Month: May 2025

Sport Psychology Tips

Some Free Sport Psychology Tips to help you perform better complied by the whole team of sport and performance psychologists here at Condor Performance. Enjoy, share and comment (at the bottom).

A Quick A to Z Guide To Sport Psychology

26 Free Sport Psychology Ideas

Although sport psychology can be a complex and quickly evolving field, it can still allow for some “quick wins”. With this in mind, please enjoy these Sport Psychology Tips and don’t forget to add your comments below!

A is for Attitude

It may be surprising, but as sports and performance psychologists, we don’t often refer to attitude. Attitude is just one of many types of human cognition. When a coach refers to an athlete as having ‘the right attitude,’ he or she is probably suggesting that this athlete’s values and beliefs are in line with their own.

For example, both might regard sporting results as important, but not as important as hard work and effort. The most interesting aspect of attitude is that it is often assessed via observations (e.g., a coach watching an athlete in training). Due to this, it is probably body language that is actually being appraised. Attitude, if we take the term literally, is not directly observable as it occurs inside the mind.

B is for Body Language

Body language is a fascinating area of performance psychology. Research suggests that it dominates how we communicate compared to the words we use. In sporting contexts, this makes even more sense, as it is quite normal for there to be little or no verbal communication. With maybe the exception of the captains or leaders of sporting teams, most athletes of most sports don’t say very much during both training and competition.

For this majority, communicating with teammates or opponents involves the body. By the body, we mean the entire body, from facial expressions to posture to hand gestures and everything in between. How do you improve body language? I suggest starting out by filming yourself in a variety of situations and then watching it back with the sound off.

C is for Consistency

Sometimes, we refer to consistency as ‘the holy grail’ of competitive sport. As our colleague Chris Pomfret explains in this extensive blog, improved consistency is really just the consequence of taking the mental side of your sport seriously.

D is for Determination

Determination is very similar to the mental concept of motivation, without being a synonym. Motivation is more about enthusiasm, enjoyment, desire and dreams. Determination might be a good word to refer to the actions we continue with when the enthusiasm for our sport is not there. One of the most common examples is when the scoreboard is not in your favour (no way to win with time remaining). Yet, despite this, you decide to preserve anyway. This is an excellent example of sporting determination.

E is for Enjoyment

The enjoyment we’re referring to in this instance is the kind that most kids tend to have towards their sport before it becomes ‘serious’—the fun of chasing the ball more than getting to it first. The issue is that this enjoyment tends to dissipate once the stakes increase. Many sporting coaches become far too intense during competitions due to a lack of sport psychology training during their accreditation. This is one of the many reasons we have always wanted to work 1-on-1 with sporting coaches.

F is for Focus 

Learning to improve focus is one of the easier mental skills. It boils down to knowing when and how to switch on and practising this like any other skill. There are many great examples of how to do this, but short performance routines are often the best mental skill.

There is no getting away from the fact that training the mind is always going to be a trickier mountain to climb due to the investable nature of what we’re targeting for improvement, such as focus.

G is for Grit 

Grit has gained considerable momentum recently, mainly due to Angela Duckworth’s work (see YouTube video below):

H is for Hard Work

There is simply no substitute for hard work. 

I is for Influence

Knowing the amount of influence you have on some of the more common aspects of your sport (or performance areas) is mighty useful. A great little exercise you can do is to start a simple three-column table. The heading of the first column is ‘Lots of Influence’, for the second write “Some Influence”, and for the final one label it “Little Influence”.

Now, start filling in the table with whatever comes to mind. For example, you might be spending a lot of time thinking about an upcoming competition, combined with memories of how you did at the same venue last year. So, you might decide to put the Future in the middle column and the past in the right-hand column, for instance.

J is for Junior Sport

If I were in charge of sports in a particular state or country, I would flip funding so that the vast majority of resources went into the junior or developmental side of sports. In other words, the best coaches, equipment, and facilities normally only accessible to the top 0.1% of athletes would be diverted to athletes under the age of 16.

