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“The Process” of Performance: How a process-oriented mindset can help with mental performance and wellbeing

Jun 5, 2025 | The Performance Edge

“The Process” of Performance: How a process-oriented mindset can help with mental performance and wellbeing

As the parent of a competitive or high performance athlete, you witness first hand the demands your athlete faces daily: training, competing, school, family, personal expectations, risk of injury, and competitive stress and pressure!

Here’s a Secret – The #1 reasons athletes seek out mental performance support is to gain more confidence.

The Solution – The most important guiding principle to building and maintaining confidence, and enhancing performance and wellbeing is “The Process”.

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What Is “The Process”?

“The Process” is the consistent, deliberate effort to focus on controllable actions that drive growth and excellence. It shifts the focus away from unpredictable outcomes and emphasizes daily habits like skill mastery, mindfulness, and intentional practice. It is also those daily habits of sleep, nutrition, hydration, rest, recovery and maintaining our mental health.

“Success is peace of mind, which is a direct result of self-satisfaction in knowing you did your best to become the best you are capable of becoming.”

John Wooden’s philosophy not only boosts performance but also builds emotional stability by reducing stress linked to external pressures and outcomes.

How Do They Talk About “The Process at the Next Level?

How Can You Support Your Athlete?
As a parent, your role in fostering “The Process” mindset is pivotal. Here’s how you can help:
  • Celebrate Effort, Not Outcomes
    Recognize and reward the daily habits and consistent effort your athlete puts in, rather than focusing on outcome related goals such as statistics, playing time, comparing to other athletes, etc.
  • Encourage Mindfulness
    Help your athlete practice present-moment awareness. We like to call this “Neutral Thinking” or focusing on the next thing you need to do! Breath work and breathing can help them stay connected on the process when it is lost!
  • Be Their Accountability Partner
    On tough days, remind them of their goals and the importance of sticking to their routine and having elite habits (sleep, nutrition, hydration, rest, recovery, and maintaining mental health, etc.).
  • Provide a Safe Emotional Space
    Listen without judgment and offer support when they face challenges, encouraging them to see these moments as opportunities for growth by taking on the challenge.

“The Process” is more than a strategy for sports—it’s a life philosophy. By helping your athlete focus on the controllable and embrace consistent effort, you not only support their mental performance but also protect their mental health. Remember, success isn’t defined by trophies but by the satisfaction of knowing they gave their best effort every day.

What does “The Process” look like?- “The Process” is like a bank account – Each day in training you make deposits to withdraw on gameday!

How Can You Support Your Athlete?

As a parent, your role in fostering “The Process” mindset is pivotal. Here’s how you can help:

  • Celebrate Effort, Not Outcomes
    Recognize and reward the daily habits and consistent effort your athlete puts in, rather than focusing on outcome related goals such as statistics, playing time, comparing to other athletes, etc.

  • Encourage Mindfulness
    Help your athlete practice present-moment awareness. We like to call this “Neutral Thinking” or focusing on the next thing you need to do! Breath work and breathing can help them stay connected on the process when it is lost!

  • Be Their Accountability Partner
    On tough days, remind them of their goals and the importance of sticking to their routine and having elite habits (sleep, nutrition, hydration, rest, recovery, and maintaining mental health, etc.).

  • Provide a Safe Emotional Space
    Listen without judgment and offer support when they face challenges, encouraging them to see these moments as opportunities for growth by taking on the challenge.

Action Plan

This week’s action plan includes asking two questions to ask your athlete to help them stay process focussed. Then when they waiver, remind them of these questions and their answers!

  1. What does your world look like when you’re focused on the outcome?

    • Likely it is……stressed, panicked, socially comparing, etc.

  2. What are the demands on you as an athlete?

    • Training, competing, traveling, school, family, etc. Whatever they view as demands, that is where they should focus their efforts, and create a process to approach them.

Then do an inventory of the Practice Behaviors of a Process Mindset. Which ones are their strengths, which ones do they need to work on?

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