Now that you have an understanding of Prime Sport from my previous issues of Prime Sport Alert! (if you missed them, click here), you can begin the process of achieving it. The first step involves gaining a better understanding of yourself as an athlete. This self-understanding then results in greater improvement and better performance. Becoming the best athlete you can is complicated. You probably have a busy life filled with sports, school, work, family, social life, and other activities. It’s difficult to find time to do everything. By understanding yourself, you’ll know what you need to work on to be efficient and focused in your efforts.

In developing greater self-understanding, you must recognize your strengths and weaknesses. Most athletes love to focus on their strengths, but don’t like to admit that they have weaknesses. This attitude will limit your development. Most athletes think that they’re as good as their greatest strengths. For example, a tennis player believes that his power and height advantage will enable him to win and that his lack of quickness and consistency won’t hurt him. The truth is, however, that you are only as good as your biggest weakness. Returning to that example, if the player’s opponent is fast and a good counterpuncher, his power and height can be neutralized and his lack of speed and consistency may determine the outcome of the match-up.

Think of athletic strengths and weaknesses as a mathematical equation. On a scale of 1-10 where a 1 is very poor and 10 is the best, if a basketball player is a good shooter (8), but a poor defender (2), her over-all performance would be moderate (8+2=10). If she focused on and improved her shooting (from 8 to 9), she wouldn’t improve that much over all because, already a capable shooter, there isn’t much room for improvement (9+2=11). But if she improved your defense (from 2 to 7), then her overall performance would rise significantly (8+7=15). Of course, you want to continue to build your strengths, but the more you improve your weaknesses, the higher your over-all performances and the more successful you will be.

Why Prime Sport Profiling?

A difficulty with dealing with the mental aspects of sport is that they’re not tangible or easily measured. If you want to learn what are your physical strengths and weaknesses, you can go through a physical-testing program that gives you objective data about your physical condition. Think of Prime Sport profiling as physical testing for the mind. It makes mental issues related to your sport more concrete.

It’s important for you to have an open mind with Prime Sport profiling. Rather than being uncomfortable with facing your weaknesses, you should be willing to consider the information in a positive and constructive way. When weaknesses are identified, it doesn’t mean that you’re incapable of performing well. It may be that you haven’t had to use these skills at your current level or you’ve been able to hide them with the strengths you have. But the information you gain from Prime Sport profiling will enable you to improve and you’ll have a better chance of achieving your goals.

Completing the Prime Sport Profile

The Prime Sport profile is comprised of 12 mental, emotional, and competitive factors that impact sports performance. To complete the Prime Sport profile, read the description of each factor and rate yourself on a 1-10 scale, then follow the instructions for evaluating your score and developing an action plan to build your strengths and alleviate your weaknesses.

Motivation – How determined you are to train and compete to achieve your athletic goals. (1-not at all; 10-very)

Confidence – How strongly you believe in your ability to achieve your athletic goals. (1-not at all confident; 10-totally confident)

Intensity – Whether your physical intensity helps or hurts your competitive performances. (1-hurts, too anxious or too relaxed; 10-helps, just right)

Focus – How well you’re able to stay focused on performing your best and avoid distractions. (1-distracted; 10-focused)

Emotions – Whether you have control over your emotions and they help you perform well or you lose control of your emotions and they hurt your competitive performances. (1-lose control, hurt; 10-have control, help)

Consistency – How well you’re able to consistently maintain a high level of performance during competitions.  (1-not at all inconsistent; 10-very consistent)

Routines – How much you use routines in your preparations including in training, and before and during competitions. (1-never; 10-often)

Competitor – How you perform in competitions as compared to training. (1-much worse; 10-much better)

Adversity – How you respond to difficult conditions you’re faced with during competitions. (1-poorly; 10-well)

Pressure – How you perform in difficult competitive situations, such as when you are behind. (1-poorly; 10-well)

Ally – Whether you are your best ally or your worst enemy during a competitions. (1-enemy; 10-ally)

Prime Sport – How often you achieve and maintain your highest level of competitive performance.  (1-never; 1- often)

Using Your Prime Sport Profile

Having completed the Prime Sport profile, you now have a clear picture of what you believe to be the mental strengths and weaknesses in your sport. Typically, a score below a 8 indicates an area on which you need to work. Place a ? next to each factor that you scored as less than a 8. These are the factors that you’ll want to consider working on in your Prime Sport program.

From those checked factors, select three to focus on in the immediate future. It doesn’t make sense to deal with every one that you need to strengthen. You’ll just become overloaded and won’t give adequate attention to any of them. It’s best to focus on a few, strengthen them, then move on to others.

The question is, if you have more than three factors on which you need to work, which ones should you choose? The decision should be based on several concerns. First, you should look at which ones are most important for your long-term development. Just like working on the physical and technical aspects of your sport, you should focus on the factors that will help you in the long run. Second, some weaknesses are symptoms of other weaknesses. By dealing with one factor, another one can be relieved without having to work on it directly. For example, you may not handle pressure well because you lack confidence. By building your confidence, you also improve your ability to handle pressure. Third, you need to balance your immediate training and competitive needs with your long-term development. You may have an important competition coming up for which you need to be ready. For example, you may decide that you need to improve your focus and intensity immediately even though working on your motivation and confidence will be more important in the future.

On a blank sheet of paper, indicate the three mental factors you want to focus on in the near future. By reading one of my Prime Sport book series (general sport, tennis, golf, ski racing, learn more), another of the many excellent sport-psychology books that are available, or the articles you can read free of charge on my Web site (learn more), you can learn about techniques and exercises that will help you strengthen the areas you’ve selected. By setting goals for the areas you want to improve on and developing an action plan of how to achieve those goals, you can systematically develop the areas you’ve identified in your Prime Sport profile.

You can also use Prime Sport Profiling to measure progress in your training. Periodically, perhaps every few months, complete the profile and compare it with your past profiles. You should see improvement in the areas on which you’ve worked. Also, ask your coaches about positive changes they’ve seen in those areas. When your ratings move to an 8 or above, select other factors to work on and follow the same procedure.