By Mindset Mike for FloCombat

You’ve read other #MindsetMonday articles that talk about controlling your controllables like effort, attitude, and aggressiveness.  

We’ve told you to not get caught up in winning or losing, the hype, records, and rankings. Instead, keep a laser focus on yourself.  We’ve told you to “Do Harm and Improve” at all times during the fight.

So what can you focus on if those tips aren’t enough?

 Let’s learn from UFC strawweight champion "Thug" Rose Namajunas and her use of auto-suggestion.  During her training and her fights against Joanna Jedrzejczyk, she would constantly speak her mantras: confidence, conditioning, composure, content, be a champion. 

Auto-suggestion helps train your subconscious mind to remain in a good mindset, but also to keep your focus on the right things  

Don’t get caught up fighting someone else’s style—focus on yourself. Our five suggested words are: pace, position, pressure, poise, positivity. 

These are five things you can tell yourself over and over during training and competition to keep you focused on the action qualities that will lead you to a strong performance. 

Let's dive in.

PACE

It’s your pace or no pace. 

Not every fight requires or warrants a high pace, although some fighters, like Kevin Lee, definitely benefit from it, as shown during his TKO win against Edson Barboza.  

However, the focus here is that your pace has to be a consistent intensity. You can’t start slow, and you certainly can’t cool off, so one must maintain a strong intensity that either increases or at the very least is maintained throughout the fight.  

Something to remember: Never get caught up fighting at someone else’s pace. It’s your pace or no pace.

POSITION

It’s your position or no position. This is one of the most common mistakes fighters and grapplers make—fighting in the other guy’s positions or spending the whole fight avoiding those positions.  

The focus needs to be on using what you are best at to create opportunities. You cannot wait until the opportunity presents itself. 

By focusing on your own abilities to create opportunities it: 

1. Puts them on the defensive 
2. Causes them to give you the positions they want 
3. Makes them uncomfortable 
4. Forces them to make mistakes 

If you find yourself in a place you don’t want to be (in a particular tie up or position), you have to get out of it immediately. Never be in complacent state. You need to aggressively seek out the positions you want, improve them, apply pressure, and do harm to your opponent at all times. 

PRESSURE

Pressure can be applied in many forms and can take people out of their game quickly, similar to only allowing the fight to take place in your favorable positions. Here are a few other ways:

1. Forward pressure – Like a lion stalking their prey, forward pressure puts people on the defensive and makes them react to you. This was clearly seen in both of Barboza’s recent fights against Khabib Numagomedov and Lee, except he was on the receiving end.

2. Do harm (Painful Pressure) – When you have the ability to apply physical pressure, do it. Whether it is a shoulder in the solar plexus against the cage, grinding someone’s face when you’re on top, or constantly maintaining top control, you must always look to do harm. Pressure makes a fighter feel like they’re drowning and leads to their will breaking much quicker. 

3. Constantly improve position – This doesn’t mean jumping from position to position or forcing a takedown. Instead, it is a relentless mentality of always controlling and improving the position. Sometimes, that means maintaining and applying physical pressure, while other times that means maintaining top control and hip pressure when your opponent is desperately trying to escape. 

POISE

You must always display focused, confident body language before and during your fight, whether you are winning, losing, dead tired, or barely surviving. 

Consistent poise under pressure can keep your focus dialed in, uplift your spirits, and crush your opponents. This starts in your daily training, because how you practice will influence how you compete. 

Conor McGregor did this well against Chad Mendes at UFC 189. McGregor took a beating Round 1 and barely survived being finished, but as soon as the bell rang, he would pop up before Mendes and act like nothing fazed him. He even talked smack throughout, like “That’s all you got?” 

That wears down on your opponent's will because they start doubting their ability to finish you, they question their own conditioning, and they start making a downward spiral. 

That’s exactly what happened in the Mendes vs. McGregor fight. Kyle Bochniak also did the same against Zabit Magomedsharipov at UFC 223.  He was getting dominated throughout the fight, but he never stopped moving forward, never looked tired, and never showed weakness.  That may not have affected Magomedsharipov in this instance, but it certainly affects many other opponents, especially as the rounds progress. 

You can take an opponent into deep waters quickly by never showing weakness and by showing only strength. 

POSITIVITY

A consistent positive mindset where you only focus on what you can control, move forward, and prioritize what you’re doing well without letting negativity creep in is a tremendous psychological tool.

Don’t worry about whether you won the last round. Don’t worry about what the scorecard looks like or the fact you got knocked down twice. Focus on the positives, the silver lining, what you will do next, and how stoked you are to be doing what you love.

Want to stay positive during camp and the fight? Focus on these three things. 

1) Having fun – You get to punch people in the face for money. How cool is that? Enjoy the moment and have fun beating someone else up.

2) Effort and Attitude – Fight as hard as you possibly can with a never-quit attitude. Watch how far that gets you.

3) Be Thankful for the Opportunity – Again, you get paid do you have you enjoy/love.  Whether you’re winning or losing the fight, whether you’ve won or lost, be thankful you have earned the opportunity to compete. 

Mindset Mike is the director of Martial Arts Mindset, a systematic mindset training program used by many professional fighters in the UFC, Bellator, Legacy, Invicta, and other major promotions. For more information on the program or the concepts presented, sign up for a FREE trial session at www.martialartsmindset.com. 

Follow on Twitter at @mindset_mike and Instagram at @ mindset_mike, @martialartmindset and @wrestlingmindset