Sports Psychology Certification Articles

Mental Coaching: The First Session

Mental Skills Coaching

Mental Skills Coaching Session Apart from building rapport with your athletes in the first session, where do you start with your athletes? For certified Mental Game Coaching Professionals, the first step is to explain our programs with a potential athlete or parent. We explain the mental coaching process and what’s included in the programs. In some cases with young athletes, …

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A Proven Mental Coaching System

Mental Performance Coach Certification

What Works for Athletes in the Real World? 30 years ago, I finished my Ph.D. in Sports Psychology at The University of Virginia. But it wasn’t a smooth transition from school to a career in mental coaching… My education prepared me to teach college students sports psychology and motor learning at the university level. I taught college students for two …

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How To Introduce Mental Training to Athletes

Certified Mental Coach

Starting Mental Training How do you work with athletes that have no idea that mental training can help improve their performance or consistency? I received a question recently from a mental coach who works with shooters. Here’s the question: “In the shooting sports, you need full concentration and a clear mind. How do I start with students who have no …

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Working with Athletes’ Emotional Parents

Mental Skills Coaching

How to Work with Sports Parents A mental game coach recently asked the following question in a survey: “How do you work with athletes who have emotionally involved parents?” With very young athletes, the parents are the ones that typically hire me to work with their child… You want to involve the parents in the mental training process–over involved parents …

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Barriers to Starting a Mental Training Program

Certified Mental Coach

Why Athlete Avoid Mental Training What are the barriers to starting a mental training program for athletes, coaches, and parents? I received this question recently on my survey for mental coaches about their use of assessments… The biggest barriers to starting a mental training program include: First, I’m going to assume that you have a proven mental training program that …

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Helping Athletes Adhere to Mental Training

Athlete Education on Mental Skills

Commitment to Mental Coaching To help your athletes succeed with mental training, they must both remember and apply what you teach them from your live sessions. We like to give athletes tasks or assignments to complete between lessons to accelerate and reinforce learning… The objective is to provide a means to reinforce the mental coaching lessons you teach. Providing athletes …

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