For example, those regarded as the best coaches, like Wayne Bennett in rugby league, would be invited to coach junior players instead. I would ensure that whatever position was created for this had the same or greater salary as top-flight professional coaches.

K is for Keeping Going

Maybe the most powerful cue words in sport. Your mind will virtually always quit on you before your body does. Tell it to Keep Going and see what happens.

L is for Learning

There is a reason why some of the best sporting coaches of all time – for example, Jake White – are former teachers. They treat the performance enhancement process as one long learning experience for themselves and their players. The most appealing aspect of this angle is that poor performances are used as learning opportunities. Errors, for example, are considered invaluable elements of feedback – data that can be used to inform better choices moving forward. 

M is for Monitoring

You’re missing out if you are not monitoring at least one aspect of your endeavours. At Condor Performance, we encourage our sporting and non-sporting clients to record one or more “monthly checks”. As detailed in this recent blog post, these monthly checks are like our key performance indicators. As long as you know the correct number of monthly checks to monitor (not too many) and your influence on each of these results (not as much as you think), self-monitoring has zero downsides and plenty of upsides.

N is for Numbers

Whether you like it or not, competitive sport – especially at the elite level – is full of numbers. Certain sports, like cricket and baseball, are so mathematical that the coaches of these sports would be forgiven for thinking of themselves more like statisticians from time to time. This is one of the reasons we encourage our monthly clients to monitor their progress – to allow them to function and even thrive in a results-oriented world. The other reasons for monitoring have already been mentioned above in the M.

O is for Objectivity

Both the M and the N above help with objectivity, but alone, might not be enough. Objectively is roughly the opposite of subjectively, with the latter being heavy on opinions, and the former much more based on facts. For example, it’s standard for athletes and coaches to assess past performances based primarily (or only) on memory or, even worse, on the final result. This is highly subjective, and a bit like any human pursuit, we’d want to be careful about how much of our analysis is subjective. Objective analysis – for example, the number of missed tackles –  will be more valuable as the numbers don’t lie.

This is not true – numbers can lie, but opinions are less likely to do so.

P is for Pressure

‘Pressure’ is one of the most fascinating aspects of sport psychology. For a start, it’s 100% internal – a feeling with very real physiological sensations – a little bit like hunger. Because it’s going on inside, it’s less tangible and therefore harder to manage. First, it’s imperative not to consider pressure as good or bad. Let me use hunger to explain. For most of us, hunger is simply a signal to go and eat something. Once we do, the hunger goes away. The food that alleviates pressure is practice. That’s right, high-quality practice is like a pile of organic veggies.

Of course, there is also a benefit to learning to deal with hunger/pressure if no food or practice is available. By far, the best way to do this—in my opinion—is to work with a qualified sport/performance psychologist like one of our team members.

Q is for Quantity and Quality

This is how we break down practice or effort. Quantity is ‘how much’ and wants to be the right amount. Quality is’ how good’ and wants to be as high as possible. We often find it useful to multiply these together. For example, if the highest score for each is 10, then combined, the highest score is 100.

What number did your last training session get?

R is for Routines

See my recent blog post for a full breakdown of routines, which are crucial mental skills for many start-stop sports.

S is for Stigma

There are still many people out there whose beliefs about what sports psychologists or performance psychologists do get in the way of us being able to help them. The stigma comes from the word ‘psychologist’, which too many people still associate with having some mental problem. The general premise that working with a psychologist is a sign of weakness must be broken. A band-aid solution is to refer to ourselves as a coach, performance coaches, or mental skills trainers instead. The issue with this is that it doesn’t help to remove the stigma. Also, it seems a pity not to be able to use the title of psychologist, which took us seven or so years to earn.

T is for Time Management

Being able to manage your own time, your needs, and your wants is one of the most underrated of all mental skills. I work with a LOT of young elite athletes (teenagers on track to be the world’s best in their chosen sport); on the whole, they come to me with poor or non-existent time management skills. Sometimes, a simple suggestion like buying a $5 diary to start recording upcoming commitments can do wonders in terms of accountability, planning, knowing when to say ‘no’ or ‘yes’ to invitations and moving their mindset more towards effort and further from results. For more on Time Management, see this separate post.

