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Mental Skills for Bowling

Mike Shady, May 26, 2022

As you will have seen from our daily WTD 1424 and Mental Monday's, your ability to access the best possible game you have in any game/tournament comes down to your mindset and the mental game.

On any given day, you don't know whether you'll have your A, B, or C game, but with a strong mental game you can get the best out of it, whatever game you have.

Let's review the Mental Strategies for Bowling:

Mindset is probably the biggest overall factor in your success and something you must continually work on.

Mindfulness - we all have a lot of meaningless negative thoughts that have the potential to be able to keep us from our best. In order to be free from your thoughts and just "be" while you are playing requires a skill called "mindfulness".

Staying present - being able to quiet your mind and stay in the present moment is key to remaining calm, being mindful and conserving mental energy.

Self-talk - being able to use the power of words in any situation to keep you in your optimal performance state is key to being able to play your best under pressure.

Acceptance - being able to accept what’s happened is another key to maintaining a positive mental and emotional state.

Body language - if you look like you are in control, you probably are!

Tension and tempo awareness - tension and tempo change the swing when we're under pressure, so knowing how to relax and maintain a smooth tempo is essential in the big tournaments/moments.

Performance Anxiety management - we all get nervous and that's not a bad thing (in fact it can help you bowl better). But being too nervous will inhibit you which is why it's key to learn stress management techniques.

What Mental Skills are your strengths and what Mental Skills are opportunities for improvement?

Keep improving your Mental Skills to Win the Day!

Being In The Present

Mike Shady, May 20, 2022

Being “in the present” is so important in bowling. It frees up your mind, allowing you to focus on what’s most important to access to your best skills.

The ancient practice of meditation and mindfulness is all about improving a person's ability to access the present moment and be accepting of how they feel in that moment and not try to change it. This creates freedom.

I advise all my students to start a daily practice of meditation and mindfulness, as it has so many benefits (beyond bowling). With this practice you will become more able to clearly focus on the things that are most important and reduce the noise from those things that are not.

Samurai Warriors adopted Zen Buddhism and meditation because it allowed them to fight with an “empty mind”. For these swordsmen, having an empty mind was vital during combat as it freed them from doubt, fear and focus on technique. Of course, they trained technique, but when combat began, all thinking departed, and the purity of the action took over.

Being in the present, is when your attention (focus) isn’t on what’s happened or what will happen (consequences), only on what’s happening now, e.g. your pre-shot routine or time in the settee area (Area #1) in between shots. In between shots, direct your focus of attention to your breathing and what you see and feel (the view inside the bowling center, the sound of the balls hitting the pins, etc.). This will bring you to the present - you are alert and aware but not thinking.

It’s also a perfect way at any time to come out of “negative” emotions, regret, anger, anxiety – fear is always ‘future’. Excitement suggests thinking about results, regret suggests thinking about past mistakes, instead, just keep playing the shot in hand until they run out.

Lock into the PRESENT to Win the Day!

Pressure Practice To Improve Skills

Mike Shady, May 18, 2022

In League and in Tournaments:

Every shot counts and has a consequence

Every shot is a unique challenge

There are several minutes between shots for possible “thinking” time

Your heart rate is higher

Although most bowlers know this to be true, they spend very little time practicing in a way that will help them to adapt to the changing (external and internal) conditions between practice and competition play. Instead, they over-practice the technical and don’t train their “performance skills” such as focus, dealing with consequences and internal state management.

The best place to practice is usually our local bowling center. We usually know the house characteristics, practice on the same pair and many times just throw a quantity of shots. For this reason, it’s important to find ways to simulate what we experience in league and in tournament play, so we can improve our performance skills and become better at executing our best technical skills during bowling competition.

For Each Shot

1. Go through your Pre Shot Routine

2. Practice your Post Shot Routine and how you will respond to different outcomes

3. Considering your heart rate could be 120 bpm or more during a tournament or in a “big moment”, run on the spot to get it there before making a shot during a practice session. If you have a heart rate monitor on your watch you can get it to the desired heart rate before making each shot.

4. Take 1-2 minutes break in between shots to simulate the bowling competition and to make sure you don’t get into a rhythm of just making shots (one of the pitfalls of normal a bowling practice that leads to an “illusion of competence”). You could use the time in between to do some meditation for bowling, journal or to practice being alone with your thoughts (don’t get your phone out to occupy the time).

By doing more pressure practice for bowling, you’ll discover more about the effectiveness of your current “performance process” in controlling your internal state and preparing for shots, and you can experiment with new ideas to give you further adaptability/tools under pressure.

Practice Under Pressure to Win Your Day!

Both Must Be Trained

Mike Shady, May 17, 2022

99% of bowling instruction is aimed at improving technical skills, but unless you are in control of the mental side, you won’t be able to access your skills no matter how good they are.

If you are anxious, unable to focus and full of doubt, then your movement will be inhibited, and you will underperform.

How many times have you felt fully prepared technically but yet underachieved because something negative was winning the battle?

It’s important that you work on training both: the technical and mental.

Start Training Your Mindset To Win the Day!

Excuse Extermination

Mike Shady, May 16, 2022

Today, eliminate excuses from your life, for just one day. You can do anything for just one day. You don't need to eliminate excuses for your entire life - Just do it today.

