Sports Psychology Certification Articles

One Key Strategy for Sports Psychologists

Adherence to mental training

Mental Game Coaching Tips Okay, there are no ‘tricks’ in helping athletes with the mental game, but this one strategy is pure gold. Athletes often will present a specific a mental game problem, but it might not be the real challenge that’s blocks them from success… My athletes sometimes guess at what’s getting in the way of success because that’s …

Read Mental Coach Tip

Why Athletes Avoid Mental Training

Mental Training Commitment

Help Athletes Understand Mental Training Dr. Cohn here from the MGCP certification course where I teach mental coaches how to overcome barrier to their success… What’s the top question I receive from mental coaches? Most everyone wants to know: “How can we help athletes understand the importance of mental training?” The truth is, many athletes, coaches, and sports parents don’t …

Read Mental Coach Tip

Athletes Who Resist Changing Their Mindset

Age for mental training

Helping Athletes Change their Thinking Changing old habits is hard to do for athletes. I agree with this statement especially when it comes to coaching the mental game. Old habits of thinking are hard to change for many athletes. Especially when they are well ingrained over several years (of practice). Athletes stay stuck in old patterns of thinking for many …

Read Mental Coach Tip

How Sports Parents Hurt Athletes’ Confidence

Mental Skills Coaching

Sport Parent Communication Can Affect Athletes Last week, I worked on the skill of “proactive confidence” with one of my athletes… Part of this lesson on confidence is to discuss what things can undermine confidence, which I call “confidence killers.” I learned that out of six confidence killers for my athlete, his parents take part in two of them. These …

Read Mental Coach Tip

How Mental Coaches Can Help Athletes Improve Confidence

sports parents and mental coaching

What To Do When Sports Parent Hurt Athletes’ Confidence Sports parents can sometimes hurt an athlete’s confidence. I’m sure they don’t do it on purpose, but the net effect is lower confidence for some athletes. Parents will try to motivate kids, but use a negative approach by punishing kids for poor play. For example, Steve found himself working with critical …

Read Mental Coach Tip

Uncovering Underlying Mental Game Challenges

mental game challenges

What’s The Real Mental Game Challenge? Do parents, coaches or athletes contact you about their lack of focus or confidence in competition? Often, the presenting problem may not be the underlying problem… Athletes and parents often don’t know the REAL mental game challenge. They just understand a lack of focus, tentative performances, and less than par performances. But as a …

Read Mental Coach Tip