Ninety percent of the game is half mental.
Yogi Berra
I love the truth of Berra’s “yogi-ism” even if his math is off. Many elite athletes and coaches agree that the percentage of their performance that is mental is well over 50% and in some sports like golf, tennis and figure skating it can be as much as 80 to 90%. The mental game oftentimes becomes the distinguishing factor with elite athletes or teams when physical skills are fairly evenly matched.
Given this popular belief, you would think mental skills training would be a priority within the athletic community. But here in lies the paradox. If we agree the mind is important for peak performance then why aren’t we more committed, as a sports community, to developing these skills with our young athletes along with the physical skills?
More often than not athletes are introduced to mental skills when there is already a problem. The timing is unfortunate. Imagine trying to teach someone to swim when they are drowning.
Some reasons for this oversight are:
- perceived lack of time
- knowledge gap, and
- distrust of the unknown.
Coaches are keenly aware of the constraints of time. Finding time to introduce another facet of training is challenging. The knowledge gap speaks to the degree coaches feel comfortable teaching the mental skills and if they’re unfamiliar with the benefits of this training, they are less likely to trust the process. Finally, coaches may feel uncomfortable inviting an outsider to work with their athletes, unsure of the message or process and what effect it will have on their athletes.
What is Mental Skills Training?
Mental skills training, most agree is important but many may not understand what mental skills training is all about.
When I discuss mental skills training, I am talking about developing skills that address the mental obstacles athletes face whether in practice, competition or performance that keep them from reaching their potential. For some their obstacles may be lack of confidence, distractions, or difficulty dealing with adversity. Still others may struggle with fear of failure, perfectionism, or rebounding after mistakes. Mental skills also encompass learning how to focus on the process, set goals, how to practice or design pre-performance routines and more.
As coaches we want to make sure we have prepared our athletes completely. Leaving mental skills to chance is risky business. Their success is our success, and their failure is our failure, we win and lose together. Let’s face it, the mind is already impacting their performance so it becomes a question of “how”. Is it serving the athlete well or hindering the athlete? Some athletes have found ways to navigate their mental obstacles on their own and may not even realize they are using certain skills. But for those who don’t figure it out, we need to be systematic just like we would be with our physical skills.
What can we do to help increase the odds of optimal performance beyond physical, technical and tactical training? How can we help our athletes become mentally strong?
It starts with recognizing the value of the mental game and finding ways to help our athletes develop these skills. That’s what we’ll discuss in Part 2.
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