For years I heard “just be strong,” but nobody handed me a map. My dad always said, “We reward winners, but nobody teaches you how to get back up.” That stuck with me.
I have always been very interested an a holistic approach to coaching rowing. Training an athlete for competition is much more than reps, intervals, and sets. The mental skills for rowing are an essential part of the athlete’s toolkit and also applicable universally as well. After all, winning races is important, but there is a larger goal and vision for the athletes that we coach.
As a result, I have created various diagnostics over the years to help the clients that I work with have a sense of where they are in their journey to life and health wellness to where they are as competitive athletes.
I’ve recently updated one of my diagnostics, specifically aimed at helping competitive athletes.
The result of the work is a synthesis of various skills and knowledge I have picked up as a result of being an educator at Holland Hall School in Tulsa, OK.
Along with my 37 years of experience in rowing, both as an athlete and a coach, I have been privileged to be involved with some professional development that has provided new perspective and skills to help me advance as a teacher and coach.
This experience includes work with the Competency‑Based Learning (CBL) with the Global Online Academy and Mind/Brain education with the Center for Transformative Teaching and Learning.
As a side note, you might find my series of articles discussing executive function and how it relates to coaching and athletes helpful. It was inspired by work with the CTTL led by Glenn Whitman.
As a result of these experiences and also time in the launch, and classroom my thinking around performance diagnostics has evolved.
What follows is my current thinking as it pertains to preparing athletes for high performance.
Mental Skills For Rowing
Goal Setting
What It Is:
The ability to set meaningful, measurable, and challenging goals that guide training and racing.
Mastery Outcome:
Athletes consistently set specific process and performance goals, track their progress, and adapt their goals with intention. They stay focused across training cycles and demonstrate long-term commitment to personal growth.
Self Talk
What It Is:
The internal dialogue athletes use before, during, and after training or racing to influence focus, confidence, and effort.
Mastery Outcome:
Athletes consistently set specific process and performance goals, track their progress, and adapt their goals with intention. They stay focused across training cycles and demonstrate long-term commitment to personal growth.
Imagery (Visualization)
What It Is:
The use of mental rehearsal and visualization techniques to improve technique, confidence, and performance.
Mastery Outcome:
Athletes create vivid, multisensory mental images of technical execution and race-day scenarios. They use imagery to prepare, self-correct, and boost confidence in both training and competition.
Focus
What It Is:
The ability to concentrate on the task at hand and remain present, especially under stress or distraction.
Mastery Outcome:
Athletes maintain concentration across long workouts and through intense race moments. They recognize distractions quickly and redirect focus to performance cues and technical execution.
Self-Regulation
What It Is:
The ability to recognize, understand, and manage one’s emotions—before, during, and after training or competition—in ways that support optimal performance and well-being.
Mastery Outcome:
Athletes remain composed under pressure, skillfully applying tools such as breathwork, mindfulness, and reframing. They respond, rather than react, and maintain emotional balance even in high-stakes moments.
Resilience
What It Is:
The capacity to bounce back from setbacks, disappointments, and tough workouts with a growth-oriented mindset.
Mastery Outcome:
Athletes view failure as part of learning, respond to adversity with persistence, and stay engaged in training despite obstacles. They recover faster mentally and emotionally from challenges.
Athlete Self Assessment
Athletes are able to self-assess where they are in each of these six categories by self-evaluating their present understanding and behavior by answering a series of questions.
As a result, scores can be developed to see where areas of strength lie and where there are opportunities for growth.
Learning Progressions
Once scores have been calculated, the one step that I felt has been missing from my diagnostics are clear learning progressions for each sub skill on the diagnostic for mental skills for rowing.
I have written a few articles about my experiences with competency-based learning, because it is the one of the concepts that I believe has changed my educational practice the most significantly in recent years.
Here is one such article about my journey to applying CBL in my classroom.
I have found CBL to be truly universal in how it can be applied.
In essence, I find it helpful to create learning progressions because this ideation process allows me to think through the learning outcomes I am seeking, and identify where the students and athletes that I am working with are. The act of thinking deeply and analyzing the core skills around any discipline or pursuit can help deepen understanding of a craft. I have discovered that this process often results in the ability to develop a better learning environment for students and athletes.
I’m not going to publish all of the learning progressions here, because I want to preserve my IP. That said, I can provide an example of a learning progression in relation to goal-setting.
Skill | Not Yet (I can…) | Beginning (I can…) | Emerging (I can…) | Advanced (I can…) | Mastery (I can…) |
1. Goal-Setting
Setting meaningful, measurable goals to guide training and racing. | …show up and complete workouts even if I haven’t set specific goals yet. | …identify general goals that motivate me to row and stay active. | …set short-term goals and reflect on them occasionally during training. | …create SMART goals and adjust them based on how my training is going. | …consistently set clear goals, track them, adapt with purpose, and use them to guide long-term growth. |
The example here shows what a goal -setting learning progression might look like. There are a few things of note. The overall competency for the diagnostic might be:
“Mental Toughness For Rowers – I can identify, measure, and strengthen the key psychological skills—goal‑setting, self‑talk, imagery, focus, emotional regulation, and resilience—that drive peak rowing performance.”
As I have previously mentioned, I am taking the point of view that this competency breaks down into six different areas. As a result, there are six different progressions one for each sub skill of the competency.
Other aspects to notice, is that a specific progression is an “I can….” statement. This is intentional to provide a positive re framing on the progression. The focus is on what an athlete CAN demonstrate with their mindset skill rather than what they can NOT do.
The Road Map For Progressions - Mental Skills For Rowing
I remember on one occasion after my mother had taken the 3D Life Fitness Diagnostic, she had just one question – “Now What?”.
That got me thinking about providing resources and learning materials so that advancing where a person is on the learning progressions could be achieved.
As a result, each skill progression is tied to resources that have been researched that can provide scaffolding to improve in a skill progression.
The essential question being: What activities, experiences, work etc do we need to provide for athletes to achieve the learning outcomes and progression toward mastery?
Reflections On The Creative Journey
One of the favorite books that I have read this year is The Creative Act – by Rick Rubin. It’s one of those books that while you are reading it you can, in real-time, observe your metacognition improving, changing, and opening to new perspectives. It’s the kind of reading experience where I could sense I was evolving as a person and thinker. A newfound sense of freedom and confidence can be found in these experiences. An important take away from the book is that you can put a creative work out into the world with a certain intent. However, you cannot control the way that other people receive or interpret that work. I am mindful of this every time I put out a new article or blog on my website.
A trusted friend reviewed the documentation for my diagnostic and commented that I had “Rick Rubined” this tool. He was right. It is when we are able to transfer what we have learned to different domains, and make connections between different concepts and ideas that creativity can break free and wisdom can be gained.
When I reflect on the journey I have taken in my coaching and teaching over the past twenty-seven years. The threads have woven together in a way that I would not have seen in the future. When we take time to reflect and make those connections, useful tools such as this one can be created.
I’ve had some positive feedback from parents when I introduce this diagnostic to them, I find it best to present to parents before asking buy-in from the athlete. One parent remarked that she was grateful that her child has taken the diagnostic and done well on it, because they were about to leave home for a prolonged period of time for the first time in their life. The results of the diagnostic provided confidence that their child was ready to navigate the challenges of being away from home for the first time.
I write this on the eve of going back to teach for the 28th year of my career. New possibilities and opportunities await. I can’t wait to see what the next evolution might be in my work as a teacher and coach. Onwards!
