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Issue 101 .............................................. September 1, 2009
Welcome to Sports Insights Magazine
Welcome to Sports Insights Magazine! Learn practical, cutting-edge sports psychology and mental training tips to improve mental toughness in sports.
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Golfer's Mental Edge: An 8-Week Program for Ultimate Golf Confidence. Dr. Cohn's new CD and workbook program teaches you the top eight lessons to play with mental toughness on the course. Read more about how to improve confidence in golf...
Boost Confidence for Tournament Tennis! Learn how to boost your tennis confidence with Dr. Cohn's unique 8-week mental training course for tournament tennis players!
Improve Sports Kids' Success with Kids' Sports Psychology! Kids' Sports Psychology is a one-stop, exclusive 10-step plan for boosting confidence and cultivating positive mental game skills in young athletes! Download age-specific confidence-boosting mental game e-books for young athletes. Learn how to boost sports kids' sports success...
Download a Free Mental Game Report! Golfers: Improve Your Preshot Routine. Baseball and Softball Players and Coaches: Improve At-Bat Routines. Tennis Players and Coaches: Improve Your Mindset Between Points! Parents and Youth Coaches: Boost kids' confidence and success in sports!
Locker Room Talk
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~Gavin Clark, PGA Winter Hill Golf Club
Feature Mental Game Article
How Athletes Can Gain From Defeat
By Patrick J. Cohn, Ph.D.
Can you benefit from losing? It depends... Do you beat yourself up, get upset, and lose confidence after a poor performance in a game or race? Many athletes I see—as many as 75%—rebuke themselves after a defeat or a loss. I think a lot of this has to do with human nature – wanting to perform well or win each time you compete. But the reality is that you can't be at your best each time you or your team competes.
You have many opportunities for success in sports. However, you'll find even more opportunities for failure. For example, how many golfers win a golf tournament? One out of 144! How many tennis players win the tennis tournament? Only one! And when you go head to head with another team, there can only be one winner, even when both teams are superb.
An old adage is that in life you wouldn’t appreciate the mountains if it weren’t for the valleys. And, in sports, this is also true. If you won every tournament, championship or game, how challenging would the sport be for you? How would you improve and grow? That’s why it is important to remember that in order to learn and continue to grow as an athlete (and even as a person) you can’t win every time and need to learn how to use the lessons from defeat.
So I think athletes can learn from defeat - if they take the right approach...
Sometimes losing can be a strong motivator for athletes. Likewise, defeat can cause athletes to lose confidence. When athletes win, they are more likely not to take a second look at their performance. They might continue to do what they’re currently doing without thinking about what needs improvement. They don’t want to break their success or "mess with a good thing."
When athletes experience defeat, they can use the experience to assess their performance and find out what has to improve. Defeat gives athletes a chance to comeback with more knowledge about their training, strategy and mental game. But still, many athletes hate to lose and hate to be less than the best every time that they compete. This mindset can be both an asset and a detriment...
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______________________________________________________Recently, Russian pole vaulter Yelena Isinbayeva set a world record of 16 feet, 7 1/4 inches. But her achievement might not have been possible if she didn't lose in her prior meet in Berlin. At the World Championships in Berlin, Isinbayeva failed to beat arch-rival Anna Rogowska of Poland.
Isinbayeva broke the world outdoor and indoor record 27 times in pole vaulting. Her most recent attempt came on her first attempt at the Weltklasse Golden League meet in Zurich on August 28. After breaking the world record in Zurich, Isinbayeva reflected on how she was able to do it again. She insists that stepping back and analyzing her game was key:
"It was just a problem with myself," she said. "It was necessary to repair my brain to see the sport from the other side because when you're always on the top it's hard to analyze. It was very useful for me to lose."After getting beat in her previous meet, she was hungry for the world record. "I was surprised it was so easy," Isinbayeva said. "I feel great. It's really unbelievable just after such a great defeat in Berlin, but I'm happy that I was defeated. Otherwise, I wouldn't be so hungry for the world record."
