My Prime Performance System explores five important areas related to the psychology of sports: attitudes, obstacles, preparation, mental muscles, and tools. This article will introduce you to the first essential area—attitudes—and explain why they are so important to sports success. The dictionary definition of attitude is “The way you think and feel about something…a way [...]
The conclusion of a sports season can be a time of excitement, relief, and suffering for parents of athletes. The excitement comes when your young athletes have just concluded a season that exceeded their (and your) expectations. The sense of pride and satisfaction can be palatable and reinforces why you have your children involved in [...]
My new 12-week online mental training program will explore five important areas related to the psychology of ski racing: attitudes, obstacles, preparation, mental muscles, and tools. This article will introduce you to the first essential area—attitudes—and explain why they are so important to ski racing success. The dictionary definition of attitude is “The way you [...]
What you say to yourself does matter, according to a series of research studies described in a recent article. Not only does self-talk work, but it also helps when you talk to yourself out loud and in the 3rd person (e.g., "Come on, Jim!). I encourage the athletes I work with to use self-talk to build [...]
One of the most frequent comments I hear from the athletes I work with is: “I had a lousy day of training.” This statement was almost always accompanied by a variety of emotions that are neither pleasant nor helpful including frustration, anger, worry, doubt, and disappointment, and, occasionally, despair. Moreover, I saw that this assertion [...]
In my last post, Fear of Failure: Part I, I discussed the sad epidemic of fear of failure that I found to be rampant in America and that I see frequently in the young athletes with whom I work. I have discovered a new wrinkle to the fear-of-failure phenomenon that brings greater clarity to the problems [...]
The off-season is now well underway and you are probably hitting the gym and, hopefully, hitting the slopes soon as well some time in the next few months. Though getting the miles on snow is very important, a key focus during the summer should be on building your fitness that acts as the foundation for [...]
Here's a great article about Rafael Nadal in which he describes struggling mentally this year on the pro tennis tour. Roger Federer also discusses his mental difficulties. For most people, it's hard to imagine that such such gifted and experienced athletes who have had so much success in their careers could, for example, lose confidence and get [...]
With the season drawing to a close, it is, for every racer, a time of reckoning in which you look back and evaluate what kind of season you had: one to be proud of or one to reflect back on with disappointment and perhaps regret. One of the primary criteria that racers use to judge [...]
I was recently interviewed by Isaac Byrd, a former NFL player. We talked about sport psychology and the mental preparation for sport. Might be worth a listen.