What is mental toughness and why is it important?
Today’s article will begin a series of post about mental toughness.
Why is it important and how do you develop it not just in sports but in your healthy life style plan.
I believe that we have only scratched the surface of our abilities to use the power of our minds in sport and in life.
Having said that I want to delve into the importance of building mental toughness and resilience into your life.
I will begin to pursue this from a coaching perspective but it is equally applicable in your every day life.
Mental toughness is the ability to control thoughts and actions and maintain a focus on what is truly important in a calm and poised way under competitive pressure.
It is important that your players know and can explain whatever you define mental toughness to be.
Everyone is born with the ability to develop mental toughness, but how do you go about instilling this mental toughness in your players?
Vince Lombardi had the mental toughness and the best pep talks to lead the Green Bay Packers to five championships. The passion that Lombardi’s players played with and the fact that they were wholeheartedly devoted to him brought this dynasty success over and over again. He was a hard ass yet his emphasis on motivation, hard work, habit, the ‘can do’ attitude and dedication endeared him to millions of players, fans and opponents who admired his success and his values.
Vince Lombardi virtually allowed his enthusiasm and mental toughness to succeed onto his players. All coaches are forever looking for the edge for their team and players so how do you bottle this ability to inspire and get the best out of your players.
Sport Psychology is at the forefront of providing that edge for you as a coach
Sports Psychology is about improving your attitude and mental game skills to help you perform your best by identifying limiting beliefs and embracing a healthier philosophy about your sport.
Below is a list of the top ten ways that you can benefit from sports psychology:
1. Improve focus and deal with distractions.
Many athletes have the ability to concentrate, but often their focus is displaced on the wrong areas such as when a batter thinks “I need to get a hit” while in the batter’s box, which is a result-oriented focus.
To help this athlete become focused on the present moment and let go of results will assist them to develop mental toughness.
2. Grow confidence in athletes who have doubts.
Doubt is the opposite of confidence. If you maintain many doubts prior to or during your performance, this indicates low self-confidence or at least you are sabotaging what confidence you had at the start of the competition. Confidence is a core mental game skill because of its importance and relationship to other mental skills and performance.
3. Develop coping skills to deal with setbacks and errors.
Emotional control is a prerequisite to getting into the zone. Athletes with very high and strict expectations, have trouble dealing with minor errors that are a natural part of sports. It?s important to address these expectations and also help athletes stay composed under pressure and when they commit errors or become frustrated.
4. Find the right zone of intensity for your sport.
I use intensity in a broad sense to identify the level of arousal or mental activation that is necessary for each person to perform his or her best. This will vary from person to person and from sport to sport. “Feeling up” and positively charged is critical, but not getting overly excited is also important. You have to tread a fine line between being excited to complete, but not getting over-excited.
5. Help teams develop communication skills and cohesion.
A major part of sports psychology and mental training is helping teams improve cohesion and communication. The more a team works as a unit, the better the results for all involved.
6. To instill a healthy belief system and identify irrational thoughts.
One of the areas I pride myself on is helping athletes identify ineffective beliefs and attitudes such as comfort zones and negative self-labels that hold them back from performing well. These core unhealthy beliefs must be identified and replaced with a new way of thinking. Unhealthy or irrational beliefs will keep you stuck no matter how much you practice or hard you try.
7. Improve or balance motivation for optimal performance.
It’s important to look at your level of motivation and just why you are motivated to play your sport. Some motivators are better in the long-term than others. Athletes who are extrinsically motivated often play for the wrong reasons, such as the athlete who only participates in sports because of a parent. I work with athlete to help them adopt a healthy level of motivation and be motivated for the right reasons.
8. Develop confidence post-injury.
Some athletes find themselves fully prepared physically to get back into competition and practice, but mentally some scars remain. Injury can hurt confidence, generate doubt during competition, and cause a lack of focus. It is important to help athletes mentally heal from injuries and deal with the fear of re-injury.
9. To develop game-specific strategies and game plans.
All great coaches employ game plans, race strategies, and course management skills to help athletes mentally prepare for competition. This is an area beyond developing basic mental skills in which a mental coach helps athletes and teams. This is very important in sports such as golf, racing, and many team sports.
10. To identify and enter the “zone” more often.
The overall aim is to help athletes enter the zone by developing foundational mental skills that can help athletes enter the zone more frequently.
It’s impossible to play in the zone everyday, but you can set the conditions for it to happen more often.
I will add that sport psychology may not be appropriate for every athlete. Not every person who plays a sport wants to improve performance.
Sport psychology is probably not for recreation athletes who participate for the social component of a sport or do not spend time working on technique or fitness to improve performance.
Young athletes whose parents want them to see a sports psychologist are not good candidate either.
It’s very important that the athlete desires to improve his or her mental game without having the motive to satisfy a parent. Similarly, an athlete who sees a mental game expert only to satisfy a coach is not going to fully benefit from mental training.
Sports Psychology does apply to a wide variety of serious athletes. Most of my students (junior, high school, college, and professional athletes) are highly committed to excellence and seeing how far they can go in sports.
They love competition and testing themselves against the best in their sport. They understand the importance of a positive attitude and mental toughness. These athletes want every possible advantage they can get including the mental edge over the competition.
I hope this got you thinking about the importance of mental toughness in your sport.
I will begin to expand on each point in later posts.
I hope to provide you with a clear defined understanding of mental toughness.
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