(by Alan Chu, Ph.D., CMPC, ISSP-R)

2026 Mental Training Tip

It’s that time of year again. The excitement of January’s fresh start has faded. Your training plan, which felt so clear and motivating six months ago, now feels either too ambitious or somehow beside the point. Your match results are… fine. But fine wasn’t what you were aiming for. If this sounds familiar, you’re not struggling with a lack of talent or discipline. You’re experiencing something researchers have identified across nearly every domain of human effort: the messy middle.

Why the Middle Is Hard AND Normal

In 2011, behavioral scientists Bonezzi, Brendl, and De Angelis demonstrated through a series of studies that motivation follows a U-shaped curve across the lifespan of a goal. We tend to be highly motivated at the start (novelty, optimism, clear direction) and near the finish line (urgency, visible progress). But somewhere in the middle, effort and focus quietly erode, even when nothing has “gone wrong.”

This is sometimes called the mid-year slump, and it affects everyone from marathon runners to chess grandmasters. Coaches and sport psychologists frequently observe a dip in emotional energy and training adherence around the midpoints of competitive seasons. The cause isn’t laziness. It’s that the middle of a journey is uniquely difficult to assign meaning to — you’re too far from the start to feel momentum, and too far from the end to feel urgency. Understanding this is already half the battle. The slump isn’t a sign that your goals were wrong or that you’ve failed. It’s a predictable feature of long-term pursuit.

Here’s the good news. Researchers found that temporal landmarks — the first day of a new week, a birthday, a new season — trigger what they call the fresh start effect: a renewed motivation to pursue goals, separate from the past. The start of a new year is the most famous example, but mid-year can also hold similar psychological power. June or July marks six months of accumulation — experience, data, and honest evidence about what’s working and what isn’t. This makes it arguably better than January for setting goals, because you’re revising goals and actions with real information rather than pure optimism.

Revisiting Goals Isn’t Failure BUT Strategy

Many athletes resist adjusting their goals mid-year because it feels like giving up. However, the most compelling examples in elite sport tell a very different story — revising a goal based on evidence is an act of intelligence, not weakness.

Ma Long, despite being ranked among the world’s best, failed to qualify for the singles event at the 2012 London Olympics. Rather than doubling down on the same approach, he and his coaching team fundamentally reassessed, not just his technical game but his psychological preparation. As Ma Long later reflected, “Table tennis is more than just a physical and technical showdown for me. It is more often psychological and mental adjustment before, during, and after the competition.” That revised focus paid off, as you could tell.

Simone Biles offers one of the most public examples of goal revision in modern sport that table tennis players can learn from. At the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, she withdrew from several events due to her mental health, a decision widely debated at the time. After walking away from elite competition, she came back to Paris 2024 with explicitly revised goals: not about perfect execution or meeting external expectations, but about competing with joy and on her own terms. She won three gold medals and delivered one of the most celebrated comebacks in gymnastics history.

Both stories share the same honest assessment, revised direction, and renewed commitment. Athletes don’t treat self-reflection as a once-a-year event but as a series of checkpoints, particularly before major tournament cycles, as a structured part of their mental training.

Your Mid-Year Reflection Framework

While you can work with a mental performance consultant like me, you also don’t need one to structure your mid-year reflection. Here are a few practical starting points:

Look back honestly. What have the last six months shown you about your game, your training consistency, your mental habits under pressure? Resist the urge to spin it.

Audit your goals. Which goals still feel right? Which ones need adjusting: upward, downward, or simply redirected?

Identify one mental pattern to work on. Anxiety before big matches? Loss of focus mid-match? Slow recovery after errors? Naming it is the first step before you can do something about it.

Set a 90-day intention. Rather than restating a year-long goal, commit to a specific, quarterly focus you can actually track and feel progress on.

You’re in the middle of the year. That means you’re exactly where the work gets hard AND exactly where the most meaningful growth happens. The athletes who treat mid-year as a natural checkpoint, rather than a moment of quiet disappointment, are the ones who finish strong.

Reflect. Revise. Recommit. The second half is yours to shape.

Dr. Alan Chu is an Associate Professor of Applied Sport Psychology, a Certified Mental Performance Consultant, and a member of the USOPC Sport Psychology and Mental Training Registry, working with athletes and coaches from youth to professional levels on mental performance and personal excellence.

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