Unlocking Your On-Lane Potential

The 180-average bowler who suddenly shoots 700. The weekend warrior who is running over the field at a tournament. The beginner who shoots their personal best score.

While most coaching focuses on incremental changes, the reality is that bowlers of any level are capable of bowling to their absolute potential on any given day or night. That upper limit varies based on skill set and experience, but each of the experiences I listed above shares common ground.

In this article, we’ll go through the four mental performance aspects that can help you unlock your potential. Alternatively, one of these areas might be holding you back.

Before we get started, I just want to review the idea of being in the zone, a concept often referred to as flow.

A quick note on “flow”

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi first coined the term “flow” in his book of the same title, where he examined the conditions it takes to achieve peak experience. Peak performance and enjoyment were bounded by a few rules:

• The activity requires goals and feedback.
• There must be structure and rules of some kind.
• There needs to be a sense of accomplishment associated with the activity.

In many cases, the people who achieved flow, regardless of the activity they pursued, wouldn’t necessarily describe themselves has “having fun” at the time. In fact, pushing one’s limits often brings intense focus and stress, and only after completing the activity does someone look back and say, “That was fun!”

With this in mind, let’s look the parameters of your mental toolbox that you can control to help you achieve your potential on the lanes.

Bowling in the green

I’ve already talked about the traffic lights system that I use with bowlers to evaluate their mental state. In short, the green state is essentially a flow state, where bowlers are both intensely focused while also being thoughtless about their actions. They are committed without feeling the weight of results or expectations.

In talking with hundreds of athletes over the years, I’ve identified three main areas that seem to drive peak performance: commitment, ...