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Engaging Athletes in Mental Training
How to Introduce Mental Training to Athletes Do sports parents contact you asking how to introduce mental training to their athletes? Parents can recognize that their athletes are under performing due to anxiety, perfectionism, or lack of focus—before their athletes notice it. And parents see the need when their athletes perform much better in practice…
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Mistakes I’ve Made as a Mental Coach
Mental Coaching Mistakes I’ve made many mistakes over the last 20 years as a mental game coaching professional. But, I’ve learned from them… When I started out – in the early 90’s – being a full time mental coach wasn’t a common career path. Most sports psychology professionals taught at a University and consulted with…
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Do Athletes Understand the Importance of Mental Training?
The Benefits of Mental Training For Athletes How can you help athletes understand the importance of the mental game? This is the topic of today’s tip for mental coaches. A mental coach working with golfers recently asked: “I work in golf and one of the biggest challenges is getting golfers to understand the game is…
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How to Earn Credibility as a Mental Game Coach
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…
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Mental Coach Mentoring Videos Welcome
I’m Dr. Patrick Cohn, the creator of the Mental Game Coaching Professional Certification program. The purpose of this area of the website is to help new MGCPs and sports psychology coaches improve their mental coaching skills and learn how to get work with athletes. Here, you can keep up to date with the MGCP course…
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A Challenge Every Mental Coach Must Overcome
I can’t believe that it’s been almost 22 years since I started the MGCP certification program in 2004. The course has evolved a lot over the last decade. And it continues to improve as I receive feedback from participants each semester and questions from mental coaches. But one big challenge still remains for all mental…
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One Key Strategy for Sports Psychologists
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…
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Why Athletes Avoid Mental Training
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,…
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Athletes Who Resist Changing Their Mindset
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…
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How Sports Parents Hurt Athletes’ Confidence
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…
