Sport Psychology Consultanting
What Fatigue Can Do To Our Focus
Apr 17th
At this time of year, it is interesting to see the effect of fatigue on individuals. Working at BYU as a Sports Psych Consultant I see a lot of high performing athletes struggling with keeping their focus at this time of year. Fatigue can be the ultimate interference factor in high performance even for the most disciplined mind. The problem with collegiate students is they are sooooo busy with school and their respective sport schedules. In addition, young adults think they are invincible and don’t need that much sleep. The truth is, it doesn’t matter how disciplined a mind we have, if we don’t get enough sleep we won’t be able to execute the necessary mental skills to perform at high levels. A note of advice. When we are fatigued it is easy for us to direct our tired, frustrated energy onto others. We need to do our best to avoid doing this. It is our fault we are tired. When we feel frustrated and grumpy find ways to reserve our energy. Take a quick nap, stay focused in the present (preserves energy) or simply keep your mouth shut. Remember it is better not to say anything if you have nothing good to say.
Mental Skills Training: Avoid choking under pressure.
Apr 14th
I read an interesting study that was done by James Dimmock, psychologists at the University of Western Australia. He took 20 golfers and had them play a round focusing on cue words. Some focused on outcome cues, some focused on irrelevant cues and some focused on positive adjectives cues. There was not much difference between the players focusing on the words, but what they did find is that those golfers who were able to reduce anxiety with their words performed the best. Reducing anxiety during practice or a competition can set you up for the best results.
I spoke with a pole vaulter the other day who has graduated. Just some background here, this athlete was a very good jumper, top 5 in the NCAA, and two years in a row he no height-ed in the first round of the NCAA championships, (no height means, he did not make the height) He was ranked so high and was so talented that all he had to do in the first round was make one height and he would advance. I asked him what was going through his mind during both of these competitions. He told me that he was fixating on “all I have to do is make one bar, I have to make one height.” When he focused on these words his anxiety went through the roof and he said that he did not make good decisions. There is a direct relationship between anxiety, confidence, focus, and decision making, as anxiety rises, confidence, focus and decision making all decline. The same happens in reverse, as anxiety declines, confidence, focus and decision making all rise, which results in a great performance. This particular athlete was focused so much on the outcome of the event, that he almost forgot how to jump, he stopped executing specific skills that help him make the height.
The way that you can avoid choking in pressure situations is to reduce anxiety, by focusing on specific skills that will allow you to be successful, for pole vaulting it could be have a tall take off or run relaxed. Focusing on skills takes your mind away from focusing on the outcome. In tennis if you focus on playing the entire match hitting the ball out front, and executing that skill on every shot will give you the best chance for success. So again just to reaffirm what will help you avoid choking under pressure is, focusing on specific skills will and not the outcome will lower anxiety, thus raising confidence, focus, and decision making, allowing for a great performance.
There is one more key component here, it helps a great deal to ad a reassuring phrase to your game. One that is popular is “I can do this!” or “I got this!” I have also heard “Today is my day!” These phrase when said just before performing really help to build confidence, concentration, and decision making.
I recommend that when you are doing mental skills training you use a performance journal, or a mental skills journal, to log the skills you will focus on and to write down your reassuring phrase. When you write it down it becomes more powerful and real.
Performance Journal: Knowing your objective keeps the mind focused.
Apr 3rd
One of the largest challenges that athletes face is when interference sneaks into our brain during practice or during a competition. These distraction can cause our performance to shift in the wrong direction. Having a clear objective can keep our mind focused on the tasks at hand. A performance journal will help an athlete keep that focus, most high performing athletes use them on a daily basis, in practice and competition.
I really enjoy watching athletes who are focused on executing their objective or the task at hand. I watched the Duke vs West Virginia game in the final four of the NCAA tournament. Even though I was cheering for WVU, I thoroughly impressed by how duke continually executed their plan each time down the court. They were focused, they were not worried about winning or losing, they were just focused on scoring the ball on one end and stopping the ball on the other end. Because they were focused on their objective there was no interference and when the time ran out, sure enough they had won the game.
On the other hand, you could see what had happened to WVU. In the second half when duke was up by 11 with about 10 minutes left in the game, players on the WVU team seemed to get distracted, perhaps thinking about the outcome of the game. Thinking “oh-no what if we lose this game, that would be devastating.” Their minds had shifted away from their objective of executing the play, to “we might lose.” I could see this fear in the players faces, I could see the slouching in the shoulders. Then WVU best player got hurt and it seemed like WVU just quit. They had not lost the game there was still a lot of time on the clock, but they did lose their focus and as a result their performance took a step down, turnovers, missed shots, no hustling around screens or contesting shots. Then sure enough when time had run out, they were on the losing end.
The challenge in this situation is can you say to yourself “did I give it my best?” Only each athlete can answer that, but I will say this, when your focus becomes outcome oriented or on the outcome of the game, that means that your focus is not on the task at hand. You may still win or you may still lose, but if you stay focused on the task at hand you will always come out on top, because you can say “I gave it my best.”
A performance journal is a powerful tool to help you set a clear objective that is in writing that will help you stay focused when interference enters your mind. As an athlete I have experienced countless times during a game or competition when a doubt or a fear or some sort of interference enters my mind, and every time this happens I just think back to what my objective was and then re-focus. Mastering this skill is something that will accelerate growth in practice and competition, thus allowing you to reach your true maximum potential.
Mental Skills: Confidence, it changes the game.
Apr 1st
Confidence is a mjor part of sports, in fact it is the number component that leads to high performance, and at its simplest form, if you don’t believe you can do something you wont. If you believe you can do something then you will. A large component to developing confidence is having a previous successful experience.
Let me share a story about the building/development of confidence and how it can change the game. I have worked with an athlete his who is a pole vaulter, we will call him Chris. Chris has a lot of natural ability, he is pretty fast on the open track and he is pretty strong in the weight room, but the one thing that he lacked was belief in himself, or a little confidence. He would often times tell himself and tell other people that he had confidence and he believed that he could jump high, but where his lack of confidence became evidence was when he actually got on the runway to jump. He did not believe he was fast enough, to get on big poles and jump as high as he wanted, until something interesting happened. Chris decided he wanted to run the 100 meter dash as part of his training for one particular meet. Chris went and ran 11.02, which for a pole vaulter is pretty quick. Once Chris discovered that he was actually pretty fast, he began to improve dramatically. In practice he began running faster down the runway, and as a result of that he began to get on bigger poles. In his first outdoor competition he tied his lifetime best. That week in practice we moved him to a longer pole. The second competition he Improved on his lifetime best by 4 inches, and nearly 3 more inches on top of that. In the sport of pole vaulting inches make a big difference. Now Chris has the second highest mark in the nation.
The interesting point here is that Chris had it in him to jump this high all along, he just had to believe it. Once he had the successful previous experience that suggested that he was pretty fast, he began running faster, because he had confidence that he could run faster, and the result is that his performance when up dramatically. Physical ability is a large part of being a good athlete, but the mental skill of confidence or the mental ability is what allows for the physical ability to be effective. You never know what you maximum ability may be if you don’t learn the Mental Skills that allow you to reach your maximum ability.
Learn more about these skills in the book The Fearless Mind, begin learning these skills with a Performance Journal, this will set you up for success.