Goal setting helps athletes commit to the goals and objectives they have for their sport. Professional baseball players like Chase Utley, Derrick Jeter, and Tom Brady have reached the top of their game by setting, evaluating, and reformulating goals throughout their career. Things to consider when setting goals: Goal should identify a specific action or event that will take place. Goal and its benefits should be quantifiable. Goal should be attainable given available resources. Goal should require you to stretch some, but allow the likelihood of success. Goal should state the time period in which it will be accomplished. […]
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18
Dec
2010
Goal Setting for Sports
Here are the top myths and attitudes that prevent athletes from embracing mental training: “I do not need to improve mental toughness — I’m already mentally tough.” Some athletes may feel that they are already mentally tough. Mental training is designed to help athletes stay mentally tough. All athletes can tune up on their mental game. Mental training is also a good review for mentally tough young athletes. “My teammates or coach would think I am weak if I needed mental training.” Mental training is not a weakness, but a chance to improve young athletes’ mental game and performance. […]
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16
Dec
2010
Momentum in Sports
Momentum plays a critical role in your team’s success. When your team has momentum, you feel like everything going for you. For example, your team can’t make a bad play or miss a shot on goal. You play fearlessly. Momentum keeps your team’s confidence high and helps your players find the zone. However, momentum doesn’t always go your way. Sometimes, your team can lose momentum after experiencing a setback such as the referee making a bad call or the other team making a key play. When this happens, it can be difficult to regain your momentum. When your team […]
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13
Dec
2010
Playing Beyond Your Comfort Zone
We received the following question from an athlete: “What do you think happens when you have the upper hand and still lose the game, and you know you are beating yourself?” Many athletes don’t perform their best when they have a big lead because they play within their comfort zone. What is a comfort zone? A comfort zone based on how you expect to perform. Comfort zones are challenging when you are playing better than expected. What do you think is happening with my mental focus?” When performing inside your comfort zone you will likely play tentatively to avoid […]
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09
Dec
2010
Focus on Your Game, not Others
Many athletes worry too much about other peoples opinions of their performance. For example, you may worry too much about what your coach thinks about your batting technique or about performing well to gain respect from teammates. Worrying too much about others opinions of your game can affect your focus and hurt your confidences. More often than not you are making assumptions about others opinions of your game. When you make assumptions about what others might be thinking about your game, you engage in “mind reading.” You don’t really know what others are thinking about you. Mind reading is just a […]
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06
Dec
2010
How to Get the Most Out of Your At-bats
“What was I thinking?” you mutter in frustration after striking out with the bat on your shoulders. You lost your focus temporarily and it cost you the at-bat. Most players at times, lose focus, blank-out, get distracted, or are too stressed to concentrate. Even the greatest players in the world have trouble concentrating under pressure. Outcomes and winning are stressed in a result oriented society, making it difficult to focus on what really matters—sticking to the task and focusing on only execution. The goal in baseball is to win, score runs, and get hits. This is obvious. If you dwell too much […]
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01
Dec
2010
Do You Play With a Fear of Failure?
Fear of failure is a common issue in the field of sport psychology. Fear of failure is characterized by high expectations, a strong desire to success (and not fail), anxiety or tension, worrying too much about results or outcomes, social approval issues or worrying too much about what others think, and performing with a serious, controlled mindset. Baseball players and other athletes contact me every day saying that they can’t get out of their own way during games – that their mental game is holding them back. Why would you want to sabotage your own success and prevent yourself […]
Read moreMany athletes, coaches, and sports parents do not understand the difference between confidence and expectation. In sports it is assumed that these two concepts go hand in hand – If athletes expect to win or expect to play well, they are confident they can win or play well. But this is far from the truth. Yes, it’s true that these concepts are interconnected, but not in the way most would assume – expectations hold athletes back from developing high levels of confidence. Confidence is based on the strength of the belief in your ability or how strongly you think […]
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17
Nov
2010
Confidence and Coping with Mistakes
You may think that some confident athletes are arrogant and use intimidation to psych out their competitors. Some players shout at officials or get into fights with other players because they have big egos and lots of confidence, but I’m talking about a different kind of self-confidence. All kinds of athletes—junior, amateur, collegiate and professional—need to have high self-confidence to perform their best and feel successful. Confidence is your number one mental game asset in competition. To play your best, you must have a silent self-confidence that’s nothing like what’s described above. This type of confidence is a true […]
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16
Nov
2010
How to Break Out of a Slump in Sports
Every athlete experiences a slump in performance at some point in their career. Slumps are a decrease in your performance that can last for prolonged periods of time if you let it. Many athletes are unaware of the causes of a slump, so the look in the wrong places for a solution. As a result they fall even deeper into a slump. Athletes are unable to break fee from a slump because become frustrated, play tentatively, and lose confidence in their ability to succeed. To break free from a slump you need to start at the root of the […]
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