Two thousand years ago, in the Roman Empire, a philosophy emerged that reads like a sports psychology textbook. The Stoics—Marcus Aurelius (emperor), Seneca (advisor to emperors), Epictetus (former slave)—developed practical mental training techniques for performing under pressure, handling adversity, and maintaining focus on what matters.
These weren't armchair philosophers. They were practitioners facing real challenges: political intrigue, exile, war, physical hardship. Their writings offer battle-tested wisdom for athletes facing their own challenges.
What Is Stoicism?
The Core Philosophy
Stoicism, founded in Athens around 300 BCE and flourishing in Rome, centers on a simple but powerful insight: we control very little in life, but we can control our responses.
The fundamental distinction: - Things in our control: Our judgments, intentions, desires, aversions, and our own actions - Things not in our control: Everything else—outcomes, other people's actions, external circumstances, our body (to a degree), our reputation
From Epictetus:
"Some things are in our control and others not. Things in our control are opinion, pursuit, desire, aversion, and, in a word, whatever are our own actions. Things not in our control are body, property, reputation, command, and, in a word, whatever are not our own actions."
The practical implication: Peace and effectiveness come from focusing entirely on what we control and accepting what we don't. Fighting against what we cannot control creates suffering and wastes energy. Working fully with what we can control creates results.
Why Stoicism Works for Athletes
The athletic parallel: - You control your preparation, effort, and focus - You don't control opponents, weather, officiating, outcomes - Excellence comes from doing your part fully - Suffering comes from trying to control the uncontrollable
Stoicism is essentially performance philosophy for life—and it transfers directly to sport.
Stoic Practices
Premeditatio Malorum - Negative Visualization
The practice: Deliberately imagining potential adversities, setbacks, and difficulties before they occur. Not pessimism, but preparation.
What the Stoics taught:
Seneca:
"We are more often frightened than hurt; and we suffer more from imagination than from reality."
Marcus Aurelius:
"Begin the morning by saying to yourself, I shall meet with the busybody, the ungrateful, arrogant, deceitful, envious, unsocial."
The purpose: - Reduce surprise when difficulties arise - Build mental preparation for adversity - Decrease emotional reactivity to setbacks - Create psychological resilience
How it works: When you've already imagined the worst, the actual event is often less jarring than expected. The imagination tends to be worse than reality. By pre-experiencing difficulty mentally, you reduce its power to destabilize.
Athletic application:
Pre-competition visualization: Before competing, imagine potential difficulties: - What if I fall behind early? - What if I make a critical error? - What if conditions are terrible? - What if I feel pain or fatigue?
For each scenario, mentally rehearse your response—not panic, not despair, but continued effort and focus.
Scientific support: Research on mental simulation shows that imagining handling difficulties improves actual performance when difficulties arise. Implementation intentions ("If X happens, I will do Y") are highly effective for goal achievement.
The Dichotomy of Control
The practice: Continuously distinguishing between what is and isn't in your control, then focusing exclusively on what is.
What the Stoics taught:
Epictetus:
"Make the best use of what is in your power, and take the rest as it happens."
Marcus Aurelius:
"Never let the future disturb you. You will meet it, if you have to, with the same weapons of reason which today arm you against the present."
The technique: When facing any situation: 1. What elements are in my control? 2. What elements are not in my control? 3. Focus entirely on category one 4. Accept category two without resistance
Athletic application:
Before competition: - In my control: Preparation, warm-up, mental state, effort, focus - Not in my control: Opponent's performance, weather, crowd, officiating, outcome
During competition: - In my control: This play, this moment, my execution, my response - Not in my control: Score, opponent's actions, what's already happened
After competition: - In my control: How I process results, what I learn, what I do next - Not in my control: What happened, how others perceive it, media coverage
Scientific support: Research on locus of control shows that internal locus (believing you control outcomes through your actions) predicts better performance and well-being. But focusing on genuinely controllable elements—process rather than outcome—is even more effective.
Memento Mori - Remember Death
The practice: Regular contemplation of mortality to create urgency, perspective, and appreciation for the present.
What the Stoics taught:
Marcus Aurelius:
"You could leave life right now. Let that determine what you do and say and think."
Seneca:
"Let us prepare our minds as if we'd come to the very end of life. Let us postpone nothing."
The purpose: - Creates urgency for meaningful action - Provides perspective on trivial concerns - Reduces fear of lesser losses - Increases appreciation for current opportunity
How it works: When you remember that your time is finite, petty concerns shrink, important things clarify, and present moments become precious. Fear of failure diminishes against the backdrop of mortality.
Athletic application: - This season could be your last - This game could be your final opportunity - Your athletic career will end—how do you want to live it? - Small setbacks are trivial against the finite nature of your opportunity
Practical implementation: Before practice or competition, briefly acknowledge: "This is finite. This matters. I bring full presence because I may not have another chance."
Scientific support: Terror management theory research shows that mortality salience, properly integrated, increases meaning-making and reduces anxiety. It creates psychological clarity.
Voluntary Discomfort
The practice: Deliberately exposing yourself to difficulty, discomfort, and hardship to build tolerance and reduce fear.
What the Stoics taught:
Seneca:
"Set aside a certain number of days, during which you shall be content with the scantiest and cheapest fare, with coarse and rough dress, saying to yourself the while: 'Is this the condition that I feared?'"
Epictetus:
"Difficulties are things that show a person what they are."
The purpose: - Build tolerance for discomfort - Reduce fear of adversity - Discover capacity you didn't know you had - Appreciate what you have
How it works: When you've voluntarily experienced hardship, involuntary hardship becomes less frightening. You know you can handle difficulty because you've handled it before.