U is for Unity

Whole article on this one here! Oh, and another one!

V is for Values, and W is for Why

Our values and beliefs guide our thoughts, so if you’d like to update your daily thought processes, then it can be a good idea to think about your values. By values, we mean what you consider to be valuable or important. A nice little exercise to get the ball rolling is listing everything you consider essential in your life and why. For example, you might write ‘8 hours of sleep a night’ and follow that with ‘because it helps me get the most out of various training sessions the following day’—the ‘why’ part is crucial, linking our endeavours to our internal motivation.

X is for eXcellence

Are you striving for excellence? Do you want to become excellent at what you do? How would you define and measure excellence? Is your training excellence? Do you know how to increase your chances of becoming the best possible athlete or coach you can be? For most athletes and performers, especially at the pointy end, this requires some help from the experts. Click here to book a 15-minute Webcam meeting with one of our New Enquiries Officers.

Y is for Yourself

One of the best ways of helping others is to look after yourself first.

Z is for Zest

Zest is one of the traits we look for when we interview psychologists looking to join our team of sports and performance psychologists. Do they have a passion for sports and helping athletes and coaches become better versions of themselves? If not, getting up at 5 a.m. to deliver a Zoom session to a monthly client from another country might just prove to be too hard. Info for psychologists wanting to join our team can be found here.

Decision-Making In Sport

Sport psychologist Gareth J. Mole looks at the often overlooked role that decision making plays in the outcome of sporting contests.

Below are three of the best YouTube (so free) videos related to decision-making in sport. Below them, I have added my two cents’ worth.

Decision Making in Youth Sport – Mike Ashford

Dr Michael Ashford – Decision-Making Processes in Team Sports

John Brenkus: ESPN’s Sport Science and the Study of Decision-Making

Links Between The Mental And The Tactical

There is debate about the pros and cons of separating competitive sports’ mental and tactical sides.

Our argument is that if you focus on each part as a separate entity, any “crossover” benefit that rubs off onto another area is a bonus to your improvement. Lumping them all together can result in incorrectly assuming you’re doing more than you are. Decision-making in sport is an excellent example of this. In my experience ‘in the trenches’ as a sport psychologist for the last 20 years, decision-making is rarely targeted by itself.

Tactical Wisdom

Recently, several of our one-on-one clients have been asking us for more input into their Tactical Wisdom. TW is very tricky as, in theory, it’s entirely mental, yet coaching these ” in-the-moment” decisions is, and always wants to be, the domain of sporting coaches more than sport psychologists. This is one of the many reasons it makes so much sense for us to work more directly with coaches.

I’m going to use two examples from different sports here to emphasise my point.

First, the decision faced by a golfer about whether to “lay up” short of a creek located just before the green or “go for it” by attempting to hit the ball directly over the creek onto the green. Second, the decision by a striker in football (soccer) when near the penalty area to “have a shot” or pass the ball to a teammate.

Risk Versus Reward

Both of these scenarios have a “risk and reward” element. None of the four options mentioned is terrible, and therefore, the aim is to train your mind to “make the best decision according to the specifics of the competitive situation”. Most decision-making errors occur when the moment’s emotion trumps the competition situation. Here’s a clue about not letting that happen (and yes, it requires a bit of hard work).

First, you’re much more likely to make an unemotional decision if a scenario has been “mapped out” already. The more often it’s been mentally rehearsed beforehand, the better. This is best done by what we call the “If Blank Then Blank” exercise. Let’s go back to our two examples above.

Recently, my colleague Madalyn Incognito here at Condor Performance wrote an entire article on risk and reward. To read more on this topic, click here.

Although there might seem like an overwhelming number of scenarios, there are probably only half a dozen if you think about it. For example:

“If stroke play, then lay up”.

“If match play, then go for green”.

But maybe that’s too simple, so these might be better:

“If stroke play and a par 5, then lay up”.

