Category: Mental Toughness Digest

The Mental Toughness Digest is a weekly email sent by the sport and performance psychologists from Condor Performance. It’s our way of staying in touch with the thousands of people who have contacted us since it all started in 2005.

The Digest doesn’t pretend to be a source of scientific facts that might be found in a peer-reviewed journal. Instead, it aims to promote thoughts and discussions about the important role that psychology plays in sport and performance.

Performance Psychology for Exams

Performance Psychologist Harley de Vos and Jarrad Merlo talk about exam psychology in this E2 Talks podcast interview.

The most successful exam takers are not always the smartest students …
Harley de Vos

Recently, our colleague Harley de Vos spoke with Jarrad Merlo on his podcast E2 Talks on the fascinating topic of performance psychology for exams. Due to the growing number of students and exam takers contacting us we thought it would be a good idea to use this week’s Mental Toughness Digest to add their interview below.

For those who prefer to read instead of listen a full transcript of the conversation is below as well. As always, please share and use the comments box at the bottom to join the conversation. If you are an exam taker and feel like you’d benefit from some 1-on-1 mental coaching then get in touch and we’ll send you detailed infomation about our performance psychology services.

Episode 15 – How to win on test day with performance psychologist Harley de Vos from Condor Performance 

Full Transcript

Welcome to E2 Talks. It’s a podcast where we chat about the English language landscape. In this podcast, Jay chats with performance psychologist Harley de Vos about a range of issues that can affect your performance on test day. They discuss best practices leading up to your exam, the night before your exam, the morning of your exam, and during your exam. Importantly, they discuss ways to manage test anxiety before and during your test, so you can maximise your performance on test day and win.

Jarrad Merlo:

Hello everybody, my name is Jay. I’m one of the expert teachers here at E2 Language. Today, I’m chatting to a sport psychologist named Harley de Vos. How’s it going, Harley?

Harley de Vos:

I’m very well, thanks, Jay. How are you?

Jarrad Merlo:

Yep, I’m doing pretty well. Doing pretty well. Some of you might be thinking, why would I want to be talking to a sports psychologist when we prepare people for English language exams? And the reason is, I think there’s great overlap between what athletes do and what test candidates do. Obviously, test candidates luckily only do it once or twice. But there’s certainly some overlap there. Harley, can you just introduce yourself, if you don’t mind?

Harley de Vos:

Yep, certainly. Firstly, just a minor correction, I’m a performance psychologist, not a sport.

Jarrad Merlo:

Right.

Harley de Vos:

I’m actually doing the registrar program to become an endorsed sport psychologist. I’ve got a master’s degree in sport and exercise psychology. But just in the interest of using proper titles, I call myself a performance psychologist at the moment, or a sport and exercise psychology registrar, but not a sports psychologist. So that’s my background. Currently, I work for a company called Condor Performance, and we provide sport and performance psychology services to athletes and performers. We work with individual athletes, we work with coaches, we work with teams. This work is both with athletes and performers based in Australia. But also globally as well.

One of the advantages of being in 2020 and especially it’s been probably amplified on the back of COVID-19, is that with all the technology that’s available now, you don’t have to be physically in the same place as someone anymore to be able to access those services.

Jarrad Merlo:

Nice. Yep.

Harley de Vos:

I do a lot of work with that. Work with a whole host of athletes and performers from different sports. I’m also, I’ve just started a PhD which is in sports psychology, which I’m doing through the University of Newcastle, and that’s in partnership with the Australian Institute of Sport.

Jarrad Merlo:

Nice. What’s your focus in your PhD?

Harley de Vos:

It’s looking at athlete performance health, we’re calling it. There’ll be a focus on mental health and on sleep and on, I suppose, developing strategies to optimise those with a view to improving athletes’ recovery, and also helping from a psychological point of view to reduce time away from training that athletes spend because of injury and illness.

One of the big things that we know is a really strong link between physically, our health, and mentally, our health. That sort of mind/body connection. So you’re looking at it from a psychological point of view, how we can improve athletes’ health so that they can train more frequently, and I guess the more time that athletes are able to train, and the less time that they spend absent from training through injury and illness, the greater that they’re likely to be able to produce their best performances when it really matters.

Jarrad Merlo:

Nice.

Harley de Vos:

Yeah. So it’s sort of in that space that we’re looking.

Jarrad Merlo:

Yeah, nice, nice, nice. Yeah, the physical and the mental, they’re obviously so tightly interlinked, aren’t they?

