What makes an athlete perform at the highest level consistently?

Motivation plays a key factor in an athlete performing at the highest level consistently as in being able to keep on motivating yourself throughout you career and setting key goals whether there are short term goals or long term goals either way these will ensure that you stay motivated, also making sure that your goals are realistic and to continuously strive to them goals until you achieve them once achieved then moving onto the next. Another key aspect is confidence, confidence comes from experience having the experience in certain situations whether that may be that you are behind in a game and being able to comeback from behind and have the confidence to do so. also having self-belief and believing that you can achieve what you are setting out to do and being able to have this self-belief throughout a long career. Imagery plays an important part in making an athlete consistently perform as being able have good preparation and rehearsal using ‘prompts and visualizing any contingencies that arise for example any barriers or problems or difficulties of their competition’ as stated by (Hagger, 2013) certain athletes may use this as it will help them build their confidence and picture it into “existence” these being many examples that may play a key factor on performing at the highest level consistently throughout an athlete’s career. On a personal level as a rugby league payer I like to use all of these areas of motivation to improve my game and to ensure that I have the confidence as player and that inner belief that when I go into a training or a game that I believe that I can overcome any problem or scenario that is put in front of me.