Sport Psychology Blog

The best athletes don't just have a strategic game plan for each game, they also have a mental game plan. A mental game plan is simply a plan for how you're going to play your best mentally. The best athletes don't just wait until things happen and hope for the best. They prepare beforehand to make sure they will react in the best way possible so they can perform their best in games. The first step of mental game planning is asking yourself how you plan to prepare your mindset during the hours and minutes before a game. There are many components to this question, such as: How are you going to conserve your mental/emotional energy during the day of a game? How are you going to relieve unnecessary stress during the day of a game? How are you going to motivate and pump yourself up as the start of the game approaches? How are you going to relax and calm your nerves as the start of the game approaches? How are you going to focus your mind on your mission and strategic gam

Here is a mental toughness tip to help you endure through effort, pain, and fatigue. I call it, "fake it then embrace it." Here is an example to explain what this means. Imagine you're running a marathon. As you're running, your sense of effort, pain, and fatigue will gradually increase. At some point, your sense of discomfort will outweigh your motivation to endure, and this will cause you to slow down or quit. In order to minimize your sense of discomfort and maximize your motivation, and therefore improve your performance, you can use the "fake it then embrace it" strategy. By faking it, I mean act as if you're more comfortable than you really are. By thinking positive and distracting yourself from discomfort, you can go longer without feeling overwhelmed with discomfort. in other words, the less you acknowledge the discomfort you're in, the less affected you'll be by it. It won't occupy as much space in your consciousness, therefore i

Task vs ego orientation is very similar to the growth and fixed mindsets . A growth mindset, which is a belief that abilities can be improved with practice, leads to a task-oriented mindset, which is a focus on the process of improvement. On the other hand, a fixed mindset, which is a belief that abilities can't be improved with practice, leads to an ego-oriented mindset, which is a focus on satisfying your ego. This is important to know because it is the task-oriented athletes with growth mindsets that are the most successful and happy in life. As an athlete, if you know the characteristics of task-oriented and ego-oriented mindsets, then you can better adopt the task-oriented mindset and resist the ego-oriented mindset. Task-oriented athletes focus on the process, therefore they work harder. E go-oriented athletes are constantly worried about comparing themselves to others, therefore they try to bring others down while elevating themselves with arrogance. They are often

The Motivation Manifesto by Brendon Burchard is one of the best motivational, self-help books I've read. Whether you are trying to turn your life around or you are looking for extra motivation to reach your goals, this is the book for you! The purpose of this book is to give you the inspiration and guidance to unleash your personal freedom, accomplish your goals, reach your potential, and live your life to the fullest. As Burchard writes, "Humankind's main motivation is to seek and experience personal freedom." Whatever someone wants in life, they want the freedom to seek and achieve it. Deep down, people crave to live bigger, more meaningful lives. However, we often fall short of living up to our potential. Instead, we let fear, comfort, convenience, and laziness hold us back in life. In this book, Burchard gives you the motivation and tools to overcome fear and laziness and strive towards a better life. One of the main themes of this book is personal responsibility