PERFORMANCE mindset is talked about a lot in the sport industry. They say in most sports that up to 90 per cent of preparation is between the ears. In other words, you can do all the physical work but if you aren’t prepared mentally, it becomes very difficult to tap into the skill set you have hardwired into your brain and body. Unfortunately, it took me a long time to become a true believer in the importance of mental preparation.

Since I was a little tacker, my entire identity was wrapped up in playing sport. It was what I did and who I was. In my mind, if I didn’t win, I’d failed. If I didn’t see improvement, I felt shame. If I didn’t have a great performance, I’d beat myself up about it for days. As I got older, it got worse.

Yes, there’s no doubt this approach gave me the motivation to be a better athlete and person, but it came with the consequence of never being in the moment. It cost me friendships outside football and genuine connection with my family. I just couldn’t switch off from sport. I brought it home with me and it sat on my shoulders, often weighing me down.

With two AFLW seasons this year, it’s been even more crucial to nail the mental side of the game. Energy and emotional levels needed to be well managed. As I’ve often learnt the hard way across seven seasons now, energy isn’t endless. Tiredness and fatigue accumulate and, without little rest periods, by the late rounds you are absolutely cooked.

For the past year I’ve been lucky to work with a great sport psychologist, and as a result I’ve enjoyed my football more than ever. One of the key things that has made footy my happy place again has been the work we’ve done on my mindset leading into games.

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Pre-game routines play a huge part in this and certainly make it easier, but preparation for a game always takes a conscious effort, requiring a lot of attention and self-awareness.

In a team sport, it’s interesting to see how different individual preparations can be, depending on what works for them. Take my Melbourne teammates for example. Tayla Harris likes to write in her notebook. Veteran Karen Paxman puts on her jumper under her warm-up top when she arrives in the changerooms. Olivia Purcell does hours of movement and mobility before a game.

I used to think I didn’t have a routine because I wasn’t a superstitious athlete. I didn’t need a certain meal before a match, nor did I need to tie my right shoe before my left. As my sports psychologist pointed out, the mere fact I didn’t think I had a game-day routine meant I actually had one. It was my homework to look closer at my preparation to see what made me tick, and I found something I could consistently replicate regardless of whether it was a home or travel game.

One of the best things I’ve learnt, and which I continue to work on, is to get into a mindset that allows me to be open to all possibilities. This means being OK with things when they don’t go to plan. I’ve found this acceptance particularly important during some of the long weeks this season. It has kept me in the moment more consistently and away from trying to be “perfect”. After all, everything is imperfect, and it’s about harnessing that.

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I’ve needed to steer away from my natural thought process that if I do everything right leading up to a game, it will, should and must mean I’ll perform well. That thinking allows no room for error and creates a lot of pressure, and it’s also wrong because nothing guarantees a great performance. Good preparation just gives you the best chance of playing well. That phrase, “best chance”, allows for all possibilities.

For perfectionists like myself, this concept is hard to understand because it’s so important to us to have control. We think the more control we have, the more we can determine the result. However, it’s a dangerous way to think. A few years ago, I’d get really annoyed and frustrated if it was raining or the weather was bad on game day, because I felt the game had to look a certain way for me to succeed. I really struggled to embrace these challenges because I was too busy trying to be a meteorologist!

It’s taken time, but letting go of outcomes has helped me. Now I focus on being the best teammate, consistently coming out of myself to support others, and contributing to a bigger team cause. It has made me less uptight and emotional on game day. I don’t try to control everything anymore – I just let things roll while ticking the boxes of my preparation.

On game day, if I can get a little walk and some reaction work with a bouncy ball in the morning, that’s great. If there’s a pool or an ocean I can get in to move around and freshen up, even better. For night games, I always try to have an hour-long nap in the afternoon.

Caffeine is my best friend. I’ve always used it to help me get fired up to play. I usually have two long blacks during the day and at least two NoDoz caffeine tablets before the bounce. During our final indoor warm-up, I drink a can of Coke, which adds that last little sugar hit before running onto the ground.

The only element of my preparation that’s fixed is visualisation. I never used to believe in it, but it’s another thing I’ve picked up from my sports psychologist that helps drive “process” thoughts. For me, that means using cue words to execute certain skills. For example, if I want to take a mark, I don’t visualise the mark in its entirety. I break down the process of getting to that point: reading the ball, footwork on approach, knee drive on the launch.

There are many challenges for players to navigate to perform well, but I firmly believe the biggest battle is between the ears.