Performance is 90 percent mental and the rest is physical.
This is a quote many athletes would have heard before. And while the maths might not exactly add up and as clichéd as the saying might be, it helps to remind us that it is important to train for both the physical and mental components of any performance (whether athletic or not).
Has COVID-19 and the fallout sent you into a spiral in an unknown direction? Do you feel like you’ve been knocked down? Do you feel like you have or are likely to fail?
If you said YES, that’s overwhelmingly normal and what I call being human. At some stage, we are all knocked down and face challenges that are extremely complex in different environments. So why is it that the solution most friends and family give us – “get back up and try again” – so widely used and yet hard to implement?
On this day 12 years ago – 10 June 2008 – just after 8 o’clock on an overcast winter’s morning; Mum emerged from our long, winding hallway, stepped into the kitchen, softly trembling with tears as she struggled to find the words to tell us that Dad had passed away…
In 2004, my dad was diagnosed with melanoma skin cancer. In the following years, the cancer advanced to other parts of Dad’s body, and eventually, his brain…
When I was 12 years old and in Grade 6 at primary school, my mum and my two younger siblings moved from Fitzroy to Clayton. Mum had obtained emergency housing after one too many domestic violence incidents with my stepdad.
A friend that I met at school and his family got me involved with the football and cricket clubs, and from then on it became my outlet: first from my poverty stricken home-life, and later on from the drugs and crime that my brother and returning stepdad were involved in. I loved being able to get away on the weekend, to just enjoy sports and the family-orientated environment that they provided.
This is certainly a challenging time for a lot of people. It may bring up feelings of anxiety, distress, isolation and disconnection. People are experiencing severe hardship with the loss of jobs, businesses, livelihoods and the concern for the health and wellbeing of themselves and loved ones. We here at Outside the Locker Room are here with you, we are …