselves. It's where we teach visualizations, where we teach the snapback routine to come back from a mistake. It's where we teach pregame routines, postgame routines. It's where we teach all these skills rooted in sports psychology that Olympians use, professional athletes use in a very simple, easy to use platform. So athletes are learning these skills.

Speaker 1:

Okay, but here is where it really mattered my team this past season. We made it to post season and, to be honest, we weren't actually the team that was expected to win state this year. So, even though we had won it for the past three years in a row, we graduated a lot and we were returning a team that was fairly new. We had one key player that had been part of the other championships, but for the most part, everybody else was fairly new. We had one key player that had been part of the other championships, but for the most part, everybody else was playing new positions. They were new, hadn't had a lot of state experience, but we had been doing mental training and we've been training hard up until this moment. We ended up getting to the state championship. We upset a team in the semifinals, made it to the state championship and we were playing this team. That was good Okay, obviously we were good enough to be there too, but they were really good On paper. They were like 6'1", 6'2", 6'4". They had seniors that were committed to D1 programs, like they'd been ranked number one in the state the entire time.

Speaker 1:

So we go in. We're like, hey, we're gonna see what we can do. Before every game we do a pregame visualization, we do some breath work so that we can calm those nerves, get everybody space so that they can compete. We don't want to deal with any of this extra nervousness. That's not going to make us play well. So they're doing these things.

Speaker 1:

We go out, we play. We actually end up win the first set. You have to play three out of five volleyball. We lose the second set pretty badly. Third set it's very tight all the way through. We end up losing only by a couple points. Then it comes to the fourth set. So we're down two sets to one, meaning we have to win the fourth set in order to go on.

Speaker 1:

And this is where our mental training really made a difference because we got to a point where the other team was serving for championship point. It was 24 them, 23 us. So if they win this point, they win state and their whole fans are on their feet. They hadn't won state since 1988. So 36 years. They feel like they've got it. And we had called a timeout right before that moment and we were like, okay, you know what? We're just going to play this ball right here, this play everyone we're going to do take our breath through our reset word snapback routine. This is a skill that they learn. It's related to mental training. We go out, we end up winning that point. Okay, so we got a perfect pass. We hit the ball over. They actually ended up scrambling a little bit, not making a really great play, ended up giving us a really easy shot back over, which we took advantage of and we won that point. So now, instead of it being championship point for them, it's tied up.

Speaker 1:

So if we win the next two points and we can win this set, we end up going back where my sophomore is serving. So she has had no state experience. She's a sophomore, she's young, she's serving. She looks like she's got ice in her veins. She's looking pretty confident. I talked to her afterwards and I was like what were you thinking she was? I just was saying my breath, my reset word, my breath, my reset word. So her mental training was what was keeping her grounded in that time. Okay, so she serves, we end up winning that point. Because the other team again this big powerhouse team ends up crumbling and hitting the ball in the net. Okay, you don't see that very often from a team of this caliber. Okay, so we go up, we go up all again. Now we have set point Okay, if we win this, we win. Okay, she goes back, she serves, gets that ball in in that pressure situation because she's doing her snapback routine. She's got a breath, she got a reset word. Okay, the other team ends up free balling. Okay, that means like really easy ball into the net to hand us the win.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so two things were happening here. My team was being very mentally strong. Okay, they were like having this attack mentality. They were doing their, they were doing their mental training skills. They were, they got their snapback routine. The other team was falling apart, okay, mentally, and which means they were not handling the pressure very well. And then physically, they were making errors. We then went into the fifth set and we ended up winning. We ended up winning state because we had the momentum on our side, we were doing really well. So we ended up winning state against this team who, on paper, looked better than us.

Speaker 1:

And this is where mental training really matters. This is where you are winning and losing games is not just your physical skills. By this point, at this point in the season, the end of the season, both teams have trained a lot. Both teams have put in a ton of physical work, okay, but now the team that won, you know, it was pretty clear that my team had some mental training skills that the other team was lacking. Okay, now games can go anyway. It could have easily gone either way, okay, but it ended up going our way.

Speaker 1:

And when I asked my athletes afterwards like what were you thinking? What were we focusing on, and a lot of them were crediting their mental training to help them meet those moments. So I'm leaving you with that story just to encourage you that it's not just about your physical training. You have to be doing things on the mental side of the game in order to separate yourself and give yourself a competitive advantage. And having skills to come back from mistakes.

Speaker 1:

Having skills to be able to deal with mental or with pressure moments, you know. Having a skill of visualization that you're doing so that you are meeting moments and you're showing up how you want to show up. All of these things that college athletes do, professional athletes do, olympic athletes do. These are skills that you can learn as a high school athlete and as a middle school athlete. These are accessible to you inside our program, the Elite Mental Game. I also give tidbits in our athlete tip episodes like this as well, so that you have these skills to separate yourself and give yourself a competitive advantage. All right, athletes. I'm Coach Bree. I am a mental performance coach for girl athletes. I hope you got a lot out of this episode and I will see you in the next athlete tip episode of the Raising Elite.

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Coach Bre Smedley

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