Bonus Content Congrats on completing the 1st Meditation Challenge.  There are 2 more challenges that we have.   [audio mp3="http://www.positiveperformancetraining.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/CoachDay5Labeling.mp3"][/audio] Not signed up? Click here to sign-up for the meditation challenge.

We are PUMPED here at Positive Performance to welcome Olympic Volleyball Player (and all around awesome person) Courtney Thompson as our newest +P Mental Training Coach. Courtney will coach teams and athletes on the techniques that have helped catapult her to be one of the best setters in the world, even as she continues her playing career around the world. This is an especially great interview to share with your athletes. As always feel free to 'share' this interview and leave comments below. In this interview Courtney will share:

• The top 3 traits that have made her successful
• Her thoughts on the mental component of success
• How she has dealt with limited playing time, injuries, or failures
• What she does to bounce back from a mistake in the middle of a game
• Her pre-game routine
• What she would tell the younger Courtney Thompson
• How she leads her team even when she isn't playing her best
• The importance of fighting through physical pain
• What mental training tools she uses to stay on...

Today our meditation is about gratitude. As usual, get somewhere comfortable and close your eyes. Don't forget to comment below!

Day 4: Gratitude

We'll get to gratitude during the meditation but first something I hear all the time:  I'm not good at meditating! For something so SIMPLE it sure is not easy. Relax. As you well know, nothing worth having is easy. Meditation is a practice and like anything else there are good days and bad days. The key is to keep doing it!

"Don't wait until your house is on fire to build a well."- Unknown

Meditation can give you so many gifts- good health, a balanced mind, relieve stress- but it's easy to put it off until you 'need' it. It's just like a muscle, don't wait until it's pulled to learn to stretch. [audio mp3="http://www.positiveperformancetraining.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/CoachDay4Gratitude1.mp3"][/audio] Not signed up? Click here to sign-up for the meditation challenge.

Today our meditation is about clearing out mental clutter.

Day 3: The Brain Dump

What can meditation do for you? 

TIP: Get a journal or a pad of paper ready for this exercise. Working on your self-awareness 'muscle' can allow you to be more in control of your thoughts and emotions and less reactive.

Ever feel like you have so many thoughts in your head you can’t seem to make sense of it all? Meditation teaches you to practice focusing and being aware of when you mind drifts. This is a lasting benefit even after your session is finished. So get a piece of paper, or your journal, and begin by listening here.

This is a meditation exercise that clears out the mental clutter and leaves you refreshed and rejuvenated.

"Mindful meditation has been discovered to foster the ability to inhibit those very quick emotional impulses." –Daniel Goleman

So grab your journal or a piece of paper and join us in this meditation exercise called a Brain Dump.

[audio...

Day 2: Letting Go

When I first learned to meditate I wanted to be the best! But I wasn't.

In fact, I found it really difficult to do something that seemed so incredibly simple. My mind wandered. A lot. It wandered to important things- What am I going to do with my life after basketball. And to trivial things- I really likes those shoes I saw online this morning. Should I buy them?

Then I would worry "am I doing this right?"or judge myself for being "a really bad meditator." Which got me stuck on that thought even though I was trying not to think.

Slowly though I learned to notice my thoughts and then do something that felt really weird LET THEM GO!.....without judgement, without emotion, without leading to another thought.

And I still practice this because it is a PRACTICE and a process of training your mind to not 'go' with every thought that pops into your head.

A mentor, Dr. James Hollingworth, taught me that meditation is like teaching a puppy to walk on a leash. The...

Today our meditation is a meditation exercise called 'labeling'.

Day 5: Labeling

What is labeling? Too often when we feel a negative emotion, we start becoming it without realizing it. We generally do a couple of things:

• Search for why we are feeling what we are feeling.
• Explore the depth of feeling.
• Try to change the emotion with judgement or by using the same emotion we have become. i.e. If we are angry, we then think about our anger with an angry point of view.

We become attached to the emotion, even though that attachment is causing us pain. This next meditation will teach you a really simple but very effective tool to create some distance from our emotions.

TIP: Forgetting to Meditate?Put an alarm in your phone so you'll remember to do it every day.

Get some paper or your journal, get comfortable and close your eyes. Please let us know your thoughts below. [audio mp3="http://www.positiveperformancetraining.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/CoachDay5Labeling.mp3"][/audio]...

Welcome to the 5 Day Meditation Challenge! Whether you are new to meditation or have some experience, we are excited that you are here taking this step with us towards better health, less stress, and more balance in your life. Check these four steps before you begin.

4 Steps to Successful Meditation:

1. Tune out- Turn your phone off/close your door/tell everyone to bug off!:)

2. Get settled somewhere comfortable but not so comfortable you'll fall asleep-sitting up with your head rested is usually a good position.

3. Breathe normally/comfortably- this is usually through your nose at an even pace (unless I specifically tell you to do something different such as breathe in through your nose, out through your mouth).

4. Let go- Let your thoughts come in your mind, let them go, without judgement! Just bring your attention back to your breath.

And remember, if you haven't done them already. Here are 3 steps to keeping to The Challenge: 

1. Write it down on a...

Growing up in Seattle and also living in Denver, I was excited to see a great Super Bowl game against two of my favorite teams. I felt like I couldn't lose... However, after the 1st quarter, I watched a particular interaction between Manning and his teammates and knew Denver was in trouble. You could see the frustration on Manning’s face and body language. At that point Seattle was up 8 points. (Spoiler: Seattle Seahawks ended up winning the Super Bowl 43-8)

[Tweet "The seahawks secret weapon, #mentaltraining will lead them to the superbowl again and again"]

But then I knew the game was over...

At the start of the second half when Denver came out, a friend of mine who was at the game texted me, "Denver looks shell shocked.” And he was right: you could see that they weren’t going to mount a comeback or even play like the great team they were.

The X factor was the Seahawks’ Mental Training Program:

Was Seattle that much better? No, both teams had great athletes...

Originally posted in article Volleyball Olympian Courtney Thompson on the Mental Game and Leadership, published November 26, 2014.

Volleyball Olympian Courtney Thompson on Leadership

Transcription of interview conducted by Lindsey Wilson, Positive Performance Training 

Lindsey Wilson: One of the things that we find with athletes a lot is that they struggle with leadership, there's, I mean, obviously, we can have a whole conversation about leadership, but one issue in particular is they struggle with leadership when they're not playing their best. You know, they're screwing up or they just blew it. How do you – I mean, that's one that your team probably needs it the most, right?

Courtney Thompson: Exactly.

Lindsey: So how do you maintain that leadership even if you're not doing that great?

Courtney: Yeah. It's a really hard one. But I think that's the biggest misconception in leadership, you know? The idea that one, you have to be the best player or always have to be...