Mental Toughness For Young Athletes: Eight Proven 5-Minute Mindset Exercises For Kids And Teens Who Play Competitive Sports

by Troy Horne, Moses Horne

Moses and Troy Horne here. Your mental toughness guides! If you are reading this you probably have a young athlete who struggles with in-game stress and maybe even sports performance anxiety. That is why this version was mostly written by Moses. As of the time of the writing of this book Moses Horne is a 15 year old elite athlete who can talk directly about the triumphs ans struggles of working towards being mentally tough. This is the only book that I know of with input from an actual young athlete.
My name is Troy Horne. I'm his dad. I am here to help the parents understand how to help your kiddo navigate this mental toughness journey. For more on that make sure that you pick up the Parent's guide version of this book - Mental Toughness for Young Eight Proven 5-Minute Mindset Exercises For Kids And Teens In Competitive Sports (Parent's Guide) It's super necessary. We know where you are and we know how to help you help your young athlete find their mental fortitude. We have purchased a lot of books about mental toughness in sports.
Most of the books that we read were not a good fit for young athletes because they were either written for adults or not written for youth athletes in COMPETITIVE sports . There is a difference.
Since there wasn't anything out there for elite athletes I did what every youth sports parent does when they want to help their kid. I started my own team! JUUUUST KIDDING! ( I probably should have, but I didn't believe that I would be able to do it well. I lacked mental confidence myself I guess. We talk about that in the parent's version of this book too.)
We took the long journey of ups and downs. We struggled to help our young athlete find his mental toughness. IT WAS ROUGH! Luckily along the way we found the winning formula thanks to being able to talk with sports icons personally.
We launched a podcast together called Hoopchalk Basketball Podcast and on it we interviewed sports MENTAL TOUGHNESS GIANTS like...
We studied what they did and said based on our interviews and we came up with a mental toughness plan that worked! We wrote down what worked for our young athlete and we put it in this book so that you would be able to skip a lot of the struggle and failure part. No need for everyone to struggle right?
In this book we are going to share with you what we learned from talking to NBA Athletes, NFL Athletes, EuroLeague Athletes, College Coaches, and College Athletes as well. If you answered yes to these questions then you are in the right place. This book is the answer that you have been looking for! I can say this with confidence because I have used everything that I am going to share with you in this book with my son and it has worked.
What a blessing to get the keys to mental toughness straight from greats! I look forward to sharing what we learned with you!
This stuff is a game-changer and it's made specifically for young athletes!

Genres: Sports, Parenting, Nonfiction, Self Help, Basketball, Philosophy, Audiobook

105 pages, Hardcover

Published February 15, 2021

Reviews

[Calvin Ballinger · Rating 5 out of 5]

The ultimate mental toughness guide for young athletes.

When it comes to Nonfiction Informationals I usually am not a fan. I like to read books with stories and get bored easily with this genre. Although, this book is an exception. I wanted to read this book to help with confidence in sports. I knew this book would really be helpful when in the introduction the author wrote “If you are looking for an easy mental toughness solution or an easy way to get fast results you have picked the wrong book”(p.3). Also, “Ready to fail in order to succeed”(p.4). Every chapter of this book brings a new exercise to build mental toughness. This book informed me about mental toughness much more than I had ever known.

This book was hard to put down. As I read every chapter I felt better and better about myself and my confidence. Every chapter has an exercise to build mental toughness and pre-game confidence. For example, chapter 3 explains visualization, how it works, all the successful athletes who use it, and shows you how to do it. “Before you play a game, and even before you go to practice, visualize your success either at home or in the car ride to the gym, field, or court.”(p.62). Every chapter also has a great example from a pro athlete who uses the technique. I kept building on my mental toughness skills with every chapter, and by the end I felt the most confident and game ready that I ever have. For this reason, I would give this book a five out of five star rating, I really enjoyed it.

