You often hear that sport is 80 or 90 percent mental and only 10 to 20 percent physical. Whatever the number is, having a winning attitude is as necessary as a winning form! Even in physically grueling sports like wrestling, football and rugby; the difference between winning and losing is often the result of that slight little mental edge.
And yet how many of us actually spend the time to think through our attitudes on and off the playing fields? Probably only 5 percent. Parents, athletes and even coaches get caught up in looking at the physical skills of players and focus all of their energies on developing speed, strength and agility. Which are important! But leaving out the mental component leaves a lot of talent and opportunity on the table.
So the question becomes…Do you really need a Sports Psychologist?
Well, if you feel it’s not your body but your mind that’s setting you back in your quest for sports glory, then you could probably use the help of a Sports Psychologist or mental trainer. Often times just a few short sessions with a Sports Psychologist / Mental Trainer can completely turn-around an athletes performance.
The trend right now at the professional levels is to have a personal Sports Psychologist on call and ready to help out anyone that’s struggling. And, the trend has started to filter down into the amateur ranks.
Long gone are the days of some sort of negative stigma being attached to working with mental trainer. Now it’s seen as a competitive advantage. You can think of a great Sports Psychologist as the person that helps you get out of your own way of success. Helping you to dump negative self-talk and habits and overcome the limiting beliefs a lot of athletes carry around – which destroys confidence.
So, what does a Sports Psychologist do?
Well a good one, and yes there are a lot of bad ones, will assist you in the development of mental techniques that will improve your competitive preparation, focus skills and help you to set and define goals. You’ll be given exercises that will change your thoughts, perceptions, attitudes, expectations, beliefs and emotions, all for the sake of providing the strongest mental foundation possible to support your physical capabilities.
These exercises can include creative visualization where you will be asked to imagine in great detail the things that you want to achieve in your sport. This focused exercise will allow you to tap into the powers of your mind, and create vivid scenarios that will help you to make changes to your game quickly.
You’ll also be assisted by the Sports Psychologist in goal setting, focus control, self-talk as well as management of the pressure, stress and energy that every athlete will have to face if you’re going to win.
Your attitude really can effect your altitude. Just ask Muhammad Ali and his non-stop affirmations of who he is – The Greatest! But there are a right and wrong way to go about using affirmations… which we’ll talk about later.
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