Do you remember your mistakes more than your successes? 

If so, you are not alone!

Learning how to deal with mistakes is a critical component of mental performance training.

Our brains are hardwired to focus on the negative, which is why we tend to obsess over the mistakes we make.

Unless we learn how to effectively respond to them, they can become a mental block to future success.

The book, ‘The Confident Mind,’ by Dr. Nate Zinsser, gives a few alternative, and healthier, ways to look at mistakes:

• View them as temporary, or just a one time deal. 
• Acknowledge the mistake, then leave it in the past.
• Don’t think that it will affect the next attempt. If anything, it just increases the odds that the next one will be successful.
• Think of it as unrepresentative of you. Say ‘That’s not like me’ or ‘It was a fluke.’

In addition to mindset adjustments like those above, as a mental performance coach I also teach specific strategies to deal with mistakes, such as re-focus routines, visualization and positive bombardment.

I’ll leave you with one of my favorite quotes my Michael Jordan. It’s a good reminder that we all make mistakes, even the greats, and that they’re an integral part of our ultimate success:

I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.