We are now three weeks into this and it isn’t showing any signs of slowing. So the question I want to pose to you today is how are you holding up? What is your mental state at this time? I understand that different parts of the country and even different parts of the world are experiencing different levels of shut down. Some of us are still working, but most of us are out of work. So I ask, how are you holding up?

What have you been doing to keep yourself busy? Have you been productive or have you wasted your time? What is your definition of productive? As I mentioned previously, the body needs time to rest and heal, but you also don’t want to slack off on your training. Too much rest will cause you to come back a step behind everyone. Too little rest and you won’t have energy to come back. It is a fine line to walk, so how have you been managing it? How have you managed your time? Have you taken time to rest and recover? Have you taken time to continue training?

If you have continued your training, what have you done? Have you been training the mental the side of your sport? Or have you been training the physical side? I do believe that it is equally important to train both. Physically keep yourself up to par. Mentally keep yourself focused and prepared. If you can keep yourself focused when there is nothing to do, think about how much easier it will be to stay focused during a game.

Yogi Berra was once quoted as saying that “Baseball is 90% mental, the other half is physical”. I believe that he is saying that at some point, the physical skills of everyone will even out, but the difference between the good and the great is their mental fortitude. The issue though is that we spend most of our time training the physical side of sports, and almost no time training the mental side. When asked, most people would say that they don’t train the mental side or don’t spend enough time training the mental side because you don’t see the improvement the same way you see the improvement in the physical game. That being said, now that everything is shut down, isn’t this the perfect time to train the mental side more?

Spend some time focusing on creating goals that follow the S.M.A.R.T goal system. Spend some time focusing on your mental health. Take a minute to focus on your emotions and your needs. Take some time to work on visualization. These are all things that you can do from home and you don’t need any special equipment.

I am not saying you shouldn’t train the physical side. I am simply saying that now that you have more free time maybe you can spend some of it toying with the mental side of your game.