ELIMINATE THESE TWO PHRASES

I got this from my friend Sefu Bernard at the LLABB.  It's interesting insight on self-talk and how it can effect your effort, energy and more importantly your habits:

Mental mistakes. If you want to minimize them, then take these two phrases out of your vocab:

1. IT’s – “I’m tired”
2. DFLI’s – “I don’t feel like it.”

If you do, I’d argue that you will have essentially removed over 50% of the negative mental habits you’ll face as a high performance athlete. Those two phrases are typically the tipping point for a downward spiraling conversation, in thought, that’s not in the best interest of any athlete – or coach for the matter – interested in optimal performance.
These phrases are (self-) sabotaging.

Why 50%…?

Good question! It’s probably more. I just like to under-promise and over-deliver.
At the end of the day, from having worked with thousands of athletes at all levels of the performance spectrum, both male and female, I’ve noticed that there’s an ever so subtle difference between the ones that excel amidst adversity and the ones that get ‘stuck in the muck’ of the common challenges faced in elite sport.

Little Things Make A Big Difference

Tired, bored, down, headache, sore, bad day, hard test, mad, frustrated, break up… Awesome! That’s the life of a high performance athlete.

Every athlete that’s playing competitive sports is going through a similar set of challenges. (In fact, to take it a step further, someone, somewhere, would love to have YOUR problems!).

Flip the mental script. Learn to think about adversity differently. It’s a choice. Think of it as an opportunity to respond famously to a less-than-ideal situation.

The athletes that are able to perform at consistently high levels, when it’s most required, think about themselves and their circumstances differently than their teammates and competitors.

This is only a portion of Sefu's blog post -- you can read it in its entirety here.