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Peak newsletter | This is an excerpt from The Athletic’s weekly newsletter covering the mental side of sports. Sign up here to receive the Peak newsletter directly in your inbox.
In this week’s newsletter, I asked mental performance coaches a question: What’s the smallest habit you wish players (or people, generally) would adopt that could have the biggest impact? These are my three favorite answers.
Adam Bernero, the mental performance coach for the Seattle Mariners, practically begs his players to do this.
“Just spend five to 10 minutes with yourself with no phone,” he tells them. “Just try to be quiet in your body and your brain.”
Bernero pitched in the big leagues for parts of seven seasons. This is his eighth season as the Mariners’ mental performance coach, and in that time he’s found that players often push back if he suggests they meditate.
Instead, he offers five minutes of quiet time as an easy “step one.”
He tells players to put their phone in another room, find a quiet space and just sit, ideally for five to 10 minutes.
“That helps with reminding yourself about your creativity, who you are, what you’re inspired by,” he said. “I just think we need that time for ourselves, and we don’t give ourselves any of it anymore.”
Julie Elion, who works with some of the top golfers on the PGA Tour, did something similar with one of her athletes recently. She told him to set a timer for two minutes (“I wanted five,” she said), then put his phone down and just sit with his thoughts.
“Any thought — I’m not good at this, this is bulls—, why is Julie having me do this, my back hurts — any thought at all, just notice it’s a thought,” she said. “If we have a thought that is just wasting our energy, we have to actually practice in our brain clearing the space so we can just freaking put a good golf swing on target.”
Elion emphasized that last point: It takes intentional practice and repetition to be able to encounter an unproductive thought and let it go.
“Trust me, I’m still working on this, but we’re in charge of our own reality,” she said. “If we want to create either the best place to perform or the best place to be loving to our families or the best place to relax, we’re responsible for our headspace. But we have to work at it.
“It is a muscle. It comes easier to some of us — and for most professional athletes, it does not come easy — but if you work at it, you can learn how to hold only relevant information and let everything else go.”
This one came up a lot.
Traci Statler, a mental performance coach for the Philadelphia Phillies, has players she works with use a form of journaling she calls P.O.V.
Here’s how it works:
The P stands for plan. She wants her athlete to come up with a plan every day. It must be a granular, achievable goal.
The O is the outcome of that day’s goal. Did your plan work? Why or why not?
Then she has them look at the value of that day. What was accomplished?
One common mistake: Athletes sometimes set their goals too far in the distance, making them unachievable that day. A pitcher recovering from major surgery can’t make his goal to throw a 95 mph fastball. But he can try to increase his range of motion in his elbow by two degrees that day.
“I would love it if everybody would just set a daily intention,” she said. “And then legit come back to it, follow up, ask yourself how you did and then make an adjustment for the next day. Holy s—, people would get so much better so much more quickly.”
Dr. Fayyadh Yusuf works with athletes, including Seahawks kicker Jason Myers, as well as with surgeons. He encourages his clients to write down their thoughts about their performance that day: three things they liked and one thing they want to improve.
Over time, this helps athletes (and people):
Establish and recognize patterns and themes. “If you don’t know what you need to improve,” Yusuf said, “it is a way to highlight it.”
Recognize what they bring to the table — their strengths and skills. “I want you to know those things so when it’s game time you focus on those strengths,” he said.
Hold themselves accountable. “Are you really putting the time and the work in?” he said. “Are you really doing what you’re supposed to?”
Travis Thomas, a former mental performance coach for the United States men’s national team, has heard some version of this countless times:
Player X is a great player. They just lack confidence, and their lack of confidence is holding them back.
“The more and more I do this work, the more I’m not sure that that is a healthy or necessary focus,” Thomas said. “I actually think it becomes a distraction.”
To prove it, Thomas asks a series of follow-up questions:
“Have you ever felt confident before a competition and done poorly?”
Most athletes laugh and say yes.
“Have you ever felt really nervous or hesitant before a performance and done really well?”
Again, most say yes.
Then Thomas makes his point: “So what do feelings or confidence have to do with it?”
Instead, he directs players to focus on two or three behaviors or actions that are important for success. A starting forward might say: I need to get on the ball. I need to get three shots in a half.
“Now they’re focused on the behavior of getting those three shots,” Thomas said. “They’re out of their head thinking about their feelings.
“Their feelings are their feelings, and they’re valid. But for performance, we want to shift our focus off our feelings and focus on our behaviors and actions.”
This article originally appeared in The Athletic.
Philadelphia Phillies, Seattle Mariners, US Men's national team, NFL, MLB, Golf, Soccer, Sports Business, Women's Soccer, Peak, Sports Leadership
2026 The Athletic Media Company
Continue reading...