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

8-9/10: This is basically missing some things about Mental Toughness

It’s a really good book overall, just a few things that aren’t there in the book that I read from the likes of Tim Grover relentless, but overall it’s a great book to read but you can’t really depend on a book to just give you what you need, it sets up the path, it’s your choice to take it

[Jenna · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars. good book with solid advice, but the quality of the writing isn’t the best

[Tricia Wade · Rating 2 out of 5]

2 Stars. Part of me wants to give it more stars because it's beyond obvious that the "co-writer" student had to write the entire thing and NO ONE edited it. So "way to go" for publishing a book in high school, but it was so, so painful to read. The number of errors (spelling, grammar, sentences that were not sentences, etc.) were very distracting from the actual message. I'm hesitant to hand it over to my high school athlete to read it herself. The "proven mindset exercises" were so-so. Can an athlete grab some take-aways from this book? Yes, but just read the last chapter which summarizes them all. This book also spends a LOT of time throughout advertising the website. From other comments I've seen...I'll skip heading there next.

[Khurram · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mental toughness for sucess.

Call it mental toughness or rules for success. These are what you need to succeed in life. Yes, this book is written for sports in mind and especially for younger athletes/children (teens mostly). However, the techniques are useful for anyone and can be transferred to all aspects of life. He is right it is adifficilt treck yo get kids yo read this ad my basketball crazy son will not give it a second look as he "has to pratice". However, I would encourage any parent to read this even if it is just to quote some of the greats so kids listen and maybe decide to pick up the book themselves.

[Jean · Rating 3 out of 5]

My AD asked me to collaborate on a summer book club for all of our varsity team captains. I chose this book and one other then let the captains choose which they'd like to read and discuss. This one was OK, editing in the book was not great, a lot of typos and quite a bit of repetitive phrases. The messages were good though, and led to a good discussion. The kids said they already employ most of these strategies, probably why they've been chosen as captains, so now they can share them with their athletes.

[Maria Nelson · Rating 3 out of 5]

A quick and easy read. The overall message is good with a lot of good tips to help with mental toughness in sports that can be applied to life overall as well. However, I was very distracted by all the misspelled words, grammatical errors, and syntax. It doesn't appear that anyone edited this book before publishing. I will just summarize for my kids rather than have them read this due to all the grammatical errors.

[Summer Ward · Rating 4 out of 5]

slay 🤯

I can’t believe people are rating this 2 stars because it doesn’t have correct grammar 🤠🤠🤠🤠🤠

like 🤓🤓🙄🙄😬😬😐😶

[Kaysha Hobbs · Rating 5 out of 5]

5 🌟

I would 100% recommend this book to any kid who is struggling with internal mental battles during sports! It shares some awesome ideas and exercises to try to help you become more mentally tough. As a parent I feel very enlightened and loved the statistics especially throughout the book. It helped me to be able to know how to better help my kids when they are struggling. It gave us many new tools to work with!

[Harper Simpson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I definitely agree this is a good book for any athletes any age any sport.

[Ereni · Rating 4 out of 5]

I listened to the audiobook as recommended by my daughter’s coach. Great conversation starters for our drives to-and-from practices. Short and sweet. Keeping in mind it’s target audience, I’d say it was what my teen could digest.

[Tim Baumgartner · Rating 4 out of 5]

Book Review_Mental Toughness for Young Athletes: 8 Proven 5-Minute Mindset Exercises for Kids and Teens Who Play Competitive Sports by Moses and Troy Horne

I borrowed this book from another coach at my school, and I used this with another coach during our “Life Group” (Weekly meeting to discuss anything we feel is crucial to discuss) sessions throughout the season.

Introduction:
There are 3 major mental toughness roadblocks:
Current beliefs
Peers
Other Authority Figures

Mental Toughness Myths of Destruction:
Born with it
They’ll figure it out
Mental Toughness training doesn’t work

FUN FACT: Did you know that pretty much every college and pro team has a psychologist on staff?

Ch. 1: Your Ride Or Die And You–Family Culture
Adopt and Adapt:
Don’t wait for everything to be perfect.

EX: A friend of the author said Donovan Mitchell was a walking bucket in HS. What this meant–whenever this friend played against Donovan, he scored on Donovan. Now, this friend is not playing bball and we KNOW where Donovan is!

Stay focused:
Malcolm Gladwell’s 10,000 hours of “deliberate practice” from his book Outliers.

Learn from Failure:
Think of Jordan’s commercial.
Thomas Edison said this about the light bulb invention: “I have not failed 1,000 times. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”

www.gamereadycourse.com.

