Day 1: What You Think Matters

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The things you think matter. 

The most powerful tool you have at your disposal is your brain. Your thoughts are the starting point for everything you feel, every action you take and the results you are experiencing in your life. 

You spend so much time training your body. Hour upon hour strengthening your muscles, increasing your speed and honing your skills. But at the end of the day, what drives everything you do is your brain. 

And you probably aren’t even aware of most of the thoughts that your brain is thinking. Or the ways that these thoughts are affecting you every day. So many of them are so familiar, so well worn that they seem to be a permanent part of you. 

Many of these thoughts are coming from the part of your brain that puts life on autopilot. You know, the part that lets you do things without really thinking about them. So you aren’t even conscious they are there. But they are. And they are leading to the feelings you have and the actions you take every moment of every day.

Self doubt. Fear. Anxiety. All the feelings that keep you from performing at your very best. The feelings that keep you from living out the skill, talent and hard work you have spent so many years putting in.

And so one of the most transformative invitations God extends to us is the invitation to renew our minds. To change our thoughts. To focus our thoughts on the things we really want to be thinking. Let’s take a look at what the Bible has to say.

Let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect. -Romans 12:2

Whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable – if anything is excellent or praiseworthy – think about such things. – Philippians 4:8

Therefore, holy brothers and sisters, who share in the heavenly calling, fix your thoughts on Jesus, whom we acknowledge as our apostle and high priest. -Hebrews 3:1

Changing the way you think will transform you into a new person.

Changing the way you think is the way to knowing God’s will for you.

Changing the way you think allows you to focus on the things God encourages you to focus on.

Learning to change the way you think, and allowing God to change the way you think is of utmost importance to becoming the person you truly want to be.

And one of the most powerful things you can do to get the results you want in your sport. Because the skills you must learn to do both are the same.

Spend the time training your brain. Becoming mentally strong. 

So that you can hit every time. Perform under pressure. Train when it’s hard. Overcome your fears. Get everything you want out of the sport that you love. And be the person of God you want to be in your sport.

Reflect

• How aware are you of your current thoughts? 
• How aware are you of the thoughts you tend to think over and over? 
• The thoughts when you train? The thoughts when you compete?
• Have you ever thought about how much your thought life affects you? What comes up for you as you think about it

Ask God to reveal anything He has to say to you about this.

Take Action

Over the next two weeks, you will learn and practice a very practical process to work on learning how to understand and train your brain. It is also a work of God, so we will take time to invite him into the process. 

Each day we will build on a set of skills. It is incredibly important that you do the action steps in the Take Action section. Like everything else, you will get out of this what you put into it.

You can do this digitally or write it down in a notebook. Whatever works for you. Just pick a place and get started. Set aside 10-15 minutes each day for this.

Today, let’s begin by just tuning in. Ask yourself the following questions. Speak to yourself as if you are speaking to a dear friend. Curious about what’s going on with them. Listen with the same interest and compassion you would have for your best friend.

Then write down your thoughts. Ask yourself:

• What’s been going on?
• How are you doing?
• What do you care about right now?
• What are you worried about right now?
• Spend a few minutes praying over anything that has come up.