You can react in two ways to defeat or losing. The first option is to get upset, frustrated, and angry that you lost or did not perform up to your ability. Some athletes carry these negative feelings with them for hours after competition and sometimes even days. This choice, clearly not the best option, causes you to lose confidence and possibly even lose motivation for practice and training.
“In order for anything to be considered a success, you must learn something from the experience. Sometimes, our greatest triumphs can come from what, at the time, seem like our greatest failures, or setbacks.”
~Dan Jansen, Speed skaterThe second option is to react with stable confidence and composure by focusing on what you are doing well with your game and trying to use the loss as a springboard for improvement and motivation to do better the next time, as did pole vaulter Yelena Isinbayeva. This option, the better choice, leads to composure, confidence, and assessing your performance objectively so you know what needs to improve.
You'll have plenty of opportunities to be critical of yourself or your team’s performance after a loss. You are fighting human nature to some extent. But you don't want to use negative emotions to guide your future performance. However, the top athletes in the world, athletes who continue to break records, use defeat as an opportunity to analyze their games, grow as athletes, and come back stronger.
Become a member of Dr. Cohn's online training system and learn cutting-edge, proven mental game strategies to boost your mental game and performance. Get more confidence now>>
Sports Specific Mental Training Tip
"You're Going to Have Good Days and Bad Days."
Yankees beat the Orioles 5-1 Monday night. Yankee’s Andy Pettitte's no hitter was thwarted when third baseman Jerry Hariston Jr. made an error in the seventh inning. But Hariston understands that errors are a fact of baseball and you can't be perfect all the time.
“I know you’re going to have good days and bad days. It isn’t going to affect me either way. I felt terrible, but you’re going to make errors in this game. You just hate it to happen when Andy’s (Pettitte) trying to throw a no-hitter or a perfect game.”
~Jerry Hariston, Jr.
Podcasts of the Month
The Tennis Psychology Podcast of the Month!
In this week’s tennis psychology session, Dr. Cohn teaches you how to overcome the fear of making mistakes. Many tennis players try to avoid making mistakes, which can cause them to tighten up and play tentatively. Listen to the podcast to learn the mental game keys to bounce back quickly from mistakes.
- Show me the Tennis Psychology Podcast of the Month!
- Watch the Tennis Confidence Video series!
- Tennis Players & Coaches: Improve your mental game between points with this free report!
The Golf Psychology Podcast of the Month!
In this week's golf psychology session, mental game of golf expert and author of The Mental Game of Golf, Dr. Cohn, helps a golfer get more committed on her shots. You can't be wishy-washy on the course and play your best golf as it leads to tentative play!
Pro Athlete Quote of the Month
"I would not have come back..."
"I would not have come back if I didn't think I could play at a high enough level or if I didn't think I could help this team win."
~ Brett Favre
Ask Doc Cohn
"Do you have any practical tips for dealing with errors?"
Hockey Parent:
When my son plays sports, he quite often gets "frozen" in the moment of making a mistake i.e. if he is playing an Ice Hockey game and goes in for an "on the fly" puck pick-up and misses, he literally carries the 'stance' that he was in when he missed the puck for many seconds afterwards in a kind of self-conscious parody of his failure. He does the same thing with Rugby - continuing to run in a stumbling fashion, perhaps, after a stumble. Do you have any key practical tips that we can use to help him move on?
Most Valuable Product (MVP)
Golfers Mental Edge: An 8-Week Plan for Ultimate Golf Confidence NEW!
Golfer's Mental Edge: An 8-Week Plan for Ultimate Golf Confidence. What's the one big sign that your mental game is the weak link in your golf game? When you can't play consistently as well as you can perform in practice! The “Golfer's Mental Edge Program” is a complete brain dump of the TOP eight mental training sessions Dr. Cohn teaches his personal students to help them boost their mental game and improve consistency on the course. In each of his 8 coaching sessions, you eavesdrop as Dr. Cohn teach four golfers his top mental strategies and learn right along side his students.
Read more about The Golfer's Mental Edge CD Program!
Peaksports Members get 25% off (save $100)! Not a peaksports member yet? Go demo our Online Mental Training System at Peaksports Network!
Dr. Patrick J. Cohn
Master Mental Game Coach
Boost Your Success with The Confident Athlete Series!
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