Once you do the research, follow your gut!
Check out Carol Dweck’s book called Mindset.



Ch. 2: How to Strengthen Your Subconscious Mind!--Exercise #1
Making your subconscious mind work for you:
Step 1: Practice saying only what you want to be your reality
-Guard your thoughts!
-Never doubt yourself because of other people’s fears or failures
-Use your subconscious mind to overcome performance anxiety

The 5-Minute subconscious mind exercise for this chapter:
Reflect upon what you said to yourself that day. Remove the word ‘don’t’ and increase the amount of times you tell yourself what you want to see in your future. No limits.

Author recommends the Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz (which I have not been a big fan of).


Ch 3: The Visualization Workout–Exercise #2
Visualization is the exercise of seeing things in your mind before they happen–with as much detail as possible.

“Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life’s coming attractions” (Albert Einstein).

Scientific studies that prove visualization techniques work:
Once you perform something physically, then when you go back and visualize it, does similar things in one’s brain, and increases one’s abilities generally by about 20%.

Read Eleven Rings by Phil Jackson.

Ch 4: Writing Down Your Goals:
Writing down your goals ties your mental to your physical.

Why write down your goals?
It gives you clarity regarding them
It tells your subconscious mind that you are serious.
See Forbes article: “Neuroscience explains why you need to write down your goals if you actually want to achieve them”: https://www.forbes.com/sites/markmurp...
Writing things down happens on two levels: external storage and encoding. External storage is easy to explain: you’re storing the information contained in your goal in a location (e.g. a piece of paper) that is very easy to access and review at any time. You could post that paper in your office, on your refrigerator, etc. It doesn’t take a neuroscientist to know you will remember something much better if you’re staring at a visual cue (aka reminder) every single day.
But there’s another deeper phenomenon happening: encoding. Encoding is the biological process by which the things we perceive travel to our brain’s hippocampus where they’re analyzed. From there, decisions are made about what gets stored in our long-term memory and, in turn, what gets discarded. Writing improves that encoding process. In other words, when you write it down it has a much greater chance of being remembered.
Sharing your goals–it influences things for the better more than you think.
Dominican U. of California says that the group that wrote down goals is 42% more likely to achieve them! https://www.dominican.edu/sites/defau...
Goals should be daily, weekly, monthly, yearly and for a lifetime.
Use SMART goals: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-bound.

Consider the book: Goals by Zig Ziglar.

Ch. 5: Watch the Pros, Not the Joes–Exercise #4
The Little Book of Talent by Daniel Coyle talks about the Engraving Technique, which says young athletes can improve their talents if they continually and consistently watch top performers in their field perform the skills they wish to get better at doing.

The Wall Street Journal wrote about this.

Whose game do you want to resemble the most?

Ch. 6: The Meditation Workout–Exercise #5
Meditation has been known to:
Reduce pain
Reduce stress
Increase in-game productivity and ability

Making progress in concentration takes practice and time.

5 Minute practice:
Find a quiet place
Imagine yourself on the banks of a calmly flowing river
Quiet your mind
Any and every thought you experience, attach to a log and let it flow down the river
The goal is not to have an empty river, but to have fewer logs floating down the river than you did when you started. No logs are mastery level stuff!
Set a timer so there is one less thought you have to attach to a log
Keep doing this for a minimum of 10 days

See book: The Mindful Athlete by George Mumford, who helped Jordan, Kobe, & others.

Ch. 7: Learn to Play Small–Exercise #6
Playing futsal allows people to excel when exposed to bigger environments.

Karl Newell defined three primary categories of constraints: task, person, and environment.

5 Minute small exercise:
Find a way to make your practice more difficult by making the objects in your game smaller.

See the book: The Talent Code by Daniel Coyle.

Ch. 8: Practice Slower–Exercise #7
There are levels to what you do.
Remember the definition of insanity.
Ironic as it may sound, slow training is important for developing speed.

There was an ENTIRE summer that Steph did NOT shoot outside the paint!

“Practice doesn’t make perfect. Perfect practice makes perfect” (Vince Lombardi).

