- Image courtesy of thenile.co.nz
Terry Orlick, PhD's In Pursuit of Excellence is a great resource for people who are looking to improve upon their skill or trade. Orlick takes on the mental aspect of excellence and success in this book, looking at the ways in which elite sportsmen and sportswomen mentally approach training and competition as well as how they view success, failure, difficulties, slumps, hot streaks, and numerous other aspects of competition.
The main idea of this book is focus--be able to control your focus and you will be better able to control your actions. Also tied in are the ideas of commitment, mental readiness, positive images, confidence, distraction control, and ongoing learning. All of these areas are explored in detail with suggested exercises of how to improve in each area as well as pages upon pages of documented interviews with some of the best-performing Olympic athletes and how they approach these topics.
This book is great to skim for topics and information that are relative to yourself and then read those sections in greater detail. There feels to be a fair amount of repeat information if you actually try to read it cover to cover, so you may just want to skip to the areas that are most applicable to you.
As far as books on elevating performance both in sport and life are concerned, I think this one has to be up there in terms of its immediate applicability to your daily life and routines. If you are feeling like you aren't getting the most out of your abilities, it may be time to starting working on what is happening inside your head. This book would be on my list of possible places to start.
I recommend this book to anyone who wants to be better at what they do.
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