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Sports Psychology and Performance Enhancement
Dr. Patrick J. Cohn
You have permission to publish this article electronically or in
print, free of charge, as long as the bylines are included along with
an active link to website. A courtesy copy of your publication would
be appreciated.
Mental Game Coaching is that the segment of sports psychology that
concentrates specifically on helping athletes break through the
mental barriers that are keeping them from performing up to their
peak potential. By focusing on the mental skills needed to be
successful in any sporting competition, mental game coaching seeks to
achieve the overall goal of performance improvement.
Sports Psychology is about improving your attitude and mental game
skills to help you perform your best by identifying limiting beliefs
and embracing a healthier philosophy about your sport. Below is a
list of the top ten ways that you can benefit from sports psychology:
1. Improve focus and deal with distractions. Many athletes have the
ability to concentrate, but often their focus is displaced on the
wrong areas such as when a batter thinks "I need to get a
hit" while in the batter's box, which is a result-oriented
focus. Much of my instruction on focus deals with helping athlete to
stay focused on the present moment and let go of results.
2. Grow confidence in athletes who have doubts. Doubt is the opposite
of confidence. If you maintain many doubts prior to or during your
performance, this indicates low self-confidence or at least you are
sabotaging what confidence you had at the start of the competition.
Confidence is what I call a core mental game skill because of its
importance and relationship to other mental skills.
3. Develop coping skills to deal with setbacks and errors. Emotional
control is a prerequisite to getting into the zone. Athletes with
very high and strict expectations, have trouble dealing with minor
errors that are a natural part of sports. It's important to
address these expectations and also help athletes stay composed under
pressure and when they commit errors or become frustrated.
4. Find the right zone of intensity for your sport. I use intensity
in a broad sense to identify the level of arousal or mental
activation that is necessary for each person to perform his or her
best. This will vary from person to person and from sport to sport.
Feeling "up" and positively charged is critical, but not
getting overly excited is also important. You have to tread a fine
line between being excited to complete, but not getting over-excited.
5. Help teams develop communication skills and cohesion. A major part
of sports psychology and mental training is helping teams improve
cohesion and communication. The more a team works as a unit, the
better the results for all involved.
6. To instill a healthy belief system and identify irrational
thoughts. One of the areas I pride myself on is helping athlete
identify ineffective beliefs and attitudes such as comfort zones and
negative self-labels that hold them back from performing well. These
core unhealthy beliefs must be identified and replaced with a new way
of thinking. Unhealthy or irrational beliefs will keep you stuck no
matter how much you practice or hard you try.
7. Improve or balance motivation for optimal performance. It's
important to look at your level of motivation and just why you are
motivated to play your sport. Some motivators are better in the long-
term than others. Athletes who are extrinsically motivated often play
for the wrong reasons, such as the athlete who only participates in
sports because of a parent. I work with athlete to help them adopt a
healthy level of motivation and be motivated for the right reasons.
8. Develop confidence post-injury. Some athletes find themselves
fully prepared physically to get back into competition and practice,
but mentally some scars remain. Injury can hurt confidence, generate
doubt during competition, and cause a lack of focus. I help athletes
mentally heal from injuries and deal with the fear of re-injury.
9. To develop game-specific strategies and game plans. All great
coaches employ game plans, race strategies, and course management
skills to help athletes mentally prepare for competition. This is an
area beyond developing basic mental skills in which a mental coach
helps athletes and teams. This is very important in sports such as
golf, racing, and many team sports.
10. To identify and enter the "zone" more often. This
incorporates everything I do in the mental side of sports. The
overall aim is to help athletes enter the zone by developing
foundational mental skills that can help athletes enter the zone more
frequently. It's impossible to play in the zone everyday, but you
can set the conditions for it to happen more often.
I will add that sport psychology may not be appropriate for every
athlete. Not every person who plays a sport wants to "improve
performance." Sport psychology is probably not for recreation
athletes who participate for the social component of a sport or do
not spend time working on technique or fitness to improve
performance. Young athletes whose parents want them to see a sports
psychologist are not good candidate either. It's very important
that the athlete desires to improve his or her mental game without
having the motive to satisfy a parent. Similarly, an athlete who sees
a mental game expert only to satisfy a coach is not going to fully
benefit from mental training.
Sports Psychology does apply to a wide variety of serious athletes.
Most of my students (junior, high school, college, and professional
athletes) are highly committed to excellence and seeing how far they
can go in sports. They love competition and testing themselves
against the best in their sport. They understand the importance of a
positive attitude and mental toughness. These athletes want every
possible advantage they can get including the mental edge over the
competition.
Dr. Patrick J. Cohn is a master mental game coach who works with
athletes of all levels including amateur and professionals. Visit
Peaksports.com to gain access to over 500 exclusive mental game
articles, audio programs, and interviews with athletes and coaches to
enhance your athletic potential: www.peaksports.com/membership or
call 1-888-742-7225.
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