Remember the principle of the Weber-Fechner law: “As stimulus increases, the brain’s ability to pick out details drops.”

5 Minute exercise:
Before EVERY part of your practice, walk through it first in slow motion. THis will expose mistakes and allow for greater efficiency later.

Ch. 9: Train Rough—Exercise #8
Muhammad Ali inspired Rocky to train rough–like he did in the woods–not a gym.
You ever wonder why people like Jay-Z end up like they do? Try coming from the Marcy Projects.
A Yale study tried to identify changes the brain undergoes when it is faced with uncertainties. When related to fixed outcomes, there was less brain activity. When they were uncertain, the frontal cortex had more.

When in a new environment, you tend to be more alert. Try a new AND old(er) place to workout–at least occasionally.
Wake up early to train
Try something new (i.e. a different way to work out the same muscle group)

5 Minute exercise:
Find an “under the radar” facility and work out there (no windows, mirrors, rusty, dusty, no AC, etc.)

Ch. 10: The Cooldown
It was a review of all the chapters.

Final Words
Mental toughness is a skill that can be developed and learned.

As you get better at these 8 exercises, practice them for even longer periods of time!

[Lynn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great ideas. I would love to pass it on to young athletes but won’t do it as the book is filled with mistakes with grammar and syntax plus other blunders. This is written by a high school student! I also don’t understand why it wasn’t proof read before being published. As I said, excellent ideas but poor grammar.

[Bryce Hall]

This book covers the importance of mental toughness in athletes and gives you different things to try when you are discouraged. Being mentally tough when competing in athletics is very important and can have a big impact on your performance. The book covers 8 5-minute mindset exercises that allow athletes to reset and forget about the past.

[FantasticBooks · Rating 5 out of 5]

Recommend to any young athlete out there <3

[Life Changer · Rating 4 out of 5]

When it comes to non-fiction informationals, I usually am not a fan. I like to read books with stories. Although, this book is an exception. I wanted to read this book to help with confidence. Every chapter of this book brings a new exercise to build mental toughness. This book informed me about mental toughness much more than I had ever known.

This book was hard to put down. As I read every chapter I felt better and better about myself and my confidence. Every chapter has an exercise to build mental toughness. This book has really helped see that you don’t need to be great to start, you just have to start to be great. The book encourages enjoying the creative process, which is crucial for a fulfilling artistic journey.

Written by a seasoned professional with more than 20 years of experience developing young talent, this book provides an incredibly insightful and useful guide for developing mental toughness. Young readers are kept fascinated and driven by the author's compelling writing style and well-structured information, which make complicated topics easily understood. His methods for responding to criticism are really helpful in transforming criticism into a tool for growth.

Any young artist who wants to build the mental toughness necessary to succeed in their artistic activities should read this book.

[Jamie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not particularly well-written, but it has mostly good counsel for young athletes. Some of the advice is obvious, some not so much. I'll just bullet point some of the good stuff that I can remember after having finished the book a few weeks back:

-you have to be willing to work more than anyone else
-practice should be harder than the game/competition
-don't allow negative thoughts into your subconscious mind - control your thoughts b/c the subconscious mind can't tell good thoughts from bad ones; it works with whatever you feed it
-uncertainty is good for learning - get out of your comfort zone if you want to learn a new skill faster, stability stops the brain from learning
-importance of visualization - increases confidence and decreases performance anxiety

Things I didn't like:

-how often the author plugged his gamereadycourse website
-the author loves basketball, so he uses lots of basketball analogies/stories
-not a fan of meditation and its connection to Hinduism - I wouldn't recommend this to my young athletes

I listened to the audiobook narrated by co-author Moses Horne, son of Troy Horne.

[Sue · Rating 5 out of 5]

💪 “Mind Over Game – And It’s a Slam Dunk!”

