After my run today I am thinking about the relationship between mindfulness and mental coaching. Balance is key. Mental coaching helps the athlete improve and maintain their abilities to increase and then to maintain their performance. Developing and maintaining strong mental skills can be the differentiating factor between what makes an athlete an elite athlete. Breaking through mental barriers is a part of this but also maintaining this breakthrough. We live in a nonlinear non-equilibrium environment which is always changing and mental coaching can help maintain the athlete’s mental edge by helping the athlete learn how to be and stay in the best psychological state of mind. This is how to influence the athlete’s emotions and behavior. What goes on inside the athlete’s mind will influence everything the athlete does in training and in competition. Mental coaching helps the athlete learn to understand, manage, and use the brain in an effective way to achieve peak performance. Mindfulness is how to maintain this. Balance between mindfulness and mental performance coaching comes with guided, consistent effort.