Become a Credible Mental Game Coach
If you are new to mental coaching, how do you gain credibility as a mental coach? Do you need a Ph.D. in sports psychology? Do you need to be a licensed psychologist?
These are questions I often get when teaching the MGCP certification program. I have coaches, therapists, and life coaches who want to make a career transition into mental game coaching, but are unsure how to gain credibility.
It’s easier than you think…
You don’t need an advanced degree to help athletes improve their mental game.
And you don’t have to be a licensed psychologist to coach athletes on the mental game.
I have a quick story to share with you today about what helped me build my credibility in mental coaching, but first…
To be a credible mental game coach, you first need an understanding of mental skills and how to teach mental skills to athletes. That requires you know how to identify challenges and help athletes overcome these challenges.
Mental coaching is not rocket science—it’s more common sense than anything.
To gain credibility within your sport, you have to help athletes improve their mental game and improve performance.
Most often, I work with perfectionists to help them overcome the challenges associated with perfectionism that block their potential. Yes, 90% of my athletes fit the profile of perfectionist.
The most important thing you can do is help athletes succeed. If they benefit from mental coaching and tell others about you, you gain credibility instantly.
This is a simple concept called social proof…
“If mental game coaching can help Mike or Lisa, it might help me as well.”
About 12 years ago, a young motocross racer named Mike came to me with his Dad…
They asked: “Have to ever worked with motocross racers?”
I said, “No, I haven’t but the mental skills I teach apply to any sport.”
So Mike began to work with me for about a year—on and off.
I enjoyed learning about the specific challenges in motocross. I traveled to races in Florida and to National Races to understand it better and work with Mike.
To make a long story short, Mike won a National Championship in his class. In full disclosure, he was already a top 5 racer in the US, but need a little extra to get to the top.
After my success with Mike, his father told other parents about my work and how I helped his son. He wasn’t afraid to reveal his son used a mental coach to help him improve his racing.
Before I knew it, Mike’s father sent me 12 or more new motocross racers over the next year or two. I had credibility as a motocross mental coach because of one parent and his son. When I met Mike, I was primarily a golf mental coach.
Just one athlete’s success story turned into a positive reputation in the sport of motocross for myself.
In the sport of golf, I gained a lot of credibly working with tour professional golfers. And then later writing golf books on the mental game.
Golfers would come to work with me after reading one of my books or hearing I worked with tour pros they knew…
And a few years into my career as a mental coach, I developed a website on the mental game of golf, which today is Peaksports.com.
Gaining credibility doesn’t happen overnight, but I can accelerate your credibility by using the same strategies that have helped me over the last 25 plus years.
I teach all my MGCP students about how to gain credibility.
You might be one of my next success stories as a certified Mental Game Coach!
If you have not completed the application, you can apply by either:
- Filling out the application online: Apply to Be an MGCP
- Downloading the application and submitting it, as soon as possible and send to myself: Download the MGCP Application
Apply to Be a Mental Coach Today!
You can also start with the self-paced program and upgrade to the live course when ready.
Please contact me if you would like to enroll or submit your mental coach application online. You can call us at 888-742-7225.
Learn more about the Mental Game Coaching Certification Program
FYI: The course is not cheap, but can save you a lot of time in the long run when you apply my out-of-the-box mental coaching system and tools based on 30+ years of experience working with athletes.
Please call me if you have any questions at 888-742-7225.
NOTE: Now included in the MGCP Certification is two of our new programs for working with sports parents and young athletes, Working With Sports Parents and 10-Minute Pregame Prep. The Athlete’s Mental Edge Workbooks and AMAP Assessment System are also included.