“If it’s stroke play and windy, then lay up”.

“If stroke play and leading, then lay up”.

“If stroke play and less than 3 shots within the lead, then lay up”.

“If any other situation, then go for the green”.

And for the other example, the footballer:

“If the ball is on/near my right foot with no defender near, then shoot”.

“If any other scenario, then pass”

“If Blank Then Blank”

Human brains are remarkable at learning these “If Blank Then Blank” right from when we’re newborns. Think about it; “If hungry, then cry”. And it carries on all the way to adulthood. “If red or amber light, then slow down and stop”. Certain commentators have and continue to object that this exercise appears to bring “thinking” into what they want to be instinctive actions.

Our answer to this is simple. There’s no escaping that certain moments in certain sports require a lot of decision-making. The “If Blank Then Blank” exercise decreases the chances of a brain explosion while under pressure. In our experience, the greatest benefit of this is the reduction of one of performance excellence’s biggest threats – indecision.

I’m not sure if I’m taking the word too literally, but indecision means delaying a decision due to being “in the decision.” Basically, the decision-making process (risk versus reward) is taking longer as it’s new.

In fact, indecision is so damaging to performance it would be fair to say that you’re better off making the wrong decision quickly and with confidence rather than the right one slowly and full of self-doubt.

Gareth J. Mole (sport psychologist)

If you’d like help improving the decision-making aspects of your sport pr performance areas, fill in this form. We typically reply in less than 24 hours.

Sport/Performance Psychologist vs Other

With an exponential increase in the awareness about the importance of the mental side of performance it is harder than ever before to work out who to go to for advice. This 2025 article by Sport Psychologist James Kneller provides some, but not all, of the answers.

Who is the best person for me to work with to improve the mental side of my performance? 

Like the proverbial “How long is a piece of string?” (exactly double the length of its half), this question doesn’t have a universal, clear, and agreed-upon answer. 

Listen to any post-match press conference. You will universally hear about mental preparation, focus, motivation, attitude, dealing with pressure, resilience, and many other things related to mental preparation and the processes involved and required for elite performance in the most demanding competitive environments. 

So, if we accept the premise that the mental side of performance is essential and that improving it leads to more consistent and better overall performance, the question then turns to how to do this and who can help us. 

Disclaimers And Recognitions

As a fully registered and endorsed sport psychologist with Condor Performance in Australia, I’ll be biased towards sport and performance psychologists over others. I’ve tried hard to be fair to all groups/professions mentioned here. 

My mum loves reading Choice product reviews, so in honour of her, I’ve tried to use a similar approach for each group involved, with pros and cons for each.

There is always a range of abilities in every group. There are people in each group who are outstanding at what they do and offer; equally, there are those who are not. The descriptions here are general, with no references to specific individuals.

Many of the observations come from my experiences meeting, working with, and seeing clients, athletes, coaches, parents, etc., who have worked with people from various groups. 

While in this article I’ll speak about athletes, this also applies to coaches, teams, performers, or anyone in a high-performance/pressure position, such as CEOS, corporate board members, surgeons, traders, armed forces or anyone else who sees themselves as or wishes to become a high performer. 

Who Is Out There?

The number of people and organisations eager to work with athletes is mind-blowing. For easy comparison, I’ve grouped these individuals into these general groups:

  • Parents and coaches
  • Ex-players
  • Mentors
  • Mind coaches
  • Psychologists with no specialisation in sport and performance
  • Sport and Performance psychologists (such as those at Condor Performance) who have undergone specific additional training and higher learning focused solely on sport and performance work. 

Parents and Coaches

Parents are the first and foremost influence on athletes developing their skills. The hope is that they are the greatest supporter they’ll ever have, but at the same time, this support can lead to blind spots and/or avoidance of truths that need to be told or addressed. Often, they have few skills in the sport, little training in instruction, communication skills, mental support, and good intentions, which can lead to issues later for the athlete.

There is also the danger of those horror parents for athletes that many of us can name. 

