Unmasking the Mental Game: Candid Q&A with Our Sports Psychologist

What is the role of a sport psychologist, and how does sports psychology contribute to athletes' performance?

The primary role of a sport psychologist is to teach mental skills for enhanced performance, with an aim being to help athletes and teams prepare psychologically for the demands of their sport and achieve their goal attainment.

We work to implement effective strategies that fit the needs of our clients, whether that be working to enhance confidence, improve team cohesion, develop coping mechanisms for performance under pressure, and more. Though it is worth noting, there are multiple ways to help support an athlete or team to reach their optimal performance, and interventions are highly dependent on the individual/team and their needs. Through the implementation of psychological skills and techniques, athletes have been seen

to benefit from increased confidence and motivation, improved decision-making skills, ability to deal more effectively in pressurised situations, and report higher levels of enjoyment from sports participation, and the list could go on.

How can sport psychology help athletes manage and overcome performance anxiety or pressure?

Firstly, it should be said that a certain level of physical arousal is helpful in the preparation for performance, however, recognising when the physical symptoms of anxiety become detrimental to performance is key. So, one of the main ways a sport psychologist can help with performance anxiety is by working with the athlete to understand why they are having these particular thoughts and feelings. Once this understanding is made apparent, the sport psychologist and athlete can work together to reappraise arousal, this being to learn how to interpret arousal during high-pressure situations as positive and acceptable rather than negative. A popular psychological skill utilised by many athletes to overcome performance anxiety is the use of positive self-talk. How you talk to yourself about your performance can have a large influence on your experience, and research has found that positive self-talk can contribute towards increased confidence and self-efficacy, better performance, and decreased levels of performance anxiety (Walter et al., 2019).

What is a key psychological skill that athletes would benefit from when striving to achieve peak performance?

A popular psychological skill I enjoy developing with athletes is mental rehearsal, also known as imagery. I’m known to get carried away when discussing this skill, so I will try and tame my waffling! Essentially, imagery is the action of creating and re-creating experiences in one’s mind, and when done effectively, it can create realistic stimuli in the brain (Williams, 1993), causing an inability in the brain to distinguish whether the imaged situation is real or a dream, and this has been found to create the same physiological reactions that are felt during a real-life experience (Cox, 2007). Ok, nerdy scientific side of imagery done with… now on to how it can help you! Imagery can be used to help athletes build confidence, enhance concentration and focus, feel better prepared, improve performance under pressure, reduce anxiety, and can also contribute towards skill development. To carry out imagery effectively, it is encouraged to apply as much detail as possible into the scene in your mind. This can involve you going into detail about what the environment looks like, what you are wearing, the noises you can hear, the emotions you may feel, and is there a certain smell in the air? Can you taste success? Anything to make the mental imagery as real as you can. The basic principles of imagery can stay the same, all that changes are the scenes you imagine and the emotions you feel in those scenes. The thing I love most about imagery is how personal you can make it! I’ve found that working with athletes to incorporate elements of their pre-performance routines or adding in their chosen cue words or positive self-talk statements really enhances the effectiveness of imagery and can have a great impact on performance. Similarly, you can bring breathing exercises and relaxation techniques into your imagery scripts to help you achieve the desired mindset prior to a game. In my opinion, when developed and utilised effectively, imagery can really become a great psychological skill for an athlete to have in their toolbox.

How does sports psychology play a role in injury recovery and rehabilitation for athletes?

It is no hidden fact that physical activity and training programs are a significant part of an athlete’s life and that the consequence of an injury may involve time out of competing and training sessions. This loss of physical dexterity can not only cause (in some cases) athletes to experience a decrease in strength and mobility, but many have reported that their self-esteem, motivation, and confidence have also been affected. The psychological benefits of exercise, such as autonomy, increased energy, improved mood, and the ability to cope with stress, may not be possible for the athlete to acquire. Thus, it isn’t uncommon for an athlete to experience a variety of behavioural and emotional responses such as anger, irritation, low motivation, or fear. This is where a sport psychologist can come in, we can work with the athlete to implement techniques such as imagery, self-talk, and goal setting to instil the fight back into the athlete, as well as educate them on acceptance and self-awareness in order to maintain a levelled expectation with the ups and downs of recovery.

How can goal-setting be utilised in sports psychology to enhance athletic performance?

Goal setting can be highly influential to performance as it directs effort and attention towards goal-related behaviours, it can help energise athletes as more effort may be necessary to achieve challenging goals and can increase motivation towards goal attainment. Through setting SMART goals (Doran, 1981), athletes can gain a focus on what is important to them and their development and are able to feel a sense of control over their progression. Sport psychologists can help athletes create effective goals that are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-related. Setting effective goals, and reviewing them regularly, has been found to increase athletes’ confidence and belief in their ability to

succeed.

How can sport psychology help an athlete build resilience and bounce back from setbacks?

As an athlete, you can be exposed to a variety of stressors (adversities) including injuries, performance slumps, transitions, pressurised situations, team or coach conflicts, and many more. In order to cope with adversity, athletes are encouraged to work on developing a range of skillsets to build and strengthen their resilience, so when adversity hits, they have

the confidence in their ability to recover and overcome it. That being said, here are a few of my favourite ways to help individuals bounce back from setbacks and maintain resilience.

