Tipping the Scales in Your Favor

Nothing is a guarantee in sport. No one has absolute control over outcomes, but everyone tries to gain as much control as possible.

You’ll never get there, and what are the results of you trying to get somewhere you’ll never be? Frustration, stress, anxiety, etc.

The most you can do is tip the scales of success in your favor.

In other words: all you can ask of yourself is to do things that put yourself in the best possible place to succeed. 

Practicing, eating well, getting quality sleep, being a good teammate, and honing your mental game are all ways you’re giving yourself a better chance to succeed when the opportunity comes.

But, in no way do any of these controllables guarantee success. 

This may sound obvious, but it isn’t the mindset people operate with when managing the disappointment that comes with failure.

Failure stings much harder when you think you are the one to blame. With that sting comes more difficulty accessing this mindset.

When you break down a loss, the chances of success ultimately didn’t tip in your favor. You may have done many things to boost your chances of success, but your success probability will never be 100%, and the outcome showed this.

Sometimes, things just don’t go your way even though you did a lot right.

I’m sure you can think of a time when an underdog (meaning their chances of success were considerably lower than their opponent’s) somehow pulled off a victory despite those low odds.

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One of the most important decisions athletes and coaches can make is to not change their process even though the results show a loss.

Although our culture may convey otherwise, it’s absolutely possible to be satisfied with how you strategized for your game, your execution, and how you responded to adversity, even though the outcome didn’t reflect all of this.

There will be times for every athlete when they tip the scales of success heavily in their favor, but it’s still not enough. 

When you objectively look at the pieces of your process, like the ones listed above, and think “9 times out of 10, the outcome will be in our favor based on how we executed,” it’s important to resist changing a (mostly) winning formula. 

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No formula will result in a 100% chance to succeed.

Still, you should take it upon yourself to tip the scales as close to 100 as you can, while understanding that you’ll never get there.

This is done in small increments, which is why the popular phrase “1% better” really shines here.

When preparing for a competitive match, where the game is up for grabs and hard to predict a winner, you can assume the odds are somewhere around 50/50 of who will win. 

With this in mind, it’s your job to consider everything you can do to tip the scales in your favor.

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What many people neglect to do is remind themselves of their scale tipping as it’s happening.

When you sit down to watch film after a long day, it can be difficult to stay motivated and bring an effective, quality focus throughout the session.

During this session, you’ll start to notice your attention drifting, and the thought of kicking back to watch TV grows increasingly enticing.

You then catch your focus drifting, so you use a mental anchor to get back on track.

In this case, your anchor revolves around the idea of getting 1% better through this film session and tipping the scales more in your favor. The importance of your film session is once again realized, and you easily deny the temptation of watching TV until after watching film.

Through this self-talk tool, you release dopamine (which is responsible for our drive to work hard) in the moment simply by changing your perspective.

Take it a step further than just self-talk. Visualize a scale, or numbers, change as a result of the work you’re putting in. See the 50/50 change to 51/49. Watch the scales, where your team’s logo is on one side and the opponent on the other, as the weight of your team’s logo increases its weight ever so slightly.

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This is not an all-cure to your ability to manage failure or boost motivation at any point.

Instead, think of this as another tool in your mental game toolbox that you can reach for. Sometimes, it’ll do the trick and help you maintain confidence and focus when many athletes can’t. Other times, it might not do the trick, and you’ll either reach for a different tool.

At the end of the day, your job as an athlete is to focus on what you can do each day to tip the scales of success in your favor.

If you’d like help developing a variety of tools for your mental game toolbox, schedule an intro call with me to discuss your obstacles to success, what your priorities are in sport psychology training, and see if we’d be a good fit to move forward.