When Californian goofy, Nat Young, smashed his way to a 9.57 and the highest wave score of the day in the last few minutes of his heat at the Trestles 6 Star today, he was frothing - why wouldn't you be…

In the interview after his heat he said a few interesting things…

In a righteous burst of youthful enthusiasm after his come-from-behind-near-elimination experience, Young blurted, "this is the most points I've ever gotten, so I'm stoked, plus, next heat is only a three-man heat, so it's one less person in the water out at Lowers. If I get through that heat I'll be stoked."

Now that all seems fair enough, right?… But what was that last thing he said again…

"If I get through that heat I'll be stoked." Anyone see a problem with that?

Has he just increased or decreased the pressure on himself? I'll let you ponder that for a second while we look at what WCT pro grafter A. De Souza had to say when he dropped the highest 2 wave total for the same round.

"I feel a little bit more consistent today, I've been getting lucky, everything has been going my way and my boards have been going really good." De Souza said.

"I've really been getting my best waves on the lefts. My three best waves in that heat were lefts and yesterday I was able to get big scores on the left handers instead of the rights and I think tomorrow will be the same because I'm surfing around the same tide."

Here we can see Adriano talking about the reasons why he's surfing well - he's got some consistency, his boards are really good and he's made good strategic decisions about surfing the lefts for the last few days. He's really talking about the EVIDENCE for why he has been successful so far and why he should continue to surf well tomorrow.

So here we have Adriano with a "here's the reasons I'm surfing well and this is what I'll do tomorrow" approach - that's a plan.

And we have Nat, putting pressure on himself with a "gee I hope I get through the next round" approach - that's blind hope.

Who would you want to be…

Mentally, these two approaches are a world apart.

The take home message is you can't control the future, so don't predict it, like Young did. You may end up putting too much pressure on yourself.

But you can use your successes in the past to build your self-belief for the future.

Take Adriano's approach, reflect on what you are doing well, savour it - that way you can feel a lot more confident and relaxed in your next heat.
So what do YOU think?

Plese hit your "Reply" button right now and let me know your thoughts? Is this any good? Is this what you are interested in hearing? Have you been there?

I love hearing your feedback.

Take care

Mike

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