Mental Toughness in Sports

How to Overcome Adversity for Athletes

Adversity in Sports

Overcoming Adversity Using Mental Toughness Do your current athletic challenges feel impossible to overcome? Adversity can lead to you feeling angry, frustrated and dejected. You feel all alone, lost and can see no way out or end in sight… It seems like nobody knows how you feel or how horrible the situation is. For example… A high school senior baseball player who … Sport Psychology Article…

Athletes Who React Poorly to Criticism

React

How to Have Stable Confidence Do you buy into the negativity from other people? Do you lose confidence when others critique your game? Just this week, I received a message from a soccer player who said: “I’m often challenged mentally during practice if a teammate tells me how I can’t do a certain thing, such as properly marking … Sport Psychology Article…

Anticipation and Mental Preparation

Plan B

The Importance of Having a Plan B ‘Expect the unexpected’ is a notion that is good in theory but rarely put into action by athletes. The unexpected happens all the time in competition but rarely are athletes prepared to deal with it. Many athletes train and practice expecting to perform under ideal conditions but, when things go slightly … Sport Psychology Article…

Overcoming Mental Blocks in Competition

Overcome Mental Blocks

Having Confidence in Your Skills Mental blocks are often the most frustrating hurdles for an athlete to encounter. The thing that makes mental blocks so challenging and irritating is that you know how to perform a skill… You know you have the ability to perform the skill and… You know you have successfully performed the skill in the … Sport Psychology Article…

How to Not Be Over Confident in Competition

How to Not Be Over Confident

Do You Underestimate Your Opponents? Have you ever entered a competition where you were the overwhelming favorite to win and just tanked? You can look to many examples in sports when top-ranked athletes or winning teams suffer an upset loss at the hands of a weaker opponent. Despite many cautionary tales, many top-ranked athletes still fall into the … Sport Psychology Article…

How Athletes Bounce Back From Defeat

How Athletes Bounce Back From Defeat

Moving Past Missed Opportunities in Competition A missed potential game-winning shot does NOT define you… A fall during a major competition does NOT define you… A dropped ball in a playoff game does NOT define you… A false start at Nationals does NOT define you… A game-ending mistake against your biggest rival does NOT define you. Missed opportunities … Sport Psychology Article…