Athletic application: - Train in worse conditions than you'll compete in - Practice when tired, cold, uncomfortable - Create challenging scenarios deliberately - Build confidence through survived difficulty
Examples: - Cold exposure training (see cold exposure guide) - Training in heat, rain, or other adverse conditions - Practicing at the end of exhausting sessions - Mental training through physical challenge
Scientific support: Stress inoculation research shows that controlled exposure to manageable stress builds resilience to future stress. Hardiness training works.
The View From Above
The practice: Mentally zooming out to see your situation from a broader perspective—imagining viewing yourself from progressively higher vantage points.
What the Stoics taught:
Marcus Aurelius:
"Think of the whole universe of matter and how small a part of it you are; think of the whole of time and how brief is your moment; think of Fate and how tiny is your part of it."
The technique: Imagine viewing your current situation from: - Above the room - Above the building - Above the city - Above the region - Above the earth - From space
Watch how your concerns shrink with distance.
The purpose: - Provide perspective on immediate concerns - Reduce emotional intensity - Connect to larger context - Create calm detachment
Athletic application: Before high-pressure moments: - This is one game in a long career - This is one moment in one game - Many athletes have faced similar moments - In the grand view, this is an opportunity, not a crisis
Scientific support: Research on psychological distancing shows that viewing situations from third-person or distant perspectives reduces emotional reactivity and improves decision-making.
The Inner Citadel
The practice: Cultivating an inviolable interior space that external circumstances cannot reach.
What the Stoics taught:
Marcus Aurelius:
"Retreat into yourself. The rational principle which rules has this nature, that it is content with itself when it does what is just, and so secures tranquility."
Epictetus:
"It is not things that disturb us, but our judgments about things."
The concept: Within you is a space—your capacity for judgment, response, and meaning-making—that nothing external can touch without your permission. Circumstances can affect your body and situation, but they cannot affect your inner self unless you allow it.
Athletic application: The crowd can boo, but they cannot reach your inner citadel. The opponent can intimidate, but they cannot access your center. External circumstances create conditions; you create responses.
Building the citadel: - Regular meditation creates familiarity with inner space - Practice returning to center when disturbed - Strengthen the boundaries through repeated use - Know that nothing external can truly harm what's essential
Morning and Evening Review
The practice: Structured reflection at the beginning and end of each day to set intentions and learn from experience.
What the Stoics taught:
Marcus Aurelius (writing his journal, Meditations, which was his morning/evening practice):
"When you wake up in the morning, tell yourself: The people I deal with today will be meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous and surly."
Seneca:
"When the light has been removed and my wife, long aware of my habit, has become silent, I scan the whole of my day and retrace all my deeds and words."
The morning routine: - Anticipate potential challenges - Set intentions for how you'll respond - Remind yourself of your principles - Prepare mentally for the day
The evening routine: - Review the day's events - What went well? - What could improve? - What did I learn? - Release and rest
Athletic application:
Morning practice: Before training or competition: - What challenges might I face today? - What are my intentions? - How will I respond to difficulty? - What am I focused on controlling?
Evening practice: After training or competition: - What went well today? - What could I do differently? - What did I learn? - What do I release?
Stoic Principles for Athletes
Obstacle Is the Way
The teaching:
Marcus Aurelius:
"The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way."
The meaning: Obstacles aren't just barriers—they're opportunities for growth, training grounds for virtue, chances to develop strength. The difficulty is the point.
Athletic application: - Injury becomes opportunity for mental training - Failure becomes material for improvement - Difficulty becomes practice for resilience - What challenges you, strengthens you
Amor Fati - Love Your Fate
The teaching: Not just accepting what happens, but actively embracing it as necessary and valuable.
The application: Whatever happens—weather, officiating, injury, loss—say "good" and find how it serves you. This isn't denial; it's transformation of experience.
Athletic application: - Bad weather? Good—opportunity to build mental toughness - Tough opponent? Good—opportunity to test your best - Behind in score? Good—opportunity to show character - Lost the game? Good—opportunity to learn
Process Over Outcome
The teaching: The Stoics repeatedly emphasized that outcomes are not in our control, but our efforts are. Attachment to outcomes creates suffering; focus on effort creates peace and effectiveness.
Athletic application: - Win or lose, was the process excellent? - Did you do what was in your control? - Results matter, but they're not what you control - Your job is the effort; results are consequences
Daily Stoic Practice for Athletes
Morning Routine (5-10 minutes)
- Memento mori: Brief acknowledgment of finite opportunity
- Premeditatio malorum: What difficulties might arise today?
- Intention setting: What will I focus on controlling?
- Principle reminder: What Stoic teaching do I need today?
Pre-Competition Routine (3-5 minutes)
- Dichotomy of control: What's in my control right now?
- View from above: Perspective on this moment
- Inner citadel: Center myself in what can't be touched
- Release outcome: Commit to process, release attachment to results
Evening Review (5 minutes)
- What went well?
- What could I do better?
- What did I learn?
- What do I release?
Key Takeaways
- Focus on what you control—effort, attitude, response—and release what you don't
- Pre-imagine difficulties—negative visualization reduces surprise and builds resilience
- Remember mortality—finite time creates urgency and perspective
- Embrace voluntary discomfort—controlled hardship builds tolerance
- Cultivate the inner citadel—nothing external can touch your center without permission
- Obstacle is opportunity—what challenges you, develops you
- Process over outcome—your job is effort; results are consequences
Return is a meditation timer for athletes building mental toughness on foundations 2,000 years deep. Train your mind with the wisdom of Marcus Aurelius, Seneca, and Epictetus. Download Return on the App Store.