Coaches range from the weekend parent who helps out on their kid’s side to local representative coaches with minimum accreditation levels, up to the highest-level coaches of the stars. They typically have excellent knowledge of the sport and a passion for their athletes. 

Pros 

  • High level of contact and passion for the athlete, good skills around the sport, and time available to understand the person.
  • Depending on the level, can have brilliant support teams and systems around them and their athlete/s.
  • Improving an athlete’s technical skills will often improve their mental skills. Think about the concept of Competence Before Confidence.

Cons 

  • Significant variation in the levels of skills in and understanding of the mental side of performance
  • Variable communication and interpersonal skills
  • Highly vested interests in performance can impair judgment and decision-making, leading to decisions that are in the best interest of the coach or parent rather than the athlete.
Personal Comment 

Every athlete needs at least one of these involved, and at the elite level, many athletes will laud the coach’s skills as a mentor, teacher, and communicator. In short, the best coaches have the best people management skills and mental awareness. Interestingly, these same coaches also strongly tend to have sports and performance psychologists on their team, or they refer to themselves. Don’t take my word for it, take it from the current champions of English Football:

Ex-players, Mentors, Mind coaches

Ex-players are obvious. Mentors may be high-profile sportspeople from other sports or high-profile people from different areas, such as business, politics, or the armed services, who are now assisting athletes in dealing with the pressure of performance. Mind coaches can have many different names or titles, as there’s no universal term and no restriction to applying any description of themselves, except for the legally protected term of psychologist or sport psychologist. 

Pros 

  • Ex-players and mentors bring lived experience of situations like those the athlete may face.
  • Often, they have a narrow focus on which sports and areas they will or can work with, leading to a minimal number of athletes, so there is potential for greater one-on-one time with the athlete.
  • There is often an obvious credibility with someone we know who has been there and done it themselves.

Cons 

  • With no regulatory body or board, they are not accountable to anyone for their actions and have no ethical framework to which they are held. They often have no or little direct, accredited psychological training.
  • This group is not regulated like psychologists. There is no insurance requirement, restriction on advertisement, restriction on testimonials, restriction on making guarantees to clients, an ethical framework they must adhere to, and no underlying explicit expectation to put the client’s needs first and do no harm.
  • If they have pictures with athletes, or testimonials or endorsements from them on their website, or make grandiose promises like “results in one session”, then you can be confident they are not a psychologist.
Personal Comment 

I’ve met, worked with, and listened to many operators from this group who are skilled, knowledgeable, and excellent for their clients. Often, they will talk about their own experiences and highlight their work and what they’ve learned from their work with sports psychologists in their careers. They are now using that knowledge to help others. I have happily worked alongside these previously and still do currently, using a team approach to achieve the best results for the athlete. 

In my opinion, the good ones know where their level of knowledge and competence ends and defer to psychologists or other specialists when the client needs more than they can provide. 

Those in this group that I would not work with as an athlete tend to follow a couple of similar, consistent actions: 

  • They tend to have one framework for how things should be dealt with, either through having only one method or system or using a “this is what I did when I…” approach. Then, if the athlete cannot fit within this framework, they often blame the athlete for being unable, unwilling, or not wanting it enough to succeed.
  • They tend only to want to take on clients who are already well on the path to elite and seem to bask in the reflective glory of “their” athlete.
  • They tend to ignore, avoid, or even shame individuals with personal problems that may impact their sporting performance. In doing so, they treat the person like they should be robots with their sport rather than human beings. 

Psychologists with no specialisation in sport and performance

In Australia and New Zealand, where all the current Condor Performance psychologists are based and trained, to become a fully registered psychologist, you must complete a minimum of 6 years of approved, supervised, and quality-ensured education before you speak to your first client independently. We are governed by a regulatory board that holds us accountable for maintaining standards of ethics, work quality, confidentiality and ongoing training to ensure the currency of knowledge. 

If they are working with clients rather than in policy or administration roles, they are generally trained to work with mental health issues in what we can call mainstream life circumstances. 

