Sport Psychology Blog

One mental strategy that you can use to help your mindset in games is what I call "thinking about the percentages." Here are a few examples to explain what this means.

If a basketball player misses a free-throw, instead of getting too emotional, he could stay composed by thinking about his normal free-throw percentage. He could think, "It's OK. I normally make 80% of my free-throw attempts. This missed free-throw is just one of the two that I'll miss out of 10 shots on average. If I continue to try my best, I will start making more free-throws and reach closer to my normal percentage." This type of thinking greatly helps you stay rational, stay calm, stay confident, manage your emotions, and maintain a peak performance mindset.

The same basketball player, after missing 4 free-throws in a row, could also think, "It's OK, I'm about to make 20 in a row to maintain my 80% average!"

Here is another example of how thinking about percentages helps y…

One way to categorize motives is by dividing them into individual and shared/team success. You can be motivated to reach individual success. You can want to stand out and acquire personal accolades and increase your personal wealth and happiness. You can also want to share your success with others. You can want to win a team championship. You can want to represent for your city or country. You can want to work hard in order to give your family a better life. Both individual and shared success have pros and cons.
I argue that shared/team success is better than individual success. This is because, for most people, team success is more emotionally rewarding. It feels great to share success with your teammates, coaches, family, and city/state/country. This provides a sense of love and belonging alongside your accomplishment. It makes you feel a part of something greater than yourself. Team success strengthens your relationships with other people. You will enjoy reminiscing about old memor…

As humans, we are affected by what we experience. Our experiences shape us. We learn from experiences. Our attitudes change when we experience new things. Experiences provide motivation. Experiences can weaken and discourage us. Certain experiences affect us more than others. Certain experiences provide both good things and bad things.

 For instance, the experience of getting cut from a team can motivate you to train extremely hard in order to prove people wrong. The experience of losing a loved one can change your perspective on life and make you more grateful for your friends and family. These are the benefits that come from experiences that most would consider adverse. It's nice to gain these benefits, but no one wants the tangible costs of going through these kinds of experiences. 

Wouldn't it be great if you could gain these benefits without actually having to go through adverse experiences? Luckily, there is a way to do this! It's called vicarious experience, which is …

The Golden State Warrior's motto is "strength in numbers." This isn't just a cliche or a cool slogan. It's an important part of coach Steve Kerr's philosophy. Strength in numbers is about team depth. It's about using everyone on your team to gain certain advantages. It's also about teamwork and sharing the ball, and not relying on just one star player.

The benefits of teamwork and unselfishness are pretty obvious. It leads to quality shots/plays which increases efficiency. It makes it tough on defenses since they can't just lock in on one player. Also, since it gets everyone involved, everyone becomes engaged, confident, and performs better.

It doesn't just increase the engagement of the players on the court/field. It also increases the engagement of the entire team, since everyone gets a respectable amount of playing time, and no one is on the bench for the entire game. Since everyone on the team feels valuable, this greatly increases team cohe…

How Bad Do You Want It? by Matt Fitzgerald is one of the best sport psychology books that I've read in a long time. In this book, Fitzgerald teaches about the psycho-biological model of endurance performance. This is basically a theory that explains how to improve your performance in sports by becoming mentally tougher. Even though the book focuses on endurance sports such as running, this model can be applied to every sport, because every sport requires mental toughness to cope and endure through stress.

The psycho-biological model of endurance performance states that performance (in endurance sports) is influenced almost entirely by your mind’s relationship with perception of effort. Since it is the perception of effort (the thoughts and feelings of giving effort) that causes you to slow down and quit in competitions, if you improve your relationship with perception of effort, you will improve your performance and reach closer to your physical limits. You can improve your relatio…