If I tell you not to think about a pink elephant, there is a good chance a pink elephant immediately appears in your mind.
Now try harder not to think about it.
Usually, that only makes the elephant more difficult to ignore.
It is a simple example, but it says a lot about how our minds work. Trying to force a thought out of your head can actually give that thought more attention. Research on thought suppression has shown this rebound effect: the harder people try not to think about something, the more likely that thought may be to return.
For athletes, this matters more than people may realize.
Strength and conditioning is obviously physical, but long-term athletic development does not begin with the weight on the bar, the exercises written into a program, or the number recorded during testing.
It begins with mindset.
It begins with what an athlete believes, how they think, and how they respond when something becomes difficult.
Your thoughts influence your actions. Your actions become habits. Those habits, repeated consistently and intentionally over time, ultimately shape how you develop.
Science behind will power
In graduate school, my mock thesis focused on willpower.
I wanted to understand what controlled it, why it appeared stronger in some situations than others, and whether willpower was purely psychological or if there was also a physiological component behind it.
At the time, early research on self-control proposed that willpower operated somewhat like a limited energy supply. One influential study argued that acts of self-control reduced blood-glucose availability and that restoring glucose could improve performance on later self-control tasks. This became part of what was commonly called the glucose model of willpower.
That research helped shape how I viewed willpower.
It suggested that self-control was not simply a matter of someone being mentally tough or mentally weak. The ability to control attention, thoughts, emotions, and behavior could also be influenced by what was happening physiologically.
However, science continued to develop.
Later researchers questioned whether short periods of mental effort actually depleted enough glucose to explain a meaningful reduction in self-control. Replication attempts produced mixed results, and reviews challenged the idea that willpower can be explained by a simple glucose tank that becomes empty whenever we think hard or make difficult decisions.
That does not mean physiology is unimportant.
It means the relationship is more complicated.
Willpower is influenced by physical energy, nutrition, sleep, stress, motivation, expectations, attention, and what people believe about their ability to continue. The mind and body are not separate systems. What happens psychologically can affect the body, and what happens physically can affect how we think and behave.
One of the more interesting studies found that the effects of consuming glucose depended partly on what people believed about willpower. Glucose improved later self-control primarily among people who believed willpower was a limited resource. People who did not view willpower as easily depleted were less dependent on that boost.
That is an important distinction.
I would not say today that every negative thought simply drains glucose out of your bloodstream, or that having a growth mindset automatically keeps glucose at an optimal level. The research does not support making the claim that directly.
The larger point still holds, though: what you believe about your ability to handle effort can influence how you respond to that effort.
Willpower can be understood from both a psychological and physiological perspective. Your beliefs may not eliminate fatigue, but they can influence how quickly you interpret fatigue as a reason to stop.
The Backwards Law
This brings us back to the pink elephant and what is sometimes referred to as the Backwards Law.
The more desperately you try to force yourself to feel confident, the more you may reinforce the belief that you are not confident enough.
The more you try to eliminate every uncomfortable thought, the more attention those thoughts can receive.
The more you believe every training session must feel great, the more threatening an ordinary difficult day can become.
Athletes naturally have negative thoughts from time to time:
“I am not strong enough.”
“I am behind everyone else.”
“I cannot do this.”
“I am going to mess up.”
The goal is not to pretend those thoughts never happen. It is also not to fight with every thought until it disappears.
The goal is to recognize the thought without automatically giving it authority.
A thought is not always a fact.
You can feel uncertain and still perform the next repetition with intention.
You can become frustrated and still listen to your coach.
You can be disappointed in a result and still return ready to work.
You can recognize that someone is currently ahead of you without deciding that you will never catch up.
Mental strength is not the complete absence of negative thoughts. It is the ability to manage your response without allowing those thoughts to determine your effort, attitude, behavior, or identity.
The Meaning You Give a Challenge Matters
Two athletes can experience the same difficult training session and interpret it completely differently.
One athlete may think:
“I struggled today, so I must not be very good.”
Another may think:
“I struggled today, so there is something here I need to improve.”
The training session did not change.
The athlete’s interpretation of it did.
That difference matters because our interpretation of an experience can influence motivation, effort, confidence, stress, and whether we remain engaged.
A growth mindset does not mean pretending everything is positive. It does not mean ignoring weaknesses, acting like failure does not bother you, or repeating motivational quotes until you believe them.
It means understanding that your current ability is not necessarily your permanent ability.
Strength can be developed.