Pros 

  • You know they are trained and competent as a psychologist
  • They work under a transparent framework and are accountable for their actions
  • Trained in dealing with people, relationships, pressure, grief, and mental health issues

Cons 

  • Often, there is no or minimal training around performance enhancement techniques or theories.
  • They may not understand the sporting environment, the associated pressures, or the motivations of those involved, including the established hierarchies in sports teams, clubs, and competitions.
  • Psychologists wanting to ‘dabble’ in sports often underestimate the importance of passion and knowledge of specific sports. They incorrectly assume that the interventions to help a pro golfer perform under pressure (for example) are the same as those for a CEO. They are not!
Personal comment 

Like the other groups, I have worked alongside and met many good operators in this grouping. But I’ve also met many athletes who have worked with a general/clinical/health psychologist who tells me that “the psych was fine, but the solutions they offer aren’t relevant or appropriate for their sporting environment”. The athletes have also been frustrated with the psychologist’s inability to understand how their sport works, the language of the sport, or the unique problems of their sport. 

Psychologists generally aim to have clients do well in their world and cope effectively, but in sports, just doing well isn’t good enough. 

Sport and Performance Psychologists 

These professionals have completed the same 6 years of minimum training as other psychologists, but I have specialised in sports and performance work. This is either through specific university coursework, Master’s, and PhD programs that often lead to the legally protected term “sports psychologist,” as many of the Condor Performance team have, or via focused ongoing development after their initial general registration as psychologists and continued work in the field with ongoing supervision by highly experienced current sports and performance psychologists.

Regardless of the pathway, we are subject to the same government regulatory body that ensures ethics, quality, confidentiality, and focused continuing professional development in sports and performance work. 

Pros
  • All the same pros as psychologists who don’t specialise in sport and performance
  • Trained in numerous mental skills/performance enhancement techniques, along with mental health models, that apply to sport and performance, such as visualisation, self-talk, motivations, goal setting, etc – i.e. not one trick ponies and can switch approaches to match a client
  • Understand that athletes are different from the “normal”, and being good isn’t enough when you seek to be elite.
  • Understand the relationships within, the politics of, the pressure of, the sacrifices required, the dedication required, the expectations of self, teammates, coaches, and fans, and the language of high-performance environments.
Cons
  • Confidentiality for clients means they can’t tell you who they’ve worked with, they can’t use testimonials or endorsements from clients, and they can’t make promises to potential clients—all of which can leave potential clients wondering if the sports and performance psychologist has credibility in their sport or situation.
  • Not all sports psychologists work in mental skills (performance enhancement) and well-being.
  • Given the number of sports out there, they may not be strong in your sport. Condor Performance can overcome this issue more easily than most, with more than ten psychologists with varied strengths and sporting interests. 
Personal Comment

Sport and performance psychologists are passionate about sport and performance, which often matches their clients. The environment they work in means that their relationship with clients and maintaining things like ethical boundaries can be a little different from that of a traditional psychologist. Not many conventional psychologists will join a client at their workplace. Still, a sport and performance psychologist will often want to get to the field, track, pool, course, and oval to see how things work for their client and truly understand their environment. Our knowledge for all our clients is expanded and enhanced through each session they do with any one client. I often bring knowledge from another sport or situation to a current client to help them understand and move them forward. 

Final Word

Finding the right person to work with can be overwhelming and confusing. But once you see them, they can make a difference to your overall performance. My advice would always be to consider what you are after and what you’re trying to improve for your sport. 

If it’s primarily technical or tactical issues, my first suggestion would be a coach, mentor or ex-player in your sport. But if it mainly involves, or even somewhat involves, the mental side of your game, such as preparation, routines, performance anxiety, confidence, and performing under pressure. Or suppose it’s personal issues off the field that are filtering onto the field and impacting your performance. In that case, I’d recommend fully trained and regulated experts in the mind who share your passion for improving your performance. 

After reading this article, if you’d like to receive detailed information about our 1-on-1 sport psychology services, please complete our Contact Form here, and one of our New Enquiries Officers will contact you to explain everything.

