Shane Watson's techniques to bouncing back: Music, meditation, and mindset

Do sports people ever retire? You are wont to ask this question especially when you observe the trajectory of Australian cricketer Shane “Watto” Watson’s career has taken ever since he announced his retirement from all forms of the game in late 2020. After a trailblazing career that saw him earn a place as one of the world’s best all-rounders, Watson’s post-retirement jaunt has seen him take on new roles with just as much élan. In 2024, he put all his learnings and experiences from winning —and losing—on field to pen The Winner’s Mindset, a motivational book that imparts readers with guidance on how to be ‘performance-ready in any arena of life’, to quote a blurb from the book. The book has evolved into a course as well that the 44-year-old teaches.  

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“It’s sad that we don’t get taught in school about how to unlock our minds or what are the right thoughts to have or how to perform at our very best and bring the very best version of ourselves to every performance across the board. So, writing and teaching The Winner’s Mindset has been one of the most joyful journeys that I’ve been on,” he says.

But that’s not all. In March, Watson proved that he’s not lost touch with his batting skills by knocking three centuries at the inaugural edition of the International Masters Premier League 2025 (IML 2025) that was held in India in Raipur, Vadodara and Mumbai. The league had six teams - India Masters, Australia Masters, West Indies Masters, Sri Lanka Masters, South Africa Masters and England Masters, led by cricketing greats like Sachin Tendulkar and Brian Lara among others. Watson who captained  Australia says, “One of the true joys of playing the Masters League was to be able to  be back on the field against Sachin Tendulkar, Brian Lara, Kumara Sangakkara just to name a few.” 

In this email interview with Lounge, Watson who is currently busy with his commentary assignment for IPL 2025, talks about how he stays fighting fit in his 40s and shares tips on how to develop a positive, resilient mindset. Edited excerpts: 

For someone juggling multiple roles including cricket commentary and coaching, what does your fitness regime look like today? 

When I was playing, I was absolutely obsessed with pushing the limits of my body to see how good I could be, and so, my training schedule and fitness regime were rigorous. Today, fitness for me is about maintaining my general health because I want to be on this planet for as long as I can. I make time every day as much as I can to exercise, whether it’s doing a fitness session on a bike, walking on a treadmill to get my heart rate up, swimming or going for a long walk with my wife. I do strength training as well but I am not loading up my body too much. 

Based on your interactions with people who’ve read your book, or taken the course, what’s a common issue that everyone’s grappling with?

The biggest issue —and this is across the board—just comes down to confidence. It’s about people’s confidence going up and down and riding the wave of results. The one thing that most human beings are absolutely obsessed with is “results”. That’s because results define what we do in regards to whether we get picked for certain things, whether we get the raises, whether we get the job opportunities that we’re looking for. But when we’re always focused on results and they don’t exactly go our way— which they won’t always — then our confidence goes down with it. So the thing that I really see the most is people being overly obsessed about results, instead of them bringing the best that they possibly can to every single moment of performance and learning from those results. 

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Not everyone’s a champion training to win a trophy or a CEO running a company. Most people are facing small battles daily. What should one do, initially, to develop a positive, resilient mindset?

The most simple way, honestly, is understanding what the right thoughts are for you when you are at your very best, and also defining what the wrong thoughts are for you when you are not performing at your best. By understanding this information, and applying it gradually while troubleshooting issues, you will learn to have the right thoughts at the right time. There’s no question that positive thoughts are better than negative, but I must add here that sometimes over-positive thoughts too can get in your way. This is because you become overconfident and end up doing things you probably don’t need to do. So, it really just comes down to understanding that we are in control of our thoughts, and that when the wrong thoughts come in, we need to keep redirecting them. 

Now, developing these mental skills is simple but that doesn’t mean that they’re easy to apply. You have to work on them diligently, every day, until you wake up one day and find that you’ve turned into a high-performing individual.

I am sure you have days where things don’t seem to be going your way. What do you do to reset yourself after a not-so-great day?

Everyone goes through ups and downs every day, and some days obviously are better than others. What I’ve learned through understanding the mental side of us as human beings are techniques that help me put my mind at ease and stop overthinking.

The first one that I use for performance from a cricketer’s perspective is listening to music. The easiest way for me to be able to reset is to play a song in my head; it stops me from overthinking a situation or, you know, get ahead of myself. Meditation plays a huge part as well. It’s a great way to be able to just get your unconscious mind to take stock of things that are going on around you. Sleep is important too. After a good night’s sleep, you wake up feeling mentally more refreshed and somehow, it also helps you see things in perspective.

Look, you are going to have really good days and there’s going to be a lot of not-so-good days when things just don’t fall into place. That is the beauty of life. Knowing and understanding that is what makes the really good days, where things do fall your way, more special.

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