Athlete Mindset: Wayne Gretzky’s on the Athlete Mindset

Known as “The Great One,” Wayne Douglas Gretzky made NHL history over his twenty-one-year career and set himself apart as one of the most accomplished professional athletes. Born in Brantford, Ontario, Canada, Wayne started playing junior hockey at a young age. At age seventeen, the World Hockey Association drafted Wayne for the Indianapolis Racers; the WHA eventually folded, and Wayne’s next team, the Edmonton Oilers, joined the National Hockey League.

After playing for the Oilers for a decade and breaking NHL records, the league traded Wayne to the Los Angeles Kings, and he played for them from 1988–1996. In 1996, he played for the St. Louis Blues before heading to the New York Rangers as a free agent. He gave three years to that team before ending his superstar NHL career. Heralded as one of the best ice hockey players of all time, the Hockey Hall of Fame admitted Wayne upon retirement in 1999, having led his teams to four Stanley Cup championships. Wayne was the Phoenix Coyotes' head coach, breaking multiple scoring records. He also worked on numerous Winter Olympics hockey teams.

An athlete mindset is a form of mental preparedness that helps athletes train, face opponents, and perform at their best. The greatest athletes have their own athlete mindset, which may vary from person to person, but the central tenets stay consistent. These may include strict warm-ups and practice regiments to accomplish daily, steps to improve mental performance, and ways to reward hard work. Hence, athletes know when to check out and prioritize their well-being and mental health.

This mindset is something elite athletes curate to achieve their peak performance, although everyone from high school athletes to world-class Olympians may create their version of this growth mindset. In sports, mental skills are just as necessary as physical ones, so this mindset is instrumental in fueling a player’s self-confidence and preparing them for future games.

The athlete mindset offers a way to:

• Create rewards: Athletes create mile markers to celebrate meeting their goals. This lets them take time off to recharge and recenter, and in future difficulties, these rewards act as a reminder of past successes.
• Establish milestones: Athletes cannot achieve significant career goals in one day. Long-term goals require planning, which is why milestones are essential. They are the stepping stones for athletes to work toward to see their success unfold.
• Maintain wellness: An athlete’s mindset helps athletes to practice discipline and helps to separate the sport from personal life. A healthy perspective protects one’s overall health.
• Practice consistently: The athlete mindset also has athletes set their regimens. Routines allow predictability and consistency, which can be comforting in a fast-paced and demanding workout schedule.
• Train harder: Having the mental strength to know limits lets athletes push themselves safely. The athlete mindset invites trainers to set schedules, so goals are doable instead of pressurizing.

“You miss one hundred percent of the shots you don’t take.” — Wayne Gretzky

Wayne Gretzky shares how to develop a sterling athlete mindset. Consider Wayne’s tips:

1. 1. Celebrate teamwork. As the old saying goes, there is no “I” in team, but more importantly, internal competition can corrode athletic spirit and victory. Wayne says, “For the success of any championship team, there has to be a commitment as a group that you’re going to be the hardest-working group and the hardest-working team to play against.”
2. 2. Develop a routine. Routines can be hyper-specific to each athlete. Beyond superstitions, routines give a sense of sturdiness to one’s practice and structure to one’s day. Wayne says, “I always found that the routine was the best thing. I really didn’t change my routine from the time I was a youngster to the day I retired. You know, for me, it was putting on the skate: the left skate first, and then putting in my left shin pads, and then putting on my right skate, and my right shin pad.”
3. 3. Hone mental strength. Mental preparedness is as vital as physical preparedness. It is easy to get distracted, and mental strength is crucial to the athlete's mindset. “You have to have the right frame of mind,” Wayne shares. “You have to be strong-willed, and you have to believe that the practice you’re putting in and the time you put in is going to make you a better player and a better team the next day.”
4. 4. Practice, practice, practice. Every athlete must put in the time to make it to the big leagues. “Whether you’re a professional athlete or an athlete playing for fun, that repetition is everything,” Wayne says. “Practice is part of the makeup that makes great athletes. I don’t think any great athlete in the world will sit here and tell you that they don’t practice hard.”
5. 5. Set attainable goals: “I think the reality is to make our goals attainable one step at a time,” Wayne says. Players can set themselves up for success by working backward from a goal. If someone is training for a marathon in four months, that runner may consider what they need to do each day to maintain stamina and finish 26.2 miles in a way that works for their body. Unattainable goals can dampen spirits because the person who set them may not be able to reach them.
6. 6. Take the shot. Wayne’s famous quote, “You miss one hundred percent of the shots you don’t take,” speaks about the importance of taking chances, which is applicable in and outside the hockey rink. “The quote is unique in that Glen Sather and John Muckler, the coaches in Edmonton, my father, Walter, some of my teammates—the one thing that they would continuously tell me [is], you should shoot more. You got to shoot more,” Wayne says. “You should get more selfish. You should shoot more.”

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