If, on the other hand, you are a psychologist looking for details on how to join our team, take a look at our vacancies page here instead.

Getting Into The Zone

Getting Into The Zone is something that sport psychologists have been helping athletes with for more than 60 years now. Our GM explores The Zone below.

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – AUGUST 8, 2016: Olympic champion Simone Biles of United States competing on the balance beam at women’s all-around gymnastics at Rio 2016 Olympic Games

What, Or Where, Is The Zone?

Competing in sport, or even coaching it, brings with it a variety of emotions and mental experiences. Rightly or wrongly, the positive ones have often been called ‘the zone’. It’s not uncommon for athletes to say, “I was in the zone today.” One of our common requests is, “Can you help me get into the zone?”.

The Zone and its cousin, Flow, describe effortless optimal performance. In both, internal processes do not prevent us from executing our skills to the best of our abilities. And typically, consistency prevails.

These same internal experiences more commonly create barriers to effective performance. They can test individuals’ mental toughness by challenging their ability to self-regulate and manage these experiences constructively. Note the idea of “self-regulation” because we want our clients to develop the skills to do this independently. Relying on others (including us as their performance psychologist) is a short-term solution only.

Self-regulation is Psychbabble for Managing Your Emotions Yourself

The widely used Yerkes-Dodson Inverted U Stress Curve suggests that we should always try to be somewhat aroused. In other words, some nerves are better than others before or during pressure.

This theory has two major flaws. Firstly, it overplays the role that emotions play in optimal performance. It incorrectly implies that athletes must feel a certain way to perform at their best. We know this is not true. Both scientific and anecdotal evidence confirm that humans can be excellent across a huge range of emotions.

Secondly, the Yerkes-Dodson model suggests that being too relaxed before competition is bad. This is BS. Unless you’re asleep and miss the opening whistle, there is no downside to being very relaxed.

The Relaxed Competition Mindset

One way to begin developing a Relaxed Competition Mindset is to understand the Zones of Awareness. These zones suggest that we can attend to information through three different zones. Zone One is an inner zone (physiological sensations), Zone Two is the middle zone (thoughts), and Zone Three is the outer zone (the five senses).

When we function well and cope with our situation, our awareness across these zones is balanced. This allows us to respond very effectively and efficiently. This is very useful in high-pressure situations because maintaining a balanced awareness means we can respond quickly to stimuli. In other words, we can maintain good levels of focus during perceived chaos.

When we get too caught up in one of the zones, we can lose this balance. This can impair our abilities and cause distress, reducing the opportunity for optimal performance.

Being Outside Of The Zone

While each person is different, how we respond to adversity is universal. In such situations, people tend to become much more aware of their self-talk and physiological state. “Oh my, I can actually feel my heart racing,” for example.

When we first notice our thinking or physiology shifting unhelpfully, strategies such as mindfulness can prove effective.

When these experiences become too intense, trying to challenge our thoughts or become more aware of our bodies can feel like adding fuel to an already burning fire. This is where the third zone (the outer zone) can become useful in helping us manage.

The Five Senses

Individuals competing outdoors might consider pulling out some grass from the field for the sense of touch. Or tightly gripping a towel and noticing the feeling. What about taste? Eating as part of a pre-match routine can help, but instead of quickly consuming the food, notice the flavours more. For each mouthful or while chewing gum, try to notice the release of flavour with each bite. With the sense of smell, we notice any smells in our environment, such as muscle rub creams. For sight, individuals may ask themselves how many colours they can notice around them. Or how many people can they count wearing hats? Listening to music as part of a pre-match routine can really help get your head out of the way.

It’s Also A Matter of Timing

It should be noted that we don’t want to consider these things while trying to execute skills. In other words, the majority of the Relaxed Competition Mindset work should be done before we start competing.

Ultimately, that’s the key. We want to be able to shift our attention and focus where necessary to restore balance and composure to your internal state. In doing so, we remove some internal barriers to performance, which puts us in a position to meet our performance potential.

If you’d like our help Getting Into The Zone, then below are a few ways to contact us: