“I celebrate a victory when I start walking off the field. By the time I get to the locker room, I’m done.”

Wise advice for athletic coaches and athletes, at any level, from retired and celebrated University of Nebraska head football coach Tom Osborne. Osborne amassed an amazing 255-49-3 career record during his 25-year head coaching stint with the Cornhuskers, including NCAA Division I national championships in 1994, 1995, and 1997. He knows a little something about winning.

What’s the point? Coaches and athletes need to do everything in their power to move forward from completed games and place total focus on the next contest. That can be a daunting challenge after a win, loss, or tie, and whatever else happens, but critical for the kind of ultimate success such as that achieved by Osborne.

A question that should be posed to, and discussed, with athletes of all ages.

The correct answer: The game you’re playing in or the one you're getting ready for. There’s not a thing you can do to change the outcome of past contests. Ruminating on the past is like rolling around in the ashes of a fire. Doing that distracts from the task at hand. Dwelling on future competitions, beyond the current contest or the one being prepared for, is another pointless distraction from the present moment.

Typically, we think of losses and poor performance as the biggest mental distractions in competition. The frustration, annoyance, head hanging, and self-pity, that obscures focus on current performance or preparation for the next game.

Something else that can be a mental distraction, especially for young athletes, is the dwelling on joy and excitement of winning and successful performance. It’s called “emotional clinging” in psychological terminology.

Youth coaches frequently deal with this daunting distraction, exhibited by their young athletes, and often inadvertently add fuel to the fire by failing to model moving-on behavior to........

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