Exterminate your excuses and start your day by saying: "This is my time, my life and my destiny. I make my own momentum and I will not stop today till I achieve my goal. I will attach today with a relentless positive entergy and Win the Day!"

Being unstoppable and successful is a decision that you make every day - every hour, every minute and every second of the day.

Have the awareness that success is a choice.

Every time you choose to lock in your focus and stay on task, you are strengthening your self-discipline muscle.

With each refocus and excuse elimination, that muscle will grow stronger and stronger, making it easier to bring about the positive changes you seek in your performance and in your life.

Win Your 86,400 Today!

Thoughts Become Things

Mike Shady, May 13, 2022

What you think about you bring about. Many bowlers will write mental game reminders on their shoes, grip sack, towel so that before league or tournament starts they are reminded of the mentality they need to have to be successful.

Today, advertise the mentality you want to yourself by hanging a Post-it® note or piece of paper with a motivational reminder. You can also set a reoccurring appointment or reminder on your phone with the same message.

What message will you remind yourself of today?

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Don't Freeze To Death

Mike Shady, May 11, 2022

In the February 1978 issue of Success Unlimited, psychologist Dr. Dudley Calvert tells the story of a railway employee in Russia who accidentally locked himself in a refrigerator car.

Inside the car, he could not unlock the door nor could he attract the attention of those outside. Unable to escape, he resigned himself to his fate. As he felt his body becoming numb, he documented his story and his approaching death in sentences scribbled on the wall of the car. “I’m becoming colder now,” he wrote, “still colder, now. I can hardly write…” and finally, “these may be my last words.” And they were.

When the car was opened upon arrival at its destination, other railway employees found him dead. Yet, the temperature of the car was 56 DEGREES! The freezing apparatus had been out of order in the car. There was no physical reason for his death. There was plenty of air – he hadn’t suffocated.

What had happened was he had given away his personal power and defeated himself by not responding appropriately to the challenges in front of him. He let the power of his mind negatively affect his reality.

Remember, perspective is reality and you are response-able for choosing any attitude and any perspective you want in any given situation. His own lack of response-ability led to his demise, a victim of his own illusion.

Respond to the situation appropriately to Win the Day!

Hire for Attitude, Train for Skill

Mike Shady, May 9, 2022

One of the best pieces of advice I ever heard as a high school teacher/athletic director was to hire for attitude and train for skill.

With the right attitude you can learn to do anything, and as a supervisor you can train people with the right attitude to perform the way you want them to perform.

When you hire someone with the wrong attitude who may be a better performer initially, you are destined to regret that decision. And the time it takes to clean up after someone with the wrong attitude is much greater over time than training the person with the right attitude.

Those with the right attitude are not focused on their way; they focus on the best way. They do not do what they do because that is always how it has been done; they do what they do because it is the best way to do it.

Anything can be accomplished with the right attitude, but very little can be accomplished with the wrong one.

Bring The Right Attitude Today To Win the Day!

Get Excited!

Mike Shady, May 5, 2022

We often think that we will get enthusiastic about our life or our career when we have a life or a career that is exciting. I have learned that the opposite is true.

When you get excited and enthusiastic about your life and your career, then your life and career will become exciting. When you get excited about going to your career each day, your career becomes exciting.

When you get excited about going home each day after work to invest time with your family, your family time becomes more exciting.

Be excited first, and then the excitement will follow. What in your life have you wanted to become exciting?

Get excited about it now - and it will thus become exciting.

Win Your Day By Getting Excited!

Build It Big All The Time

Mike Shady, May 4, 2022

There once lived a master carpenter who built custom homes for a real estate tycoon for the better part of his career.

The master carpenter had been paid well and had made a lot of money due to his excellent craftsmanship and attention to detail. He was a carpenter of excellence; he never cut corners and always double-checked his work.

He used only the best materials and built homes that would stand the test of time.

When the master carpenter decided it was time to retire, the real estate tycoon begged him to build just one more.

Reluctantly the master carpenter agreed and spent the next half-year building a mansion with a HAVE-to mentality, the opposite of the WANT-to and GET-to mentality he had carried his entire career.

With his have-to mentality the master carpenter purchased the cheapest lumber that was available so he did have to wait for the lumber to be shipped in, and he used materials that he would otherwise have not used because they did not meet his standard of excellence.

He just wanted to get done with this house. It was a HAVE-to and the last home he would ever build. Instead of doing all the work himself or carefully supervising a team of excellence-seeking workers, he hired contractors and went to play golf - something that he had said he would never do earlier in his career. He just wanted to get the job done and was not focused on getting it done right.

When he finished the job, it looked awesome on the outside; but the house was built as a HAVE-to and the infrastructure where it mattered most, the skeleton of the house, was weak.

The master carpenter had a different feeling when finishing this house. He was happy it was done, but he was disappointed in his efforts and knew the home was not built to the standard of excellence that he had exemplified throughout his career.

When the real estate tycoon showed up to see the final product, he was impressed. He thanked the master carpenter for his years of selfless service, dedication and commitment to excellence.

He then handed the keys to the carpenter and said that he hoped he would enjoy retirement in his new home. The house the carpenter had built was his own.