In this week’s newsletter, I asked mental performance coaches a question: What’s the smallest habit you wish players (or people, generally) would adopt that could have the biggest impact? These are my three favorite answers.
1. Five to 10 minutes of quiet, alone time
Adam Bernero, the mental performance coach for the Seattle Mariners, practically begs his players to do this.
“Just spend five to 10 minutes with yourself with no phone,” he tells them. “Just try to be quiet in your body and your brain.”
Bernero pitched in the big leagues for parts of seven seasons. This is his eighth season as the Mariners’ mental performance coach, and in that time he’s found that players often push back if he suggests they meditate.
Instead, he offers five minutes of quiet time as an easy “step one.”
He tells players to put their phone in another room, find a quiet space and just sit, ideally for five to 10 minutes.
“That helps with reminding yourself about your creativity, who you are, what you’re inspired by,” he said. “I just think we need that time for ourselves, and we don’t give ourselves any of it anymore.”
Julie Elion, who works with some of the top golfers on the PGA Tour, did something similar with one of her athletes recently. She told him to set a timer for two minutes (“I wanted five,” she said), then put his phone down and just sit with his thoughts.
“Any thought — I’m not good at this, this is bulls—, why is Julie having me do this, my back hurts — any thought at all, just notice it’s a thought,” she said. “If we have a thought that is just wasting our energy, we have to actually practice in our brain clearing the space so we can just freaking put a good golf swing on target.”
Elion emphasized that last point: It takes intentional practice and repetition to be able to encounter an unproductive thought and let it go.
“Trust me, I’m still working on this, but we’re in charge of our own reality,” she said. “If we want to create either the best place to perform or the best place to be loving to our families or the best place to relax, we’re responsible for our headspace. But we have to work at it.
“It is a muscle. It comes easier to some of us — and for most professional athletes, it does not come easy — but if you work at it, you can learn how to hold only relevant information and let everything else go.”
2. A form of daily journaling
This one came up a lot.
Traci Statler, a mental performance coach for the Philadelphia Phillies, has players she works with use a form of journaling she calls P.O.V.
Here’s how it works:
The P stands for plan. She wants her athlete to come up with a plan every day. It must be a granular, achievable goal.
The O is the outcome of that day’s goal. Did your plan work? Why or why not?
Then she has them look at the value of that day. What was accomplished?
One common mistake: Athletes sometimes set their goals too far in the distance, making them unachievable that day. A pitcher recovering from major surgery can’t make his goal to throw a 95 mph fastball. But he can try to increase his range of motion in his elbow by two degrees that day.
“I would love it if everybody would just set a daily intention,” she said. “And then legit come back to it, follow up, ask yourself how you did and then make an adjustment for the next day. Holy s—, people would get so much better so much more quickly.”
Dr. Fayyadh Yusuf works with athletes, including Seahawks kicker Jason Myers, as well as with surgeons. He encourages his clients to write down their thoughts about their performance that day: three things they liked and one thing they want to improve.
Over time, this helps athletes (and people):
Establish and recognize patterns and themes. “If you don’t know what you need to improve,” Yusuf said, “it is a way to highlight it.”
Recognize what they bring to the table — their strengths and skills. “I want you to know those things so when it’s game time you focus on those strengths,” he said.
Hold themselves accountable. “Are you really putting the time and the work in?” he said. “Are you really doing what you’re supposed to?”
3. Focus on behaviors and actions, not feelings
Travis Thomas, a former mental performance coach for the United States men’s national team, has heard some version of this countless times:
Player X is a great player. They just lack confidence, and their lack of confidence is holding them back.
“The more and more I do this work, the more I’m not sure that that is a healthy or necessary focus,” Thomas said. “I actually think it becomes a distraction.”
To prove it, Thomas asks a series of follow-up questions:
“Have you ever felt confident before a competition and done poorly?”
Most athletes laugh and say yes.
“Have you ever felt really nervous or hesitant before a performance and done really well?”
Again, most say yes.
Then Thomas makes his point: “So what do feelings or confidence have to do with it?”
Instead, he directs players to focus on two or three behaviors or actions that are important for success. A starting forward might say: I need to get on the ball. I need to get three shots in a half.
“Now they’re focused on the behavior of getting those three shots,” Thomas said. “They’re out of their head thinking about their feelings.
“Their feelings are their feelings, and they’re valid. But for performance, we want to shift our focus off our feelings and focus on our behaviors and actions.”
This article originally appeared in The Athletic.
Philadelphia Phillies, Seattle Mariners, US Men's national team, NFL, MLB, Golf, Soccer, Sports Business, Women's Soccer, Peak, Sports Leadership
2026 The Athletic Media Company
Continue reading...
