How long before something changes?

Individual tools work immediately: a breathing sequence or a start ritual is something you can try on the water the next day. Before a change holds and survives a bad day, it takes longer. A typical mental training project runs between three and twenty-four months. Three months when a specific occasion lies ahead of you. Two years when you want a development accompanied across several seasons. What suits you is something we settle in the first session.

Do not expect a straight line upwards. Experience shows that mental training can first lead to a dip in performance before the improvement sets in. Anyone who changes established routines temporarily loses the automatic response they have relied on. That is normal and not a sign that something is going wrong.

It is, however, the reason why short-notice intervention shortly before a competition is not advisable. Start two weeks beforehand and you risk racing right through the dip.