To help you stay focused and manage a complicated schedule, here are some tips for organizing your time as a student-athlete.

1. Keep Your Eyes on the Prize. Whether or not you want to go pro or to the Olympics, academics should be your No. 1 priority in college.

2. Prioritize What’s Important.

3. Study Wisely.

4.Don’t Be Afraid to Ask for Help.

Set Goals: Everything has to start with this process.. Set goals for what you want to achieve in your sport and in school. Many people skip this step, and just progress toward vague goals (“get better in my sport”) or accept the default goals in front of them (“graduate high school or college”). Anything exceptional that has ever been done didn’t just happen; it started out as a dream.

Plan: In order to accomplish your goals you have to zoom in a little closer and decide what specific steps you have to take. This could be deciding how many times you are going to lift weights a week, or how many professors you want to have a strong relationship with by the end of college. One step I began 3 years ago  to get the most out of planning is to take an hour every Sunday to plan out the next week. This allows me to prepare physically and mentally for my busy schedule.

Sleep: One of the most important things to develop is your sleeping habits. The National Sleep Foundation recommends that the average 18-20-year-old needs 8-10 hours sleep each night. Presumably, a college athlete would be toward the higher end of that. The effects of too little sleep are endless.  If you wait for sleep to happen instead of being proactive about when you go to bed, you probably aren’t getting enough.

Keeping Up the Resolve: It’s easy to do all of the above for one week, or even a few weeks. However, long classes and hard training can wear you down to the point where you don’t want to put the effort in anymore. It will happen, and you need to plan for it! The best way to handle these moments is to find a way to focus on your goals. Visualize yourself achieving your goals, or make a vision board.

Most of the times that you lose the willpower to stay disciplined is because you’ve lost sight of the connection between the hard work that needs doing and the payoff you will eventually have.

ARE YOU ALWAYS WORRIED ABOUT MAKING MISTAKES IN GAMES OR PRACTICE?

DO QUIZZES, TESTS, AND EXAMS FRIGHTEN YOU?

IS FEAR DESTROYING YOUR CHANCES OF SUCCESS?

DOES YOUR CURRENT MINDSET HOLD YOU BACK?

Get immediate access to the EDGE. A course that guides the student-athlete with systems and strategies to take Effective Action, develop Discipline, Grow mentally, and Expand reflectively.

Right now, you’re in a place to achieve championship confidence. It’s time to smile and be happy about your performance.