Lifting: Is there any sport as mentally taxing as ours? True, one can argue that any sport requires diligent focus and positive mentality, but this is most especially true in weightlifting where the difference between making lifts and missing them can often come down to mindset. Far too many capable athletes have been destroyed by negative thoughts, never having reached their potential because they were unable to control their mind.
 
The good news is that positive mentality can be developed. I encourage all lifters to work this skill as hard as they train their bodies. Every minor decision in training and on the platform builds over time until a lifter has either reinforced a weak mentality or built a strong mindset. Those who work to control their emotions emerge victorious. Growth mindset trumps negativity, and you’d be hard-pressed to find a great athlete who doesn’t possess this mentality.
 
So how do you change your mental approach to training? How do you become a lifter with a growth mindset?
 
Choose a Daily Mission for Your Training
 
Some people have daily mantras; lifters need daily missions. Though I hope that your training sessions are wonderful more often than they are arduous, there will be days, sometimes weeks, when the grind will wear you down. It’s an inevitable part of a weightlifter’s life.
 
Enter the daily mission.
 
If you elevate your mentality, difficult training sessions can feel like progress. For instance, instead of getting frustrated when you miss lifts, switch your mindset. Break the lift down and focus on one small chunk. Maybe you need to ensure that your knees are back as the bar passes. You can do that on every single attempt. Miss or not, you’re improving that element of your lifting, and this will make you grow by leaps and bounds when you do finally make it out of the grind.
 
Make it your personal mission to never leave the gym feeling defeated. As much as you are there to strengthen your body, it’s strengthening your mind that will bring you to new heights. Learning to set smaller, daily goals that you can stick to will lead to the development of a more positive mindset overall. When you can achieve this positivity, you’ll find that you are capable than more than you’d imagined, in and out of the gym. Added bonus: the grind will probably end sooner than if you keep berating yourself for missing lifts.
 
Chase Perfection Rather that PRs
 
I’m just going to say it: I’m flat out sick of watching lifters attempting PRs on the daily. I don’t care where you live in the world, there are gyms where people waste their time competing every day, and there are gyms where lifters train.
 
I know, I know! But aren’t we supposed to compete every day? Doesn’t competition make us stronger? Yes, but there’s a time and a place for it. The majority of your time should be spent committed to training.
 
If you attempt to PR every day, you may once in a while. But your numbers will increase drastically if you focus on perfecting your technique while training instead. For example, if you find that your midline goes soft in the dip of your jerk, concentrate all of your energy on keeping your core tight for every jerk you take. That way, when you do attempt a PR (which should happen every so often!), you’ll have stronger midline stabilization which translates too, you guessed it, greater lifts and bigger PRs.
 
Train when you’re training, compete in the gym (occasionally), and perform on the platform.
 
Find Success in Failure
 
So, what’s a lifter to think when months of preparation are for naught and you don’t perform on the platform? It’s happened to all of us. You’ve been ultra-committed to your training. In the weeks leading to your meet, you feel yourself peaking. You might hit lift after lift at the gym, a sure sign that you’ll be at your best when meet time comes. Then, bam, the nerves get you, or you wake up feeling less than your best that day. For whatever the reason, you just don’t deliver on the platform. You’ve failed.
 
But have you?
 
This happened to my husband at the American Open Series 1. He cut weight too hard, leaving his strength depleted. He managed to make it through snatches, even attempting a PR, but by the time clean and jerk came around, he was drained. Not only did he bomb out, he went out in style. I can’t tell you how many times we’ve laughed rewatching the video of him nearly passing out on the platform.
 
But there were successes, too. For the first time ever, he attempted to snatch 137kg. And he was pretty darn close to making the lift! With some slight technical correction, it’s his. It was a beautiful miss from a guy who’d never snatched more than 130 kg in a meet.
 
Guess what happened the next time he competed? He easily hit 135 because he knew how close he’d been to hitting that 137. Even without making a successful PR attempt at the AO Series 1, he managed to shift his perspective for future lifts.
 
And about that weight cut? Well, he learned a lot about how dehydration and caloric reduction impacts his strength. Yes, he’ll need to make cuts for future meets, but now he’s armed with vital information about what doesn’t work for him. You can bet that he’ll be more strategic with making weight in the future.
 
So, it wasn’t a total failure, bomb out or not. It was an experience. And in every experience, there is something to learn that will make you better. Thus, if you find that every time you compete, your nerves exacerbate technical errors in your lifts, guess what: You now know exactly what to correct in your next training cycle. You’ve made progress by competing. That’s not a failure. It’s all about growth mindset, people!
 
Learn to Refocus When Things Don’t Go as Planned
 
This mindset is key when it comes to competitions. Lifters need to be able to put the past behind them, and quickly. You have to be ready to go- even if you just messed up on that last warm-up attempt.
 
It’s about being present in the moment. What happened five minutes ago doesn’t matter. Maybe you did miss your third snatch, but now it’s time to switch gears. You’ve still got clean and jerks.
 
There can be a number of things that go wrong in a day. A friend of mine recently had car failure on the way to a meet. He was stranded an hour away with battery problems. It was by sheer luck that I was judging a later session and able to pick him up. Still, he had to leave his car at a random gas station knowing that the next day, he’d need to coordinate getting a ride back and spend money to fix it. Even worse, he barely made it to the meet before weigh-ins closed.
 
And you know what? He went six for six, bested his total, and qualified for Nationals.
 
He owes this to his mindset. He visualized successful lifts instead of perseverating on difficulties. Ironically, another lifter in the same meet also had car trouble. That lifter blamed their poor performance on the stress. And that is the difference that distinguishes champions: Performers zero in on the here and now, no matter what’s happening around them.
 
The Take-Away
 
The good news is that whether or not you are currently a champion, you can develop the skills to maintain a positive mentality. Start each training session by setting your daily mission. Master those small goals in training each day so that when the time comes to perform, you are a stronger, more developed lifter. If, despite your preparation and positive mentality, you fail on the platform, see the lesson in it. Realize that sometimes you can learn even more from failure than from success. Assess the situation, then refocus for the rest of your attempts on the platform and in future training sessions. Master this positive mentality, and watch how you’ll grow as an athlete.