In international sports events, the fact that ‘winning or losing depends on your mental state’ has become more prominent in the 21st century. As a result, knowledge of the process of mental preparation before the competition is becoming more and more professionalized and cross-professional. It has also become a requirement for atheletes in sports events, competitions and achievements.

How is this piece of information relevant to elite sports in Macao? And how can the above information be inspirational when athletes fail to perform at their best in elite or international events? And how can it benefit you?

Well, you may have got it right already – to achieve the optimal performance and results in the competiton, athletes have to be mentally prepared in an adequate and effective manner! It means that you need mental preparation before the competition in order to increase your odds of winning.

 ‘Competition preparation requires preparing for and emphasizing on the mental aspect’ does not mean getting ready technically and mentally respectively. Instead, it means that daily training should be conducted first, thereby systematically merging mental skills into various details of the sports events. After that, mental adjustment should be made before the competition. The purpose is to eradicate obstacles that hinder sports performance and increase the capacity to withstand pressure from competitions and adversities, which in turn allows individuals or the team to achieve their potential in the sports events to the fullest extent.

On a side note, the experience of every single competition, regardless of its scale, is an athlete’s valuable asset. It is also an effective test and feedback on the painstaking training. A smart athlete would not miss the benefits of keeping a competition diary: recording the overall success and failure in facing adversities in the competition mentally and technically after training, important details, solutions and comments. All these are worth recording and accumulating as competiton performance can be improved and consolidated through these bits and pieces.