Movement can be improved.
Coordination can be learned.
Confidence can be built.
Technical skills can be practiced.
You may not be where you want to be yet, but that does not mean where you are today determines where you will finish.
Research on stress mindset supports this general idea. People who viewed stress as something that could potentially help them respond and perform showed different behavioral and physiological responses than people who viewed stress as entirely harmful. In one study, a stress-is-enhancing mindset was associated with a more moderate cortisol response and a greater willingness to receive feedback.
A larger series of six randomized experiments also found that an intervention combining a growth mindset with a more productive understanding of stress improved stress-related thinking, cardiovascular responses, daily cortisol patterns, psychological well-being, and other outcomes among secondary and college students.
The lesson is not that mindset makes difficulty disappear.
It changes the meaning assigned to the difficulty.
An athlete who interprets a racing heart, nervousness, or physical discomfort as proof that something is wrong may experience the situation as a threat.
An athlete who understands that the body is preparing to meet a challenge may be better positioned to direct that energy toward the task.
The physical response may be similar at first.
What the athlete does with it can be completely different.
Negative Thinking Has a Physical Side
Negative thinking is not just a motivational issue.
Repeatedly dwelling on mistakes, imagining the worst possible outcome, or turning one difficult experience into a permanent judgment can influence the body’s stress response.
Cortisol is not automatically bad. It is a hormone the body uses to help mobilize energy and respond to demands. Training itself can increase cortisol because training is a form of stress.
The issue is not that athletes should never experience stress.
The issue is remaining mentally stuck in a threat response longer than necessary.
Research has associated rumination—the repeated mental replaying of stressful thoughts—with altered cortisol responses, including a faster rise or slower recovery in certain situations. The findings are not identical across every study, but they support the idea that repeatedly rehearsing stress can extend its physiological effects.
Research during exercise has also examined how positive, neutral, and negative self-talk can influence perceived effort and cortisol responses.
This does not mean an athlete should fake positivity.
There is a major difference between productive honesty and destructive thinking.
“I did not execute that well” is honest.
“I am terrible at this” turns one result into an identity.
“I need to become stronger in this position” provides direction.
“I will never be strong enough” removes the possibility of development.
“This is difficult” recognizes the demand.
“I cannot handle difficult things” gives the demand control.
The words athletes repeat to themselves matter because those words influence how they interpret the situation and what they decide to do next.
Acceptance Is Not Settling
Acceptance is sometimes misunderstood in competitive environments.
Athletes may think accepting where they are means lowering their standards or becoming comfortable with being average.
That is not what it means.
Acceptance means being honest about your current position without believing it is permanent.
Maybe an athlete lacks strength in a certain position.
Maybe their movement quality needs work.
Maybe they struggle with coordination.
Maybe their confidence falls apart when they are evaluated.
Maybe they become frustrated when something does not come quickly.
Those are not permanent labels. They are starting points.
Ignoring a limitation does not make it disappear. Becoming ashamed of it does not improve it any faster.
Once athletes can honestly recognize where they are, they can begin doing something productive about it.
You cannot build effectively from a reality you refuse to acknowledge.
A growth mindset does not remove accountability. It makes accountability more productive because the athlete can recognize a weakness without allowing that weakness to define them.
Mindset Creates Consistency
Long-term athletic development requires consistency, and consistency is heavily influenced by mindset.
It is easy to work when training is exciting, confidence is high, and improvement is obvious.
The real challenge is continuing to work when the athlete is frustrated, tired, distracted, or going through a phase where development is less noticeable.
An athlete who believes every session must feel perfect will struggle to remain consistent.
An athlete who understands that every session has a purpose is more likely to continue showing up.
One workout does not define an athlete.
One difficult week does not erase months of development.
One testing result does not determine an athlete’s potential.
What matters is the pattern created over time.
Consistency allows athletes to build movement quality, strength, speed, power, coordination, confidence, and body awareness. It gives the body enough repeated exposure to adapt and gives the athlete enough opportunities to learn.
There is no single workout that can replace months and years of consistent training.
That is why mindset matters.
Athletes have to learn how to value the work even when the work does not provide immediate validation.
Consistency Must Be Paired With Intention
Showing up is important, but simply being in the room is not enough.
Training should be performed with intention.
Athletes need to understand what they are working on, why it matters, and what quality execution should look like.
A warm-up has a purpose.
A technical repetition has a purpose.
A lighter training day has a purpose.
Recovery has a purpose.
