Dr.ChantaleLussier

Dr.ChantaleLussier Dr. Chantale Lussier, PhD.

Certified Mental Performance Coach (CMPC) | Mental Skills Coach OLY, CFL, NHL, OHL, PWHL, and more | Podcast Host Rising aHead | For Newsletter, Guest Speaking, or to Book an appt, please see website | Bilingual FR/EN

A have to mindset feels like obligation.A get to mindset feels like opportunity.At the highest level, one of the most un...
08/27/2026

A have to mindset feels like obligation.

A get to mindset feels like opportunity.

At the highest level, one of the most underrated performance skills might be remembering to have fun.

Not because the work isn’t serious.

It is.

The standards are high.
The pressure is real.
The margin for error is small.

But somewhere along the way, the pursuit of excellence can become so serious that we forget why we fell in love with the sport in the first place.

The joy of competing.
The feeling of being fully immersed.
The satisfaction of getting better.
The sheer fun of seeing what you can do.
The people you get to enjoy the journey with.

And here’s the paradox:

Fun doesn’t make you less driven.
Joy doesn’t make you less disciplined.
Enjoying the process doesn’t mean you are less ambitious.

Quote the opposite.

Sometimes, it’s exactly what allows you to access your best.

Because sport is never a have-to.

It’s a get-to.

And that mindset changes everything.

If you’re ready to train the mental side of your performance and find more freedom, confidence, and enjoyment in the process, book your free discovery call through my website.

Dr. Chantale Lussier

08/27/2026

The work beyond performance

High performance asks a lot of you.

Goals. Standards. Discipline. Constant evaluation.

But your relationship with yourself and your sport / craft matters, too.

This journaling exercise is a simple way to pause the performance mindset and reconnect with the person behind the athlete.

Not everything or every moment needs to be optimized. Not every reflection needs to lead to a goal.
Sometimes the most valuable thing you can do is notice what’s already there.

✍️ Take 5 minutes today. Write without overthinking it.

And pay attention to which prompt feels easiest and which one makes you pause.

That pause might be worth exploring.

🧠 Share with someone who could use this today and save it for yourself so you can revisit it whenever it may serve you.

Dolly didn’t just live authentically. She led from it.She knew who she was and never seemed to believe she had to become...
08/26/2026

Dolly didn’t just live authentically. She led from it.

She knew who she was and never seemed to believe she had to become someone else to make an impact.

Her talent was extraordinary. But so was her heart. She used her platform to lift people up, make room for others, and give generously.

Her legacy reminds us that excellence and humanity don’t have to compete.

You can be ambitious and kind.
Powerful and generous.
Confident and deeply grounded.
Extraordinary and completely yourself.

Perhaps that’s part of the invitation in her words:

Know yourself.
Trust yourself.
Lead from what matters to you.
And let your success be an expression of who you are, not a substitute for it.

Because the most powerful version of you isn’t the one who performs perfectly.

It’s the one who is fully, courageously, unapologetically you.

Rest in peace, Dolly. 🤍

“You have to put some wings on them dreams, and some feet and fingers and some hands... You can’t just sit around and th...
08/26/2026

“You have to put some wings on them dreams, and some feet and fingers and some hands... You can’t just sit around and think of all the things you want to do... you’ve got to get out and make that happen”

Dolly Parton

What a life.

A girl from the Tennessee mountains who dreamed impossibly big and then had the courage, discipline, creativity and sheer determination to build those dreams into something far greater than she could have imagined.

But the beautiful thing about Dolly is that the story didn’t end with her own success.

She used her voice to tell stories.
Her art to move people.
Her success to create opportunity.
Her generosity to change lives.
Her heart to make room for others.

She reminded us that you can be wildly ambitious without losing your humility.
You can become extraordinary without forgetting where you came from.
And you can build something remarkable without keeping it all for yourself.

For those of us who spend our days helping people pursue extraordinary things, her life leaves us with a beautiful reminder:

Yes, put wings on the dream.
Give it feet. Give it hands. Go make it happen.

But then ask yourself:

What will you do with what you’ve built?
Who will you lift with it?
What will your greatness be for?

Dolly showed us that the size of a life isn’t measured only by what you achieve, but by what you do with what you’ve been given.

What a gift she was to this world. 🤍

Goal setting isn’t just deciding what you want.At the highest level, it’s deciding what you’re willing to organize your ...
08/25/2026

Goal setting isn’t just deciding what you want.

At the highest level, it’s deciding what you’re willing to organize your behavior around.

The outcome matters. But the real performance advantage comes from translating that outcome into the process: what you will do, when you will do it, and what you will do when training gets hard, confidence dips, or life gets in the way.

Research in sport suggests that goal setting can meaningfully improve performance, with process goals showing particularly strong effects compared with outcome goals (Williamson et al., 2024). And implementation-intention research shows that specifying the when, where, and how of goal pursuit can substantially improve the likelihood of turning intentions into action (Gollwitzer & Sheeran, 2006).

So the question isn’t:

“Do I really want this?”

You’ve already answered that.

The better question is:

“What does someone who is serious about this do next?”

Then do that.

Not perfectly.
Not when you feel motivated.
Not when the conditions are ideal.

Decisively. Consistently. Repeatedly.

Because at the highest level, the goal gives you direction.

The process is what gets you there.

Oh and P.S. I triple dare you to have FUN along the way!! 😜 Drop your favourite emoji in the comments if you read this and smiled!

I remember my mom asking me this when I was a teenager:“Are you afraid of success?”At the time, I couldn’t understand th...
08/25/2026

I remember my mom asking me this when I was a teenager:

“Are you afraid of success?”

