Joannie Rochette is proudly French-Canadian, but there's an English phrase with which she's intimately familiar: Get a life.

Rochette is already a veteran in the world of international figure skating at 23. She's also a Canadian medal favourite at the 2010 Vancouver Olympic Winter Games, after breaking through last spring in Los Angeles with Canada's first podium finish at the world championships in 21 years.

But it would be dead wrong to suggest that the native of Ile Dupas, Que., is fixated on Vancouver.

In fact, of all the factors that keep Rochette in peak form -- training, diet, exercise, sleep, hydration -- the one she takes most seriously is keeping herself mentally healthy under duress. And that means occasionally forgetting about Axels, Lutzes and Salchows altogether.

"I will tell you, before [the 2006 Winter Olympics in] Torino, I was very self-disciplined. If my friends were going out together, I didn't allow myself to even think about going," Rochette says. "But after Torino, I came home and wanted to have more of a normal life.

"That's not always easy," she adds. "But I think that what has made the difference for me in the past few years is I haven't [prevented] myself from doing the things I wanted to. I think it's important to have a social life, a balanced life. I went out sometimes this summer. I try to make time to see my friends once a week.

"I think that makes a difference. I'm a much more complete person now than I used to be."

Manon Perron has been Rochette's coach since she was 13. Perron has guided Rochette through a steady, upward career arc -- one that includes seven world championships, and one Olympic Games -- while others have arrived on the scene and vanished just as quickly.

Rochette recently finished a junior college education in Montreal at College Andre-Grasset. She also lives with boyfriend Francois-Louis Tremblay, a Canadian short-track speedskater whom she met in Torino.

"She finished college with high marks," Perron says. "She's an intelligent girl. She can go on and be a doctor, pharmacist, whatever she wants to do. She won't be that little figure skater who has nothing else in life."

The 2008-09 season was a quantum leap forward for Rochette.

She won Skate Canada and Trophee Eric Bompard on the Grand Prix circuit, claimed her fifth straight Canadian title, finished second at the Four Continents Championships, and claimed that long-awaited silver medal at the world championships.

"Five years ago, no one would have thought -- or even three years ago -- that I would be on the podium, that I had the talent to be on it," Rochette said in Los Angeles. "But through hard work I think anything is possible."

"Through the years, she has developed a greater belief in herself," Skate Canada's high-performance director Mike Slipchuk observed midway through Rochette's breakthrough campaign. "This season, you really see that. When she goes out there to skate, you just feel that confidence from her."

Rochette says the key to superior performance, as in gymnastics, is muscle memory. That's more of a factor than ever, given the present international judging system, which was brought in following the Salt Lake City scandal and carries stringent standards.

And that's why the best training, and the most specific training, for Rochette remains on the ice during her sessions with Perron at St-Leonard, Que.

"The new system ... is demanding more and more efficiency with the step sequence," she says. "Usually I need to rest on my spins, and my footwork, and keep my energy for jumping. But now, those elements are worth so much more that I can't rest.

"So the key is finding a way for your body to be really efficient in every movement you make. And that means repetition," adds Rochette. "When you do a program a thousand times, you'll be using a lot less energy the thousandth time than the first time because your muscles are used to the movement."