Everyone Trains Their Bodies, Few Train Their Minds: The Missing Link to Peak Performance

Let’s start with a truth that many of us live, but few of us name: we live in a culture obsessed with performance. We measure our worth by productivity, our potential by hustle, and our success by outcomes. And we train accordingly. We train our bodies with personal trainers, our careers with mentors, our resumes with credentials. But our minds? They’re often left to fend for themselves, expected to just keep up.

If you’re an athlete, entrepreneur, student, or high-performing professional, you probably know how to grind. You probably know how to push. But here’s the irony: the thing that most often gets in the way of performing at our best isn’t physical. It’s psychological. Overthinking. Doubt. Distraction. Nerves. That feeling like you suddenly forgot everything you knew the second it mattered most.

That’s not a failure of preparation. That’s a failure to train the one thing you rely on most: your mind.

Flow State: The Mind Trained to Let Go

You’ve probably heard of flow. It’s that magical zone where time bends, your sense of self fades, and your performance rises. But flow isn’t magic. It’s a neurobiological and psychological state that comes from a delicate dance between focus, challenge, and confidence.

Flow happens when our skills meet our challenges just right. But it also depends on our ability to get out of our own way. And that, friends, requires mental training.

According to Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, the father of flow psychology, one of the key inhibitors of flow is self-consciousness—that internal narrator that questions, critiques, and second-guesses mid-performance. It’s the same voice that turns performance anxiety into paralysis. And while we can’t silence it forever, we can learn to work with it.

The Enemy of Flow: Overthinking

Overthinking masquerades as preparation. It wears the disguise of diligence. But in performance contexts, it can be disastrous. Studies show that explicit monitoring (over-focusing on technique during skilled performance) disrupts automaticity and actually degrades performance (Beilock & Carr, 2001). In other words, thinking too much about what you’re doing while you’re doing it makes you worse at it.

So what’s the antidote?

Train Your Mind Like You Train Your Body

Mental training isn't just mindfulness. It's not just visualization. It's the ongoing, deliberate practice of:

• Building psychological flexibility (Kashdan & Rottenberg, 2010)

• Practicing present-moment awareness and breathwork to regulate arousal

• Cultivating willingness over willfulness (Linehan, 1993)

• Learning how to ride the waves of discomfort rather than resist them

• Strengthening confidence through evidence-based mental rehearsal

Peak performers in every field train these skills. Olympians visualize. CEOs regulate nervous system reactivity. Musicians practice recovery from mistakes, not just perfection.

Why not you?

Mental Grit Isn’t Just Toughness—It’s Flexibility

Angela Duckworth popularized the term "grit" as passion and perseverance. But mental grit isn’t about muscling through every experience. It’s about adaptability. It’s knowing when to push, when to pause, and how to recalibrate. It’s confidence that isn’t performative—but rooted in awareness, presence, and aligned action.

It’s the difference between showing up armored, and showing up ready.

The Invitation

Whether you’re facing the boardroom, the classroom, or the arena, your performance will rise to meet the quality of your mind.

If you want to train that mind—not just to quiet the noise, but to build the clarity, confidence, and mental agility required to perform under pressure—I can help.

I’m Meagan Yarmey, PhD, MSW, RSW. I work with high-performers who want more than just coping skills. I offer evidence-based mental performance coaching rooted in decades of experience as a social psychologist and therapist. Together, we can train the most powerful tool you have.

Let’s get to work.

References:

Beilock, S. L., & Carr, T. H. (2001). On the fragility of skilled performance: What governs choking under pressure? Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 130(4), 701.

Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1990). Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. Harper & Row.

Kashdan, T. B., & Rottenberg, J. (2010). Psychological flexibility as a fundamental aspect of health. Clinical Psychology Review, 30(7), 865-878.

Linehan, M. M. (1993). Cognitive-Behavioral Treatment of Borderline Personality Disorder. Guilford Press.

Duckworth, A. L. (2016). Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance. Scribner.