Dialed In
Do Your Best When It Matters Most
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- £11.99
Publisher Description
NATIONAL BESTSELLER
For readers of Atomic Habits and Grit, a top performance psychologist, who has coached elite athletes, surgeons, and business leaders, shares her proven plan to getting the best results when the pressure is on.
What do a major league baseball catcher struggling with pop ups, an operating room doctor tense before a surgery, and a slumping sixteen-year-old tennis prodigy all have in common? They’re elite performers who are not achieving excellence, and they’re not sure how to improve.
Enter Dr. Dana Sinclair. For more than twenty years, Dr. Dana has worked with the best of the best to improve results, from NFL, MLB, NBA, and NHL teams to IndyCar drivers and Olympic athletes. She helps performers shift their focus and deliver optimal performance in high-pressure moments that define greatness. Her methods also work for students and teachers, business leaders and managers—anyone motivated to improve. Her approach is simple: figure out what gets in your way, develop actions to address it in the moment, and then stick to the plan. It’s not about how you feel, it’s about what you do!
Now, for the first time, her method to improve performance is available to everyone. In Part One of Dialed In, Dr. Dana shares her key concepts:
-the true nature of confidence (it’s overrated)
-the difference between good routines and unhelpful superstitions
-good communicating vs. common bad advice
-why character is better than talent, and much more
In Part Two, she takes us through her three-step process for making your own performance plans, with five helpful examples to illustrate how it’s done. There are also leading questions and quick tips to help you better develop your personalized performance plan for whatever challenges you face.
Simple, smart, and effective, Dialed In is like having your own performance coach in your back pocket.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Psychologist Sinclair debuts with a brass-tacks guide to performing well when it matters most. Whether presenting in a high-stakes meeting, taking an exam, or playing sports, readers should prioritize planning over perfection and process over results, according to Sinclair. Contending that performing is foremost "about getting beyond wanting it to focusing on doing it," she dismantles common performance-killing myths (punishing self-criticism helps no one and "striving for is a script for self-defeat"); encourages readers to pin down their performance style and identify personal negative triggers; and outlines ways to overcome them (including by "shifting when you drift"—or quickly snapping out of negative thoughts by utilizing breathing and imagery exercises). Anchored by examples from Sinclair's work with athletes, professionals, and cancer patients, the guidance is empathetic and down-to-earth. She raises particularly salient points about the harms of relying on confidence alone (a "vague and intangible concept.... You might want it, but you can perform well without it") and the value of acknowledging fear without being subsumed by it. It's a valuable toolkit for readers looking to achieve their personal bests, regardless of the playing field.
