Fenzi Dog Sports Academy - EL140: Mindset Training for Dog Sports

Course Details

Ask any competitor, from any sport and they will tell you: the difference between good competitors and great competitors is mindset. When it comes down to it, all the technical training in the world will not help you with the ability to focus and get in the zone on the day of the trial. Just like we train our dogs how to focus and stay level-headed in the busy dog show environment, we need to teach ourselves those skills!

This class is for any dog sport competitor, or anyone thinking about competing in dog sports. This class will hone in on what’s important to you and your team as you work through goal setting, competition timelines, boundary setting, dealing with failure, and taking care of your team during competitions.

Throughout the class, students will get to learn about my own mental management journey and work on the skills that I have found most helpful in my competitive career. The best part is, these skills can be generalized to ANY dog sport, and really, any part of life.

If you are standing in the way of your team’s success, this class is for you! If you are ready to rewire your brain for the better, this class is for you!

If you are ready to level up in your sport, this class is for you!

Join me to take a deep dive into why you compete in dog sports and how you can be a better competitor for yourself AND your dog.

Instructor: Megan Foster

Megan (she/her) has been involved in the dog sport world nearly her entire life. Though her family did compete in obedience, agility was Megan’s passion right from the start. With over 20 years experience, she has competed with a variety of dogs...(Click here for full bio and to view Megan's upcoming courses)

Syllabus

View Full Syllabus

Owning Your Competitiveness

1.1 What Kind of Competitor Do You Want to Be?

Your WHY

2.1 Your Best and Worst Day of Agility…

Strengths list
Goal Setting

4.1 Big Picture Goals

4.2 Do your expectations match your effort?

4.3 Go after your goals - not someone else’s!

Training and Competition Timelines

5.1 Preparing for the Unexpected

Training Plans

6.1 Record Keeping

Analyzing Videos

7.1 Training & Competition Videos: When, where, why, & how?

7.3 Highlight Reels

Curious vs Critical
Focus: Get in the Zone

9.1 Your Cognitive Load

9.2 Setting Boundaries

9.3 But they’re watching me…

Walking the Course

10.1 Visualization techniques

10.2 Your Plan: Are you “saving” the run or sabotaging it?

What Can You Control?

11.1 The Almighty “Q”

11.2 Your Clear Round Rulebook

Failure

12.1 Meanings = Emotions

12.2 Failure is not the end of the story

Sample Lecture

5.1 Preparing for the Unexpected

After reading about timelines and starting to put together your one, three, and maybe even five-year competition plans, you’re all probably wondering about one thing: what about things we can’t predict?

We can plan until the cows come home, but at the end of the day, we can’t plan for injury, job changes, natural disasters, or pandemics. We must breathe and accept the things that we cannot control (more on that later).

If you only plan the short term, and something gets in your way, it is going to hit you MUCH harder, because what is there to look forward to? However, if you have three - five years planned out (and remember, that includes planning a PUPPY), then a cancelled event in the programming doesn’t leave you devastated. Sure, it stings - but you still have so much to look forward to.

When we are reacting and adjusting to changes in our timeline, we can look back, own our competitive nature, give ourselves the time for a pity party and then decide what we are going to do about it.

We also cannot always control the timeline of the dog. You can have your best intentions set, and the dog just needs more time.

This is why we video, analyze, take notes, and make changes as we see them coming. The more prepared you are, the easier these curveballs are to hit out of the park.

If you are proactive in watching your training videos and making adjustments to your training plans in the moment, you are not blindsided by a behavior “suddenly” falling apart.

There are so many things in life we cannot control, but we can control our reactions to the things that happen to us.

Assignment:

Look back on your (non-dogsport) life and think of a time that life threw you a curveball. Something changed suddenly that you had to reroute your plans around. How did you find a way forward? How did you end up better for it on the other side?

Now, apply that to your situation today with your current dog sport. We had a pandemic thrown our way. Events were cancelled. How are we going to find a way forward? How are we going to end up better for it on the other side?

Testimonials & Reviews

Read All Testimonials

A sampling of what prior students have said about this course...

Megan's Mindset class brought together so many valuable tools from recordkeeping hacks to ways to overcome the "Q gremlins" and deal with feelings of failure. She's an attentive, supportive, and brilliant instructor. Even though I've taken other excellent mental game seminars and classes, this one brought together the gifts of all of those classes as well as giving me lots of valuable ideas to implement right away. And what's really exciting is that the success of my training improved dramatically thanks to this class. Say what? Isn't this about competition? Well, yes and no. It's really about life and dogs and training. Oh, yeah, and competition too. Thank you so much, Megan!

I have enjoyed this class so much, and I have learned A LOT! This has been one of the most valuable classes I've ever taken, and it was exactly what I needed at this time in my life. I have been able to apply skills in this class to my "dog life," as well as to life outside of dogs. It affected the way I define goals, success, and failure in relation to dog sports, and it positiveily impacted the way I "self talk" and the way communicate with other people in my sport - from "critical to curious." Megan is compassionate, thoughtful, and gives outstanding feedback. This class was well-organized. Lectures were concise but also detailed enough to be helpful. Examples were clear and helped me understand the content. I would highly recommed this class to ANY dog sport competitor.

Megan does an excellent job helping students to identify and refine goals, and to turn them into actionable plans. She is very good at asking the questions in a way that help us to articulate both the goals and thepieces of the path to achieve them. You need this class in your life :-)

Awesome class! Very thought-provoking and beneficial for helping to get in a better mindset for training and competing. Megan was very supportive and worked with each student to help them work through the struggles they encountered with each assignment. Great class! I will refer back to the lectures often.

Megan has a lot of great information on how to improve your mindset for success, and was able to apply that information not only to her native sport of agility but to my native sport of flyball. I took lots of valuable information away from this class that will not only help me in my own mindset for sports, but as a leader of my flyball club for our team mindset and goals in the future.

Registration

This is a self-study class. The lectures will appear directly in your library, under the "Self Study classes" heading. Self Study classes do not have class homework forums. You will not have any access to the course instructor for questions or feedback. Please note there are no refunds on self-study classes so review all the information provided carefully before purchasing.

You will have access to these materials in your library for one year from the date of enrollment. You can keep your library pass current by enrolling in at least one course or workshop a year. Alternatively, you can purchase a library pass for $25 per year for as long as you wish to have access to prior class materials.