The Benefits of Mental Training
Many athletes feel too much pressure in sports and it affects their ability to take practice to competition.
Maintaining a certain weight, dealing with early success, navigating through performance droughts, and staying motivated during long training sessions are some of the challenges athletes face.
In addition, competing consistently during long seasons, managing media attention and resolving coach-athlete conflicts are other issues athletes face.
You can’t just improve your physical game today. If you want to reach your potential, it’s absolutely necessary to prepare your mind for the mental rigors of sports.
“Getting the mind right” is the reason so many athletes–from junior to Olympic athletes–seek the help of sport psychology professionals.
Mental training helps you cope with pressure, improve focus, stay composed and perform consistently in competition.
Are you satisfied with your mental game and performance currently?
If mental training is your weakest link, it will be hard to raise the level of your consistency and performance–given your skills level.
Let’s see sport psychology in action…
Jockey Mario Gutierrez had a tremendous year in 2012 with seven major wins but since then, Gutierrez hit a dry spell.
Gutierrez made the decision that he needed to do something more than take care of his body to prepare for races, so he started working with Camilla Henderson, a sports performance consultant in the United Kingdom.
Henderson had to, first, dispel the myths about sport psychology and highlight the benefits of mental training.
HENDERSON: “I think quite often jockeys are not aware of what sports psychology actually is. It’s perceived as a bit of a taboo. They might think, ‘Oh, he’s seeing a sports psychologist, he’s got a problem.’ It’s not about a mental disorder… It should be described more in terms of helping athletes obtain their optimal [performance] and become the best they can be.”
The mental training produced great results for Gutierrez with a win at the 2016 Kentucky Derby and a third place finish at the 2016 Preakness Stakes.
GUTIERREZ: “It’s not about mantras or anything, it’s about building confidence to help you to navigate what’s to come. Everything’s in the mind. Mentally, it’s like going to the gym with a trainer – a trainer helps prepare your body, and [the sports psychologist] helps prepare my mind.”
Gutierrez plans to continue his mental training throughout his career.
And mental training is not about fixing your faults or providing a cure to what ails you. Mental training is an ongoing process of learning to understand your mind’s influence on your performance and improving each year.
I have athletes return often for tune up sessions so they can stay on top of their mental game.
Tips for Mental Preparation:
Your performance depends greatly on how confident you feel when you start a competition. When you feel prepared, you start the competition feeling competent and confident.
The more prepared you feel, the more confidence you can have. However, that’s only one part feeling confident…
You also want to have proactive confidence.
Proactive confidence is the idea of fueling your confidence prior to competition with:
1. A belief in your abilities and strengths
2. Positive self-talk
3. Positive mental rehearsal
Don’t wait until you perform well in the moment (in the opening moments of competition) to feel confident. How many years have your been training and competing? That’s how many years you have worked on your confidence!
You deserve to feel confident. Don’t take a back seat approach to confidence!
The Confident Athlete CD and workbook program can help you learn how to be more proactive with your confidence:
Related Sports Psychology Articles
- Debunking Mental Training for Athletes
- What Skills Are Learned in Mental Training?
- What Do You Learn in a Mental Training Lesson?
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The Confident Athlete
“The Confident Athlete” consists of 2 audio programs that include 14 days of confidence fueling exercises and a simple to follow workbook that guides you through the 14 days, helps you apply the strategies, and customizes the exercises to your personal needs.
Let me help you put a stop to the confidence leak. You can learn to have greater levels of confidence in competition than you do in practice by identifying the specific ways you undermine your own confidence and how to convert your practice confidence into COMPETITIVE CONFIDENCE.
“The Confident Athlete” is a ground-breaking system to teach you how to think like a champion and have ultimate self-confidence every time you step on the playing field, court, track, or course. The confident athletes was developed for any athlete – junior to professional –that wants to gain confidence. However, coaches and sports parents can learn how to teach others to perform with ultimate confidence. Use my program if you want to bust a slump or just wanting higher or more consistent levels of self-confidence.