Chapter 1

Introducing Sports Psychology and Mental Training

IN THIS CHAPTER

Knowing what sports psychology can do for you

Seeing your mind as a tool for success

Using sports psychology to prepare for competition

Understanding the hottest trends in sports psychology

Drawing on sports psychology tools as a coach

You’ve probably heard of elite athletes working with sports psychologists and pro teams having sports psychologists on staff. But what exactly is sports psychology, and is it limited to the pros?

Sports psychology is simply the practical application of psychological principles in a sports setting. It’s used to help an athlete or team improve their performance — and it absolutely isn’t limited to professional athletes. In fact, we’re seeing sports psychology used at all levels of sport. The field of sports psychology provides benefits and knowledge to youth, high school, and college athletes, as well as to coaches, parents, administrators, sports medicine physicians, strength and conditioning coaches, dietitians, and physical therapists. It’s used in the more popular sports — such as soccer, football, golf, and tennis — as well as in lesser-known ones — such as judo, snowboarding, fencing, and cricket. Sports psychology is even being used and applied in the non-sport realms, including medicine, education, business, politics, organizational development, and the military. Its benefits and uses are growing by leaps and bounds throughout the world. It’s an exciting time to be tapping into the benefits of sports psychology!

The good news is that you don’t have to pay hundreds or thousands of dollars to hire your own personal sports psychologist. With this book in your hands, you have an edge over other athletes and, most important, the ability to reach your highest potential.

Honing Your Sharpest Weapon: Your Mind

The greatest tool that any athlete has is the mind. The brain — that wonderful organ that regulates your breathing, controls your beating heart, and manages the rest of your body — is at the core of all successful sports performances.

Everybody knows that talent and physical skill play an enormous role in every athlete’s success, but not many people understand the importance of the mind and how we use it. In fact, your mind is one of the most powerful pieces of sports equipment you’ll ever own. It can make or break you.

By understanding the power of your mind and being able to use it to your advantage, you can improve your performance. Sports psychology can help you to

• Manage performance anxiety
• Use visualization and imagery to improve your performance
• Increase and maintain your confidence
• Improve and maintain your level of motivation
• Relax under pressure
• Set and achieve goals
• Manage your energy levels
• Use routines to be consistent in your performance
• Bounce back from injuries and setbacks
• Manage and address conflicts with coaches and teammates
• Focus in critical moments and extend the duration of your concentration
• Manage stress and other mental health issues
• Better communicate with others
• Know yourself better

Knowing how your mind influences your sports performance

Your mind, which is the end product of all the wonderful thinking processes that occur in your physical brain, has a powerful impact on your sports performance. In fact, it has been having that powerful impact previously, even if you weren’t aware of it. Have you ever felt fear before a match, competition, or game? That’s your mind at work. Have you ever performed well, but unexpectedly? That was your mind at work also. Finally, have you ever achieved an important goal in your sport, even though it took a long time and a lot of hard work along the way? Once again, that came from the efforts of your mind.

Our mind influences our performance, both in and out of sport, and this book helps you understand how to affect changes in your mind that will produce amazing results in your performance. From setting goals (Chapter 3) to building motivation and confidence (Chapters 4 and 5) to using powerful tools and techniques that professionals use (Chapters 6-12), you learn how to direct your mind to govern your body, heart, and attitude — all to produce the results you want in sports competition.

Discovering your ideal mindset in sports performance

What is the ideal mindset for maximum performance in sport? Is there one? We (Leif and Todd) are asked this question all the time. Although performance is a combination of talent, circumstances, and effort, performing at your best can indeed become a habit. When you learn the ideal mindset for performing at your best, you can replicate it, over and over again.

Chapters 9 and 10 can help you get a jumpstart on your competition and start developing your ideal mindset.

Building your ideal mindset with awareness and the right processes

Building this ideal mindset, much like making any change in your life, starts with awareness. You need to be aware, first, of the mindset that has been holding you back in competition. You also most importantly need to be aware of the mindset you possess when you are performing at your best. We are taught to focus on the negative and be self-critical, but we need to spend more time and energy on what we are doing right!

Having a good supporting cast of family, friends, coaches, and teammates around you helps you do this, and from there you can begin to take the tools that you learn in this book to build a better mindset, step by step. This is the essence — the process — by which you can begin to perform better, at higher levels, and more consistently.

For more information on ways to start developing this process, check out Chapters 2 and 8.

Understanding your motivation

Motivation can come from within (we call this intrinsic motivation), and it can come from things outside of yourself, such as money, fame, or status (we call this type of motivation extrinsic motivation). When you understand how to utilize both types of motivation to your advantage, you hasten your development as a complete athlete, combining mind and body together to maximize the talent you already have for your sport.

Chapter 4 is a powerful chapter, and it gives you the tools you need to understand and improve your motivation in sports.

Understanding and building confidence for your athletic performance

One of the wonderful aspects of sports psychology principles and techniques is that they’re applicable on and off the field. They help you improve your confidence. And all improved performances — on and off the field — result from a gradual improvement in your confidence. The more confident you are, the more risks you take, and the more rewards and positive consequences you experience. All successful athletes know that when they’re confident and comfortable, their chances for success are dramatically higher, even though their preparation and physical fitness may be the same.

Confidence frees you to perform, compete, and reach your highest potential. And confidence is not an all-or-nothing game — it changes and develops over time. We want you to be in a place where you fear less and dream and create more! When you build confidence, you can try new things without fearing how you will look in front of others or worrying what they will think of you.

In Chapter 5, we show you the art and the science of building true confidence. We like to call this swagger. We help you take the guesswork out of the process of improving your self-confidence and give you a solid framework from which to improve your performance in sports. We also show you how best to address and manage those times when your confidence drops. Your goal should be to maximize the times when your confidence is high and minimize the times when it’s not. This is one of the secrets of confidence in sports.

Building, Preparing, and Practicing Your Mental Toolkit

In developing your mind through sports psychology training, you want to develop your own personal “mental toolkit” that contains the techniques and strategies you need to strengthen your mental muscle. Just as you can use equipment to help you improve your physical fitness, there are tools you can use to do the same for your mind.

Focus is one of the most critical mental skills to develop for success in athletics. It’s one of the most common assets of successful athletes, and a lack of focus is a primary reason for mental errors, mistakes, and the inability to perform under pressure. In Chapter 6, we give you Tool #1, “Mastering the Art of Focus,” so that you can take your focus up a notch.

Mental imagery can help you build confidence, manage pressure, recover from mistakes and poor performance, and prepare for practice and competition. In Chapter 7, we offer you Tool #2, “Seeing Is Believing,” and we explain what imagery is and how it works, giving you specific steps to use the tool of imagery in your sport.

As an athlete, you’re constantly working toward specific goals, and you are creating habits that will propel you toward...