Sports Psychology - Mental Toughness Preparation

A few thoughts by some practitioners

1) Patrick Cohn

• Stop going down with a negative past, stop catastrophising, stop focusing on all the wrong things
• Develop a highlight reel (video of your best moments, put to music, visualise)
• Know why you deserve to be confident (the work you put in, your strengths etc)
• Only think of positive outcomes
• Stop focusing on the game until an hour before the game
• Focus on how to prepare to give your best, how to get ready for the game

2) Top 5 Skills - Mental Toughness for Sports

• Mental practice - visualisation (the key lies in detailed and specific visualisation)
• Get present - be aware through the day, all 5 senses, to the moment
• Use a mantra - 'I can do this', 'I never give up', 'I am the best', 'I will always find a way out', 'I work harder than anyone else' etc
• Letting go - Verbally forgive yourself
• Practice ability to focus - Pick something to focus on without other thoughts creeping in
• In sports you need short focus periods

3) Mental Game Checklist - How Coaches Motivate Athletes to Win

• Vision - Clear, vivid, compelling vision
• Meaning - Personal - get personal
• Outcome - What is the pay off for the effort
• Conflict - Remove conflicts / distractions from goal
• Results - Immediacy - short milestones
• Influence - Who can influence positively
• Support - Show them support
• Time - Time management 
• Illusion - You don't need to know everything, you need to know what is important
• Influence - Can we influence the outcome

5 Routines

• Feedback
• Repetition
• Approach - out of comfort zone
• Motive
• Effort

4) Vince Lombardi 

What do you expect of yourself?

What matters to you?

Your expectations shape your reality.

Principle 

• Be driven by a pursuit of excellence
• Commit to a focused plan of action without tolerance
• Develop and maintain self confidence

 

Routines

• Practice focused breathing
• Monitor your self talk - if negative stop, change, sing
• Practice thought stopping
• Take charge of your life  
• Discover Hope out of Hopelessness
• Practice perseverance
• Obstacles - lack of commitment, talking instead of doing, waiting for the perfect time