What is Sport Psychology?

Mental toughness is one of the key mental skills for athletes to develop and one of the fundamental elements to sport psychology. It is the ability to persevere when things become difficult. Being mentally tough is about the next step, the next rep, and keeping one’s mind focused on the controllable. Mental toughness is trained through experience and sharpened through the interaction between the athlete and their sporting experience. 

The ability to focus is a skill. The ability to focus and refocus on the right things over and over is an art. Peak performance is initiated by the ability to perform the task at hand when the situation requires it. Training focus with Mind Right Sport Psychology teaches an athlete to be present in the moment and harness focus for elite performance.

Goal setting is a powerful and necessary technique for enhancing and facilitating performance. Goals help an athlete stick to challenging tasks, remain persistent, confident, and focused, and create momentum in the right direction. Goal setting is one of the most important mental skills for athletes to harness to improve every facet of performance that is not maximized or fully understood. Mind Right Sport Psychology teaches setting and conquering outcome, process, and performance goals.

Self-talk is the automatic inner voice that provides a running commentary on our experiences. It is an important part of day-to-day life and relevant to sport psychology. Negative self-talk guides one's experience into the gravitational pull of their negative beliefs about sport and life and destroys peak performance. When trained, controlled, and used intentionally, self-talk sparks peak performance. Self-talk controls focus, funnels thoughts, actions, and behaviors to the task at hand, and manages mental and physical activation levels.

Emotional states happen in the mind and body. Performance triggers the brain's threat sensors, creating a psychological and physiological reaction that limits peak performance.  If not managed, this derails performance. At Mind Right Sport Psychology, we train athletes to manage the heightened emotions competition brings.  We use sport psychology and traditional cognitive behavioral therapy techniques to equip our athletes with coping skills to stay competitive under pressure.

Imagery is a way to simulate training of new skills, improve technique, and recover from injury. It draws on all relevant senses, including what the athlete sees, hears, smells, tastes, and feels emotionally and physically. Imagery creates a mental blueprint to be projected onto future performance.