How to Build Consistency in Sports

To build consistency in sports, we need to look at developing a consistent mindset and then also doing what it takes to perform well from a physical standpoint on a consistent basis.

In this article, I’m going to break down how to be consistent with your mindset along with being consistent with your physical skills to help you become overall just a more consistent player.

Why Consistency Matters

Coaches love consistent players. Teammates want their teammates to be consistent. You want yourself to be consistent to where you know you can show up on any given day and perform well.

There are two key areas we need to focus on to develop this consistency:

1. Being consistent with your mentality.

2. Being consistent with what you need to do in order to play well physically.

Building a Consistent Mentality

What I mean by being consistent with your mentality is that if you show up one day and you feel really confident—maybe you played well your last game, so you have a boost of confidence—it’s likely you’ll play pretty well that day because you have a lot of belief in yourself. You’re playing freely. You’re playing with confidence.

But then there might be another day, maybe the next game, where because you’ve had a couple of bad practices, that mindset goes down. Now you’re not as confident. Maybe there’s more fear today, more anxiety. That will be a day you might not perform as well.

So if our mindset is not consistent, it will be difficult for our performance to be consistent. When we are able to show up every single day with a consistent mentality, it makes it a lot easier to have consistent outcomes within our performance.

Before I get into how you can be more consistent with your mindset, I do want to preface this by saying we are all human. There’s no way we can guarantee we will show up with the same mentality every single day. That’s impossible, right? That’s not realistic.

But when we go through what I’m about to share, it’s more likely we will be in a relatively consistent mindset.

Mental Training as Daily Fuel

Whenever I’m working with athletes, I always talk to them about how mindset, being in a good mood, being in a confident state, being present, all of that is a result of actions that we take.

We don’t want it to be something we hope for. We don’t want to hope to feel confident. We don’t want to hope to be in a good mood. We want to know what it takes for us to get into a good mood.

And this doesn’t have to be complicated. It can just involve a few different actions.

Example: Morning Routine

I want to walk you through an example routine I discussed with a client recently—to give you an idea of what you could do to build more consistency with your mindset.

So far in our work, she and I have talked about:

• Performing mindfulness meditation to calm her mind.

• Going through a journaling exercise in the morning to work on building confidence.

• Performing visualization.

When she first began practicing these exercises, she felt better. But as the week went on, she stopped doing them as much, and then her practices weren’t as good.

What we talked about yesterday was how if she stays consistent with these exercises every single day and they become habits, it’s more likely she’ll play well.

So, we built a morning routine:

• Wake up and write in her journal.

• Perform 5–10 minutes of mindfulness meditation.

• Do a short visualization exercise.

Now, we’ll wait and see what her performances look like after a couple weeks of doing this consistently.

Why Consistency Matters with Mental Training

This is my biggest recommendation for you when it comes to creating a consistent mindset: use mental training exercises like mindfulness meditation, self-talk, journaling, and visualization. Do them on a daily basis. It needs to be a routine.

We don’t want to see any of these exercises as a cure.

For example, if I think that doing visualization for four days means I’ll never struggle with confidence again, then I’m missing the point. The point of visualization today is that it gives me a confidence boost today. If I stay consistent with it long-term, it builds my belief.

I see this as fuel or nutrition for our brain.

I used this example with the softball player: if you eat really well on Monday, you can’t not eat for the next two days and then expect to have a lot of energy on Thursday just because of what you ate Monday. Nutrition is fuel for that day. You need to eat every day to perform optimally.

Mental training works the same way. If we want to be in a good mindset, if we want confidence, if we want to reduce anxiety for the day, we need daily mental nutrition. That’s why a mental training routine is so effective.

When you stay consistent with it, you’ll find yourself in a more consistent mindset day after day, which then translates into more consistent performances in games.

Physical Consistency Through Preparation

The second part of building consistency involves consistently focusing on and doing what you need to do in order to play well physically.

This includes physical preparation and focusing on what you can control that helps you play well during a game.

The Reverse Engineering Exercise

An exercise that helps with this is called reverse engineering. I walked an athlete through it yesterday.

We started with the end result: a really good performance—his idea of an optimal competition. Then we broke it down into three parts:

1. Preparation throughout the week.

2. Pre-competition preparation (the night before and day of).

3. Objectives or controllables during the competition.

Each area focused on things he could control. By doing this, we created a checklist of exactly what to focus on and stay consistent with.

When you prepare well, you put yourself in the best position to succeed. When you focus on controllables during competition, you avoid being caught up in the result, outcome, or fears. You stay present and focused on what you need to do.

Final Thoughts

If you take both of these ideas—being consistent with your mentality and being consistent with your physical preparation and controllables—you set yourself up to become a more consistent player long-term.

That’s where you’ll start performing well consistently, game in and game out.

If you’re interested in learning more about my one-on-one coaching, click here to schedule a free introductory coaching call, or fill out the form below.

I’ve also created two online mental training courses for athletes:

• The Confident Competitor Academy
• The Mentally Tough Kid

And if you’re more of a reader, check out my books:

• Mind Games
• Athlete Mental Training

Thank you for reading and I wish you the best of success in all that you do.