For anyone who is serious about the sport that they play there are a multitude of things that can go towards you either having a fantastic game or event or an awful game.
The beauty of amateur sport is that when you wake up in the morning you never know which way the sporting day is going to turn, will it be one of those fantastic days when everything goes to plan and you can do no wrong or will it be one of those gut wrenchingly horrendous days when you wonder whether you should have made the effort to get out of bed in the first place and other people think that it is probably the first time that you have played.
If you are a sportsman you will understand both of those feelings.
Of course we can train to make our sporting performances better but as an amateur there is only so far that practice will take us for rest we have to rely on the gods.
So what can we do to try to ensure that we get the maximum performance out of our game more often than not? The first thing that we need to understand as mere mortal sportsmen and women is that we are not perfect and we should never expect to be, take the bad days on the chin and learn from any mistakes that you may have made.
Be honest with yourself, do not kid yourself if you were awful look at where you were awful and make a mental note to improve that side of your game next time.
The very worst thing you can do is hang yourself up on your mistakes, when you do this you will find that your mistakes get harder to rectify, let it flow and come as natural as possible, the more focussed and relaxed you are the easier it is to put right any faults in your game.
Cardiovascular sports such as running, cycling and rowing are as much about mental toughness as they are fitness.
You need to train your mind to go through the pain barrier when your lungs and your legs are telling you to stop, and stopping would be the easy option to take, that is when you need the toughness to push on through the pain.
This is what improves fitness and performances.
No champion was ever born great, they all trained harder than their competition to get where they are, the difference is that some people are tougher mentally and are able to train harder for longer.
Most sport has an element of mental toughness about it but not all in the same manner.
Take golf for instance, one of the most popular games in the world where people are openly encouraged to dress like village idiots and hit a small ball over miles and miles of open fields, trying to get the small ball into a cup situated in the ground.
Golf is one of the mentally toughest sports around, the action of swinging your golf club in a perfect arc to connect with the ball and hit it as far as possible is all about body mechanics, but the slightest hesitation when swinging and the ball can be sent of in any direction.
The mental side of golf is ensuring that you are completely relaxed with your action and are pragmatic if it comes to the point where you have to change it.
Many of the worlds greatest golfers have had problems with their swings at some point in their careers so it is not surprising that many a mere mortal weekend country club golfer can have the odd problem here and there with their technique.
Many people's answer to their golfing problems is to change their golf equipment to resolve the problem, in reality changing ones golf equipment is, if anything, less likely to resolve the problem as you will have to get used to a whole new set of golf equipment which is probably going to create more problems than it will resolve.
Mental toughness and relaxation are the keys to moving your game play up a notch, if you can get these two parts of your game right you will have an instant advantage over your fellow competitors.