Okay, listen up — this book rocks! Mental Toughness for Young Athletes isn’t just another pep talk; it’s like having your own hype team in paperback form. Moses (who’s only fifteen!) keeps it real about the ups, downs, and air balls of sports life, while his dad Troy brings in the parent wisdom that actually makes sense. The stories about Kobe and the “don’t quit” lessons had me cheering like it was game night! I loved how each chapter gives you quick mindset workouts — no boring lectures here, just action and attitude. If you’ve got a young athlete who freezes under pressure or loses love for the game, this book is the comeback play you need. 🏀🔥

[Abigail L. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Practical, real, and exactly what young athletes need.
Mental Toughness for Young Athletes is one of those books that actually speaks to kids instead of at them. I really liked how Moses, a young athlete himself, shares honest stories about failure, fear, and growth — it made the advice feel genuine, not textbook. The examples from legends like Kobe Bryant and Serena Williams really hit home, showing that confidence isn’t born, it’s built. What stood out most for me was how simple and doable the exercises are — five minutes a day to shift a mindset feels empowering, not overwhelming. I enjoyed this book because it gives both kids and parents a roadmap for handling pressure and staying motivated without all the fluff.

[Geraldine · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great Confidence Booster

I, myself, am a young athlete and I can tell you right now if you’re thinking of getting this book for your Young Athletes GET IT! This book has really helped see that you don’t need to be great to start you just have to start to be great. This book was suggested to me by my parents who are my biggest supporters and they are always there for me. They always want the best for me. If you’re thinking of getting this book for your athlete take from me a Young athlete, this book is a real confidence boost

[Alecia · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5/5.0
8 exercises to control stress and anxiety in sports, according to the author (a professional musician, TV actor, Broadway star) and his basketball-playing son:
1. Mindset
2. Strengthening the subconscious
3. Visualization
4. Write down goals
5. Watch videos of pros
6. Meditation
7. Learn to play small
8. Train rough
Good ideas but desperately needed an editor to decrease repetition and increase detail for a young audience.

[Tugrul Can · Rating 3 out of 5]

The author shares many interesting examples from a variety of sports and also his personal experience as a father of a young athlete. There are also many psychology and neuroscience references but I was not sure if the author was qualified in those areas. Maybe, a more scientifically sound book, ideally co-written by a professional coach/trainer and a well-published neuroscientist/researcher would have been better. I still enjoyed the book as a starter on the subject.

[Keara Ruel · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5-4stars. ⭐️

What I liked:
1. Quick and easy to read (the work you need to put in from reading will not be easy)
2. Laid out in a way you can go back and easily find specific skills you want your athletes to work on

What I didn’t like:
1. Wordy at times, even so it was a quick read
2. Self-promotion at times was a bit much

Worth the price and time of reading it. I know I will be using some of these skills for my kids

[Christina · Rating 4 out of 5]

The message of this book is great. My son has already benefited from the mental toughness exercises. The only issue I have is with the lack of editing. I read the book along with my son and I found the grammar and spelling mistakes to be distracting. I would be interested in an updated and edited copy!

[Francis · Rating 4 out of 5]

A bit tough to review. The authors (a father and his teenage son) explain different strategies to improve a young athlete’s mental toughness. They tried to explain how this works, using professional athletes from a variety of sports. I plan on picking up the parent version to see how I can help encourage my son.

[Claudia Miranda · Rating 2 out of 5]

My dad made me read this as punishment after yelling at my mom and doing bad on the golf course. (Lol) This book is definetly catered towards sports other than golf- That’s not to say that it isn’t applicable to it. To sum it up: meditate and understand your game before it starts, self affirmation, rid of bad influences during and before the game, and practice on what you need to work on.

[Chantel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Quick easy read. It speaks to junior high/high school age. Some good ideas and pointers. I read it to review before passing to my 7th grade. He seems to be connecting with it. It was a little light from my perspective.

[ellie · Rating 4 out of 5]

i originally started this book a while ago and just remembered to finish it, but i started reading it bc i had some tough training. the first half of the book was really the important part and the second half only works for certain sports i feel like. but overall good book with a good message.

[Ashley Randall · Rating 5 out of 5]

I want Molly to read this book so I read it first to make sure I agreed with everything in it. Wow. What a good book for young athletes!!!! So encouraging and I really think these techniques will help Molly out in the future!

[Celie Cochran · Rating 5 out of 5]

had to write a book report over this for my volleyball team, thought it would be dreadful and just another thing adults tell us like "just be confident" "be a better teammate," but this book is so much more than that, and it puts the points in great different ways for young athletes.