Mental Skills for Sporting Success

There are many reasons people come to see a sport psychologist (look out for a future post on that!). Most typically, clients contact me because something specific is troubling or challenging them. Other times however, it may ‘simply’ (I use that word loosely!!) be to improve their mental skills. Just as we know we need to work in a consistent, systematic and focused manner in order to improve our physical abilities, the same approach should be taken when we look to enhance our mental toolkit.

Pause for a moment and spend a few minutes thinking about this now. On a weekly or monthly basis, how much time, thought and effort do you put into honing your technical and physical skills, and how much on the psychological? Now a second question – what percentage of performance do you believe to be related to mindset? Do your answers to these questions highlight anything worth noting?

In this blog post, I outline what are often thought to be the cornerstones of psychological skills in sport. As you read them, have a think about your own level of understanding around these skills. Are they areas that you have proactively focused on developing? Can you think of any ways in which they may help you?

Imagery

It is not uncommon that people use the terms ‘imagery’ and ‘visualisation’ interchangeably, however most sport psychologists I know will tend to prefer to use ‘imagery’. This is because when we imagine something, it is possible not only to visualise it, but also enlist all of our other senses. Try it now with something you do every day, perhaps brushing your teeth? Close your eyes and put yourself in the moment. What can you see? Hear? Smell? Taste? Feel (both physically and emotionally)? Being able to bring vivid images to mind takes practice (and of course, like anything, some people will be naturally better at it than others!). Imagery has been shown to enhance performance, over and above physical practice alone, so it is something that is definitely worth spending the time to get good at! This can be done gradually over a number of weeks and months, starting out with simple images and gradually honing your skills. (A sport psychologist can support you with a structured approach). Most top athletes will be able to imagine important scenarios in exceptional detail, really feeling themselves in the moment. It is also worth noting that imagery is extremely useful during injury recovery, when full physical training may not be possible. (If you are keen to learn more about imagery, my free event taking place on Wednesday 27th March 2024 may interest you!).

Self-Talk

Do you find that if you tell yourself something enough, you start to believe it? Being both aware of and in control of our self-talk is essential if we want to perform at our best. You will have seen in previous posts how important confidence is for performance (check out confidence boosting tips here) and negative or unhelpful self-talk is a sure fire way to undermine this. Positive, helpful statements on the other hand, can make us feel invincible! Have a think about this now. What ‘stories’ do you tend to tell yourself? A great way to identify these can be to keep a ‘thought diary’ noticing how you feel before, during and after training and competition. If you do this for several weeks or months and then look back over it, you will start to notice some patterns. Do you think your thoughts are mostly helping or hindering your performance? If you notice unhelpful thought patterns, don’t worry! Recognising them is the first step! Often, when we think about our unhelpful thoughts (when we are not caught up in them) we can see them for what they are. Just thoughts, and very often not even true! Identify some helpful phrases that you can say to yourself both pro-actively and when you notice these unhelpful thoughts arise. If unhelpful thoughts or ‘beating yourself up’ are cropping up regularly for you in your sport, do reach out and get support.

Goal-Setting

I’ve said it many times, goal-setting is my favourite psychological skill, primarily because people always underestimate it! If you haven’t read my previous blog post on goal-setting, you can check it out here. Effectively set goals are absolutely vital if you want to achieve them. I won’t repeat my previous post, but essentially as well as getting clear on your outcome goal, you need process (or action) goals that are going to move you towards this, and performance goals to measure your progress. Whilst this sounds straightforward, it isn’t always easy and getting support to set your goals could really make a big difference to your success. Essentially, if you have an idea of where you want to get but it is not crystal clear, or if you haven’t got really specific about your action steps needed to get there, you are very likely going to end up at the wrong destination! What current outcome goal are you working towards? What process goals have you set that will get you there?

Relaxation

Being able to stay relaxed when needed, and particularly at crucial moments, is an extremely important skill. If for example, you are panicking, or tense, you would probably agree that you are unlikely to perform at your best. As with other psychological skills, relaxation is something that can be practiced. As a first step, we can begin to get really good at ‘noticing’ how we feel. Take a moment now.  Begin to scan from your head right down to your toes. What do you notice? Do you notice any areas of tension? If you intentionally tense a muscle group, and then release it, how do you feel? It is really important to get to know yourself, and what helps you to relax. One way to do this is by trying out different techniques. In an ideal world, we can build to the point where we can put relaxation ‘on cue’. Pretty useful! As a starting point, we need to practice relaxing in ‘easier’ scenarios, and then build up our skills until we can use them in those which are more challenging.

One important point worth noting is that for some clients (and in some situations), the problem is not ‘relaxing’ (or bringing oneself ‘down’) but instead is feeling too relaxed and needing to ‘hype oneself up’. This can be practiced too!

Focus of Attention

This fifth skill is sometimes added to the previous four and I have included it here as I think it is definitely worth being aware of. Attentional focus is one that people often either don’t explicitly think about or don’t spend the time practising. When we play sport (or at any time!) our attention will be focused somewhere. We can think of attentional focus as having two elements – 1) internal or external (i.e. within ourselves or outside ourselves) and 2) broad or narrow. To offer some sporting examples – a goalkeeper may have a broad external focus when they assess where abouts they are going to aim a goal kick. This focus is likely to then narrow and move internally as they actually take it. A snooker player may take a (relatively) broad external focus as they approach the table and assess the ball positions, which will then narrow significantly as they start to focus on their selected shot. It is worth noting that in sport there is often a need to switch through and between attentional focus types very quickly (and unconsciously), which is why it can be something that is worth practising. Generally, we all also have a ‘preferred’ type of attentional focus (mine tends to be narrow external for example) and if we become aware of this it may help us to identify points that we may need to give additional practice to. Try practicing switching your focus of attention now. Firstly, look around the room and take it all in. Now begin to hone in on a particular object and its detail. Move your attention inside yourself and focus solely on your breath. And finally spread your attention throughout your whole body.

In conclusion

So, there you have it, a brief summary of what are generally considered to be five main psychological skills in sport. How many are you actively practising? I hope this has been a useful introduction and offered you some ideas to try and food for thought. I also hope to see you again on a future blog post!

When you feel ready, I am here! If you have recognised that your psychological skills could be improved, or your mindset may be holding you back, why not book an online introductory meeting to see if I could help you? As well as being convenient (no travel required!), they are completely FREE, and there is no obligation to proceed further. Email me on laura@laurarowe.co.uk or visit www.laurarowe.co.uk/contact to book yours today.