📺 FAN MENTALITY

Ignore the Crowd

● OBJECTIVE: to stay in the present moment by avoiding the "hype" & "fan mentality"

As an athlete, you cannot approach the sport as a fan. Fans get involved in "the hype"—the importance of the competition, streaks, wins, losses, box scores, slumps, records, predictions, rankings, and stories of individuals.

Fans spend countless hours gathering information about their sport on television, listening to radio, reading articles on the internet, participating in forums, debates, gambling, etc. The "fan mentality" and "the hype" pull athletes far from the present moment.

⚠️Common "Fan Mentality" Behaviors

Strong examples include:

•Checking the rankings frequently
•Checking opponents' box scores
•Reading forums or social media discussions
•Spending excessive time looking at brackets
•Watching too many of your opponents' matches
•Obsessing over records and predictions

📝Exercise 1: Identify YOUR Fan Mentality

Identify "fan mentality" and "hype" that you engage in. Writing down the fan mentality within yourself and hype you get involved in, will give you a good idea what you will avoid.

Fan mentality and hype you frequently engage in:

[ Be honest - what fan behaviors do you engage in? ]

Examples to consider:

• Do I check rankings daily?

• Do I research opponents excessively?

• Do I read forums about my sport?

• Do I obsess over bracket possibilities?

• Do I watch opponent videos constantly?

🛡️Exercise 2: How You'll Respond to Hype Around You

It is important to know how you will deal with circumstances when other people begin to talk about the hype in front of you. Sometimes you can walk away, but other times it's right in your face.

Identify people and situations that bring about the fan mentality and hype and how you will respond to seeing newspaper articles, interview questions, and people around you talking about records, rankings, and predictions in front of you.

Hype Around You	How You'll Respond
[ Situation 1 ]	[ Your response strategy ]
[ Situation 2 ]	[ Your response strategy ]
[ Situation 3 ]	[ Your response strategy ]

💡

ATHLETES COMPETE, FANS SPECTATE!

The difference between champions and everyone else is focus. While others obsess over rankings, predictions, and hype, you're focused on YOUR preparation, YOUR technique, YOUR mental game. When you avoid fan mentality, you stay present. When you stay present, you perform your best. Let others talk about the hype—you focus on the work!

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