How to Define Success Before a Competition

The short answer. Decide what success is before the competition starts, and build it from things your athlete controls: one physical or technical capability and one mental one, executed to a standard they set themselves. Afterwards, measure against that definition and nothing else.

Why the outcome is a poor definition

You can win and still feel terrible about how you competed. You can lose and feel pretty great about yourself. Most athletes already know this. Ask one and they will often tell you about a good tournament that didn’t pan out on paper.

So we don’t define success on outcomes. We define it by how the athlete executed on their capabilities.

When the result is the only score, every competition is a verdict on them, and that is where a lot of the pressure comes from.

An athlete who walks in knowing exactly what success looks like today, and knowing it is in their hands, has a clear image in their head of what to execute.

The alternative is a generic mission with no clarity, and that leaves room for worry and uncontrollable “what if” scenarios, and lets anxiety and fear creep in.

Competition is for strengths

Bringing skills in is the whole point of practice. Letting skills out is the whole point of competition. They need opposite mindsets, and the four phases of performance are how an athlete moves between them on purpose.

That is why a definition of success is built from strengths only. Strengths executed at a high level are what make champions champions. Weaknesses are not for competition. They are for practice, next week.

The build: five questions, and they answer all of them

This is a conversation for the days before, not the morning of. You ask. They answer. If you find yourself supplying the answers, stop and ask again. (Why it has to be theirs.)

“What are the things you know you’re a monster at?” Let them list them.

One note as you listen: these need to be capabilities. They can be physical, mental, emotional, technical or tactical, as long as they are things your athlete has full control over and has proven to be really freaking good at.

And pay attention to how the list comes out. If they can’t list their strengths just as fast, and just as specifically, as they can list their weaknesses, they may be falling into the trap of only paying attention to the things they suck at.
“Give me one physical or technical capability, and one mental capability, that if you execute them at a high level, you will compete well.”
Check each one. Can they see it in their own imagination? Is it something they do? Will they be able to know, afterwards, that they did it?

“Be consistent” and “stay focused” fail all three. Those are outcomes, not capabilities. (The same test applies to every instruction they hear, including yours.)

“Staying low through every shot” passes. So does “getting big and taking up space after a mistake.” Simple enough to write on a strip of tape, specific enough to see.
“At the end of the competition, what level of execution do you want to be able to say you hit? Out of 10.” Their number, not yours. Pride in execution is the only thing that tells you their view of how they performed, so let them set the standard.
“If you do those two things at your standard, will you compete well? Will you be proud of yourself?” If the answer is yes, you are done. If it is no, go back and redefine until they can say yes without hesitating.

Does it need to be more complex than that? It does not. Look how simple it is.

What you do with it

Before the competition: nothing more. It is theirs.

During: those two things are what you watch for. What you focus on in the stands is what they carry into the arena.

After: nothing for 24 hours. And nothing means nothing: no opinions, no drilling questions. Allow them to come to you with their own voice.

If they want to talk, it’s a gift. If they ask for your opinion, let them know that the time for decompressing and learning doesn’t happen until tomorrow.

Then, when tomorrow comes, one question first, “what’s your pride level in executing those two things?”, and you are measuring against the definition they set, never the score. The whole after-competition conversation is here.