At the time, I couldn’t understand the question.

Why would anyone be afraid of getting what they wanted?

I understand it differently now.

Because success doesn’t just bring opportunity, recognition, money, or visibility.

It brings exposure.

It shines a light on parts of ourselves we could previously avoid.

Our insecurities.
Our attachment to approval.
Our relationship with power.
Our capacity to receive.
Our fear of being seen.
Our fear of outgrowing what and who we’ve known.

Success asks us to keep becoming.

And that can be uncomfortable.

But there’s another layer that high performers don’t always talk about:

Success changes the relational ecosystem around you and it changes your relationship with yourself.

As your visibility, accomplishments, opportunities, or financial success grow, some relationships may change, too.

Some people will celebrate you wholeheartedly.

Others may become more distant, critical, cynical, dismissive, competitive, or subtly resentful. They may minimize your wins, move the goalposts, or suddenly expect more from you.

Not necessarily because they’re bad people.

Sometimes your growth simply confronts something in them they’re not ready to face.

And this is where success can become surprisingly lonely.

Because one of the most important questions isn’t:

“Can I reach the next level?”

It’s:

“Who can I become at the next level and who can come with me?”

For elite athletes and high performers, cultivating the right inner circle isn’t a luxury.

It’s part of the performance equation.

You need people who can celebrate your light without needing to dim it.

People who can challenge you without diminishing you.

People who know you beyond your results.

People with whom you don’t have to perform.

Because the goal isn’t simply to achieve the life of your dreams.

It’s to have the capacity, relationships, and support system to actually live it.

Maybe that’s part of your next level, too.

High performers can become incredibly skilled at carrying heavy things.🧠 The pressure to perform.🧠 The expectations.🧠 Th...
08/24/2026

High performers can become incredibly skilled at carrying heavy things.

🧠 The pressure to perform.
🧠 The expectations.
🧠 The mistake they’re still replaying.
🧠 The conversation they haven’t had.
🧠 The uncertainty they can’t control.
🧠 The real and significant personal stuff they’ve brought into the performance environment.

And because they keep showing up, training, competing and performing, it can be easy to assume the load isn’t affecting them.

But performance isn’t only about how much you can carry. It’s also about knowing what and how you’re carrying it all.

One of the invisible aspects of high performance is mental load management.

Every so often, we need to check the mental backpack:

🧠 What’s taking up space in my head right now?
🧠 What am I replaying?
🧠 What am I avoiding?
🧠 What needs to be processed?
🧠 What can I learn from?
🧠 And what am I carrying that no longer needs to come with me?

Sometimes processing happens through a conversation with someone we trust. Sometimes through reflection, prayer, meditation, journaling, therapy, coaching, or simply creating enough internal space to notice what has accumulated.

The goal isn’t to eliminate every difficult thought or emotion. It’s to avoid allowing unprocessed experiences to become permanent passengers.

Research shows that mental fatigue can affect aspects of sport-specific performance, including decision-making, technical performance and reaction time.

So mental skills training isn’t just about becoming tougher. Sometimes it’s about becoming more aware.

Check your mental backpack.

Process what needs your attention.
Put down what you no longer need to carry, even if only momentarily. Make room for what matters now.

You can be strong enough to carry something and still decide you don’t need to carry it alone.

That isn’t weakness.

That’s good mental hygiene.

That’s sustainable mental load management.

And for high performers, that’s performance work, too.



Science behind this post, see first comment ⤵️

“The key to staying competitive lies in continuous improvement. Kaizen, a Japanese philosophy meaning “change for the be...
08/07/2026

“The key to staying competitive lies in continuous improvement. Kaizen, a Japanese philosophy meaning “change for the better,” provides the foundation for sustained operational excellence” (Vsight Nova).

Kaizen isn’t about becoming dramatically better overnight. It’s about becoming slightly better, consistently.

In sport, success on competition day isn’t created by chasing perfection. It’s built through thousands of intentional improvements that accumulate over time.

Research consistently shows that expert performers don’t simply practice more; they practice with greater quality. They plan, monitor, reflect, and adapt their training through self-regulated learning, while engaging in deliberate practice that targets specific weaknesses rather than repeating what’s already comfortable (Bartulovic et al., 2018; Young et al., 2023; Ericsson et al., 1993).

But here’s the important shift on race days and game days: Competition is a time to express the performance you’ve already built.

A practical Kaizen mindset for competition:

✔ Trust your preparation.
✔ Focus on executing one process cue at a time, rather than chasing outcomes.
✔ Reset after every play with one question: “What’s the next best action?”
✔ After a race or game, identify one priority improvement to carry into your next training session, not twenty.

Small, repeatable improvements don’t guarantee victory.

They do increase the likelihood that, when pressure arrives, you’ll respond with the habits you’ve deliberately built.

That’s Kaizen in sport: continuous improvement in practice, confident ex*****on in competition.

I’m in between two moves this week and still working, so the truck in this image spoke to me. As did the words. Trust th...
08/01/2026

I’m in between two moves this week and still working, so the truck in this image spoke to me. As did the words. Trust the vision you have for yourself and the purpose(s) for your life that was planted in your heart. Every day take intentional steps towards it. Don’t get distracted by the noise and the people who don’t believe or even understand what it is you are building within yourself and your life. You do not need anyone’s permission, validation, or stamp of approval to be you and to pursue what’s in you to build.

Focus on improving 1% every day.

And don’t be afraid of the sweat, hard work, and heavy lifting 💪📦😅 that literally and metaphorically comes with the territory!

We got this. LFG!

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