1) Confidence – a quality that required continuous work, and as Mia Hamm put it

“confidence is like a bed, it has to be made every day”. There are many ways to enhance confidence and using your past, present, and the future can be a starting point. Remind yourself of your past successes, these can be examples of your capability as well as your development and how far you have come. Use the skill of positive self-talk to not only encourage yourself, but also your teammates to perform at their best in the moment. Visualise success for you and your team and reflect on previous plays by discussing “what can be done differently next time?” this allows you to move your focus away from past events that can’t be changed and towards positive development for future performances.

2) Reduce fear of failure – more often than not, it isn’t failure that athletes fear, it’s the perceived negative consequences they attach to failure that cause them to feel pressure. Two strategies to reduce this is to (1) embrace the uncertainty, and (2) question your fears. Sport can be very unpredictable and judging your ability on a win or a defeat isn’t a true representation of your ability. Instead focus on your attitude and effort as these are behaviours that will reflect your performance more accurately. Similarly, following a bad game, athletes can be quick to catastrophise setbacks, instead, challenge these thoughts by asking yourself if they are facts or feelings, participating in questioning fears can help you to start thinking more rationally.

3) Learn from mistakes – as humans we are so quick to deem mistakes as negative, but

mistakes are a necessary part of sport and life if you want to learn and progress.

Learning to praise yourself and your team on your developments and improvements and not just for outcomes can contribute towards maintaining focus and drive to push on when things don’t go your way.

4) Teamwork – research has shown social support to be a key factor in bouncing back from setbacks, with studies concluding it to help reduce individuals perceptions of vulnerability in pressurised situations. Whether it is support within your sport (coaches, teammates, staff members) or outside of sport (family, friends, professionals), having social support can help athletes cope better with stressful situations, enhance effort, and can be an added provider of motivation.

How does sports psychology work to cultivate a winning mindset and boost athletes' confidence?

As sport psychologists, we want to work with athletes to develop their mental strength and give them a head start on their competition. As one progresses through the ranks of their sport, the physical skills tend to balance out among competitors, so what better way to distinguish yourself from the pack than having a superior mindset. While it is possible that gaining a winning mindset can be accomplished on your own, working with a sport psychologist can provide you with invaluable support to master your mindset effectively. Sport psychologists can help to cultivate this winning mindset and help to enhance confidence through collaborating with the athlete to identify challenges that can be faced,

developing approaches for these challenges, and guiding the athlete into an optimal psychological position so that they feel in control and can strive to accomplish their goals.

What methods can athletes use to effectively manage stress and maintain focus during high-pressure situations?

The idea of stress being harmful is a common belief, particularly in sport, where it can be seen to compromise performance, whether that be through impacting an athlete’s confidence, focus, or motivation as a few examples. A highly researched area within sport psychology is the notion of challenge and threat (these being deemed as stress appraisals). When an athlete is in a threat state, they are seen to have low self-efficacy (belief in their capability to succeed in a task, Bandura, 1997), low perceived control, and an avoidance focus. In contrast, those in a challenge state have high self-efficacy, high perceived control, and an approach focus (Jones et al., 2009; Meijen et al., 2020). The goal is to help athletes acquire a challenge and ‘stress-is-enhancing’ mindset, and a sport psychologist can work with an athlete achieve this by working to cognitively reframe their perception of stress, using techniques such as imagery to facilitate a challenge mindset. Methods such as control mapping and mindfulness can also be utilised to improve an athletes self-awareness, which has been found to help athletes build self-efficacy,

increase focus, and improve decision making in and outside of sport.

How does sports psychology contribute to improving team cohesion within sports teams?

Every team strives to have their members feel a part of the group and be able to effectively work together to achieve shared goals, and there are several ways sport psychology can help teams achieve this cohesion. Sport psychologists can work with teams to build respect, communication, task focus, leadership skills, and shared team culture, and here are a few examples:

• Collaborating with team members to acknowledge one another’s contributions.

• Working to approach problems with players' improvement being at the forefront of feedback.

• Gaining a mutual understanding of the tasks that require focus in order to achieve.

• shared goals.

• Building awareness of taking up leadership positions fit for the team structure.

• Reinforcing team values and goals.

These are just some of the ways sport psychology can contribute towards improving team cohesion and lead a team to success.

What advice would you offer to young athletes seeking to improve their mental game and overall performance?

The sooner you begin, the greater head start you will have on your opponents.

I guess the main point I would like to get across is that sport psychology isn’t just there for when something ‘goes wrong’, why not incorporate it into your sports preparation now? What do you have to lose by working on the psychological side of your game? Working on the psychological side of your game early on, instead of waiting until you go to university or are faced with difficulty can provide you with so many benefits. Taking the time now to master psychological skills and work on the mental game, with the same importance and attention as given to physical preparation, can positively contribute towards athletes staying on top of their game and performing at their full potential.