Believe it or not, an Olympic athlete isn't all that different from you. True, you may not run 100 meters in less than 10 seconds like American sprinting sensation Tyson Gay, or be able to swim the 100 meter backstroke in under a minute like U.S. swimmers Missy Franklin and Natalie Coughlin.

But no doubt you regularly need to perform under pressure, just like they do. And the good news is that many of the same skills and tools these athletes employ to stay focused and do their best are available to you, too.

Training the Mind for Victory

More than ever, Olympic athletes' mental training — preparing the mind to cope with the rigors of competition and pressure of the Games — is key in their training. Team USA employs six sports psychologists, and every U.S. athlete at the London 2012 Olympics has access to one, although many competitors also work with their own sports psychologist outside the official U.S. Olympic Committee Psychology Professional Team.

The term "sports psychology" may evoke an image of, say, a uniformed runner in track spikes lying on a couch discussing his or her mental woes, but that's not really how it works. "It involves a lot of things," says Daniel Gould, PhD, a professor of applied sport psychology at Michigan State University who's trained past Olympians and recently completed an analysis of the effects of psychological preparation on Olympic performance for the U.S. Olympic Commission.

First of all, sports psychologists work closely with other members of what Dr. Gould calls an athlete's "performance enhancement team" led by a head coach. "The coach orchestrates like a conductor," he explains. Along with the psychologist, "you have a nutritionist, a strength training person, and medical people, and the coach conducts this orchestra, and the athlete is sort of the song coming out of it."

Sports psychologists help coaches, athletes, and the rest of the performance enhancement team set goals, prepare for unexpected bumps in the road to increase resiliency, and create simulations so athletes can practice various competitive scenarios. But they also serve a more traditional psychological role.

"There's a part of sports psych that me and athletes I've worked with call 'flushy the toilet,' " Gould says. "You might get mad at your coach, you might get mad at your teammates, and you might need to talk to somebody to let off some steam. We can fill that role. Having somebody that athletes trust and can speak to in confidence is a big part."

Making Olympic Thinking Work for You

While it might be nice to have a performance-enhancement team, you don't need one to enjoy many of the benefits Olympians reap from their training. Lessons from sports psychology, in particular, are applicable to life in general. How can you implement them? Following are some real-world applications from Gould and fellow veteran sports psychologist JoAnn Dahlkoetter, PhD., who has five clients competing at the London Games in various sports and who's worked with gold-medal-winning athletes in the previous four Olympics. As a licensed clinical psychologist, she cannot reveal her clients' names.

Focus on the Three P's

Both Gould and Dahlkoetter stress the importance of preparing yourself mentally to perform at your best. Dahlkoetter says she has her athletes and other clients focus on what she calls the "Three P's: Positive Images, Power Words, and Present Focus:"

Positive Images

"Positive images is seeing yourself doing something right," Dahlkoetter, who also works with regular Joe and Jane athletes as well as corporate clients, says. "We usually say to ourselves, 'I hope I don't mess up.' But the more clearly you can see the picture in your mind of what it is you want to achieve, the more likely it is to become reality."

Power Words

Power words are "key words and phrases that you've prepared in advance to say to yourself to get yourself through any tough situations," Dahlkoetter says. "We're usually doing a lot of negative thinking, and you want to stop that negative chatter."

One of Dahlkoetter's rules is, "Do say what you do want, don't say what you don't want." For example, she says she worked with a cyclist who kept crashing in races. So she asked him what he was saying to himself before competing. "He was saying, 'I hope I don't crash, I hope I don't crash.' So he was drilling into his mind the very thing he wanted to avoid." Instead, Dahlkoetter asked him to focus his mind on what he wanted to do, not what he didn't want to do. "I said, let's not use the word crash because you're drilling that into your right brain. Instead, say 'I'm staying relaxed, I'm staying focused.' " She emphasizes the importance of using power words only in the present tense, "so your mind sees what you want as it's happening, in the present."

Present Focus

Finally, present focus is about being "right on, right here, right now," she says. "Most of the time we're thinking about the mistakes of the past or worrying about what's going to happen in the future. The only moment we can do anything about is the one we're in right now."

'Visualize to Energize'

Another of Dahlkoetter's techniques, "visualize to energize" means seeing "a time when you were strong and were at your best, and feeling that now," she explains. "You can go to that time mentally and see it, hear it, feel it. Wherever you place your attention your energy will follow."

Plan For, and Prepare For, Problems

Dahlkoetter says one of the big mistakes athletes make is imagining only the perfect situation, which rarely unfolds.

"You want to visualize all the different scenarios and things that could come up, and then have a plan for going through each one successfully," she explains. "And then you need to rehearse each one over and over so when it does come up, the response is automatic." Gould has athletes imagine a Plan A, Plan B, and Plan C, and then create a strategy for each. "You don't want to have so many what-ifs that you can't perform if things go as planned, but you better have some what-ifs in your planning," he says.

Dahlkoetter offers a concrete example: "Let's say you're presenting at a business meeting and you're concerned about all the questions that might come up," she says. Rather than just worrying, anticipate all the questions and craft an answer for each one. "And then practice speaking the answer out loud," she says. "Visualize yourself being confident, calm, relaxed, focused, and getting through any situation."

Move on From Disappointment

One value of sports, Gould says, is emotions can be very high or very low. Sports psychology is adept at helping people cope with disappointment — on and off the field. "A coach may say, 'We lost last night. I'm disappointed, you're disappointed. Let's all go home and have a pity party for 24 hours, but come Monday, we're not going to talk about the game in a bad way.' “This ability to acknowledge disappointment and then move on from it is key to successfully navigating failures or mistakes in other areas of life, he says.

Just Do It

Finally, for anyone who thinks mental training is difficult or requires some special skill, Dahlkoetter firmly disagrees. "Mental training is actually one of the easiest parts of training, because you can do it any time," she says. "We always have our brain with us. So even if you're waiting in line at the grocery store or the bank, you can use that time to get frustrated, or you can use that time to make a list of your goals for the rest of the afternoon."