Mick Fannings Secret Competitive Mindset
Maybe you saw Mick’s quarter final heat against Josh Kerr at the 2007 Quicky Pro. Absolutley insane! Kerro sent Mick to comboland early in the heat and then Mick punched back with some BS barrels and ballistic surfing to take it out.
Awesome to watch and, at the time, the highest-ever scoring heat in ASP history!
What kind of attitude it would take to come back and win the heat while chasing a 9.17 and 9.93?
When they interviewed Mick after the final he let out a little secret about how he handles the pressure.
He said “even when I was in bad situations I just felt the waves were coming”.
So when Kerro put Mick under the pump big time Mick never gave up hope that he would get the waves and get through. Even under massive pressure Mick still expected to win.
Mick showed bucket loads of a success factor called positive expectation.
That means, he always keeps backing himself in and never gives up regardless of the situation. Mick always expects positive or good things to happen.
Imagine if Mick had thrown the towel when he got comboed. He never would have got into a massive paddling battle with the rip to keep his position behind the rock, where the best kegs were coming thru. And how would he have surfed with an “I’ve quit” attitude – definitely not like the maniac that he was.
When you keep positive, when you expect that things will work out, then there is a good chance that that is what is going to happen.
And guess what your body follows what’s going on in your head
So, if your brain is shouting “Hey, you’re stuffed now! There’s no way you’re coming back from here! It’s over.” Then your body will respond with some pretty uninteresting surfing
But with a ‘never say die” attitude then your body will respond positively and you’re always ready to rip.
Developing this “positive expectation” attitude isn’t difficult.
You just need to keep reflecting on the positives in your surfing during your heat. Things like, you’ve got good boards, that you’ve trained hard, that you’ve surfed well in waves like this before etc.
These thoughts create the base for you to believe that “you can do it” no matter the situation that you find yourself in during the heat
There’s a saying “If think you’re beaten you are, and if you think you’re not, you’re not!” and it’s true.
As you climb higher in your contest surfing career it is more and more about the mind game – not with anyone else – just yourself.
Then, on the WCT it’s all about having your attitude right. Everyone is on great boards, they all train hard and everyone can rip, but it’s your attitude to pressure and self belief that separates the winners and losers.
And the good thing is, that you alone completely control your attitude. You can change your thinking in a second, from loser to winner, and even better, it doesn’t cost you a cent to do it. So are you ready to think like Mick Fanning?
Dr Mike Martin is widely acknowledged as the leading expert insurf psychology. He is author of Six Steps to Surfing Success:How to Create Heat Winning Strategies, and Head Honcho at SurfSuccess.com, which specialises in teaching contest surfers how to structure their contest thinking to convert 15%, 25% -- even up to 50% of their heat results into wins. SurfSuccess.com is a first-of-its-kind heat strategy development website that delivers sure-fire high performance thinking strategies for contest surfers to dramatically boost their heat win ratio in as little as six weeks. Go here now for details: http://www.SurfSuccess.com/new-member-info.html