Not every training session is designed to prove what an athlete can do.
Some sessions are meant to teach. Some are meant to build. Some reinforce technique. Others prepare the athlete for more demanding work later.
Long-term athletic development is not about constantly testing the athlete or trying to produce impressive numbers every time they enter the weight room.
Testing provides information.
Training creates adaptation.
The two should not be confused.
Consistency creates the opportunity to improve. Intention determines what the athlete gets from that opportunity.
Development Is Bigger Than Numbers
Numbers are valuable in strength and conditioning.
They allow coaches to track change, identify limitations, evaluate training, and make better decisions.
But numbers are not the entire athlete.
A larger squat does not always mean the athlete is more prepared for their sport. A higher number produced through poor movement, unnecessary risk, or constant testing may look impressive without representing better development.
Training should support performance, physical health, confidence, and mental well-being.
The goal is not simply to create athletes who can produce impressive numbers in a controlled environment. It is to develop athletes who can apply their physical qualities in competition, remain healthy enough to participate, respond to adversity, and continue developing over time.
That requires more than strength.
It requires patience, self-awareness, resilience, discipline, coachability, and perspective.
Numbers should provide information. They should not determine an athlete’s self-worth.
Athletes can be proud of a personal record without needing it to prove their value. They can be disappointed by a result without allowing it to destroy their confidence.
The number is part of the picture.
It is not the entire picture.
Mental Well-Being Is Part of Performance
Mental well-being should not be treated as something separate from athletic development.
How athletes think affects how they prepare, recover, communicate, compete, and respond when things do not go their way.
There will always be another level to reach.
There will always be someone stronger, faster, older, more experienced, or further along in their development.
That is why athletes need to understand that ambition and gratitude can exist at the same time.
You can want to improve while appreciating how far you have come.
You can recognize a weakness without believing you are weak.
You can have a difficult training day without deciding that everything is going wrong.
You can want more for yourself without being miserable about where you are now.
Gratitude does not remove competitive drive.
It gives that drive perspective.
Coaches Must Model the Mindset They Teach
Coaches play an important role in creating this type of environment.
Qualifications and education matter. Coaches should understand programming, movement, physiology, recovery, and long-term athletic development.
But qualifications and personal example are equally important.
A coach who expects discipline, consistency, accountability, self-control, and intentional effort from athletes should work to demonstrate those same qualities.
Practicing what you preach reflects character and integrity.
Athletes notice whether a coach’s actions match their words. They notice preparation, body language, communication, consistency, and how the coach responds when things do not go according to plan.
A coach should not expect athletes to manage frustration, accept feedback, remain disciplined, and continue learning while being unwilling to do those things themselves.
Knowledge allows a coach to create a plan.
Character gives that knowledge credibility.
The strongest coaches continue learning, take care of themselves, hold themselves accountable, and live by the standards they ask others to meet.
Qualifications matter.
Personal example matters.
One should reinforce the other.
The Mind Leads the Process
Physical development may eventually be measured through strength, speed, power, movement quality, availability, and athletic performance.
But the process begins in the mind.
It begins with what athletes believe is possible.
It continues through how they interpret challenges, respond to uncomfortable thoughts, and approach the work in front of them.
Athletes do not need to eliminate every negative thought.
They need to learn how to recognize those thoughts, maintain perspective, and choose a productive response.
That is how a growth mindset becomes more than a motivational phrase.
It becomes consistent action.
It becomes intentional training.
It becomes the ability to face a limitation without allowing it to become an identity.
Progress starts with mindset because mindset influences everything that follows.
What you believe affects how you think.
How you think affects how you act.
What you repeatedly do—with consistency and intention—ultimately determines how you develop.
Research Referenced
Crum, A. J., Salovey, P., and Achor, S. Rethinking Stress: The Role of Mindsets in Determining the Stress Response.
Gailliot, M. T., and colleagues. Self-Control Relies on Glucose as a Limited Energy Source.
Job, V., Dweck, C. S., and Walton, G. M. Beliefs About Willpower Determine the Impact of Glucose on Self-Control.
Vadillo, M. A., Gold, N., and Osman, M. The Bitter Truth About Sugar and Willpower: The Limited Evidential Value of the Glucose Model of Ego Depletion.
Wegner, D. M., Schneider, D. J., Carter, S. R., and White, T. L. Paradoxical Effects of Thought Suppression.
Yeager, D. S., and colleagues. A Synergistic Mindsets Intervention Protects Adolescents From Stress.