Harley de Vos:

Yes.

Jarrad Merlo:

All right. The way that I thought we might structure this talk is to talk about what our candidates should be doing pre-exam, in the months or days leading up to their test. I then want to talk about what they should be doing on the day of their exam. You mentioned sleep there, which would be a part of that. Obviously, the night before. Hopefully not during the exam.

Harley de Vos:

No.

Jarrad Merlo:

Then I want to also talk about their performance and what’s going on during the exam itself. I should just also mention here that I’ve taken these tests myself. These tests are very high stakes. That’s why I wanted to talk to someone about performance. They can be very anxiety provoking. One of the things that happens when you get very anxious before and exam or during an exam is that it inhibits your cognition. Obviously, this is different than sport, because I suspect you’re focusing more on how it affects your physical performance. Correct me if I’m wrong.

Here, we’re really thinking about, you’re not so worried about your physical performance in an exam, obviously, but certainly worried about how you’re reading that text, and are you able to concentrate on that text? Are you able to comprehend that text or speak? I guess there is a physical aspect to speaking. Stuff like that. What do you think there?

Harley de Vos:

I think one of the things about performance is that it’s so intertwined between the physical and the psychological. I guess, in some sports there’s certainly an external element where it’s perceived to be a very physical sport. In the 100 meter sprint, the person who can run the fastest is going to win. Of course, what actually allows that person to run the fastest is often based on psychological underpinnings. Those that can deal with pressure the best in the moment of dealing with a big final, for example.

Jarrad Merlo:

Yeah, yeah.

Harley de Vos:

The person who makes the least mistakes, or that can be the most focused, is who’s going to win in that sense. Starting from that, I guess if we’re talking about it from a pure exam point of view, there’s a much higher cognitive and intellectual component there. But there’s still a lot of the principles are the same. There’s still the capacity to talk. If it’s writing, you’ve still got to write and deal with that. We know that anxiety in a performance setting can certainly significantly impact even the most basic motor skills, such as talking.

I’m sure a lot of us will have experienced at some point doing a presentation in a classroom, or delivering a speech in a public space, where you get so anxious that it’s actually really hard to get the words out.

Jarrad Merlo:

Absolutely.

Harley de Vos:

So you’ve definitely got that physical component there as well.

Jarrad Merlo:

No, it’s fascinating, isn’t it? Really, really interesting stuff. Yeah. The other thing is, I think people underestimate how much this can impact test performance. Even native English speakers who go and take these tests can experience this as well. And all of a sudden, their language skills, which are native, natural, are inhibited. Also language is just one of those weird things where some days you wake up and you speak like a poet. Other days, you wake up and you struggle to get a sentence out, too. There’s a lot of variability just in day to day life with your language abilities as well.

All right, let’s start with pre-exam. What do you think our exam candidates should be doing sort of leading up to their tests? Let’s say a week out from their tests.

Harley de Vos:

A week out? I think the key thing to performing well in most situations is you want to get your work done early. The classic saying, proper preparation prevents poor performance. Really, I suppose, focusing on that. Having really strong study habits is really important so that’s where a good routine can be, recognising within yourself when you study the best. Some of us, if we wake up early in the morning, and the first thing that we do is sort of hit the books for a couple hours. Because that’s when we’re at our best mentally. We might be at our sharpest, and things like that.

Others, okay, I might need to ease my way into the day before I do it. But certainly, developing really strong study habits is a really important first step I think that needs to be built up. Obviously, the more that you know, the more confidence that you can take that you can perform at your best. So that’s a really important thing. I think there’s an element there which, if you look at it from a performance side, when we watch athletes and we watch top performers do their thing, for the average person there’s kind of that awe. Like wow, they’re so amazing.

But what you overlook is the fact that they have put in so much hard work to get to that point. That’s the key thing about performance is you’ve got to work really hard. When it comes to preparing for an exam, you’ve got to put in the work. You’re not going to … I think that’s a really important first step, that you’ve got to actually do the work.

Jarrad Merlo:

Good call. Yeah. That’s music to my ears. We’re all about preparation at E2 Language, so that’s great. Yeah it really is, you have to start building up your endurance as well. One of the things with these exams is that they can go for about three hours. If you’re studying bits and pieces here and there for 10 minutes or 20 minutes, it’s a whole different ballgame when you’re into the last bit of the exam, the end of the second hour of the exam, and it’s in the listening section, and it really is a test of endurance. So that preparation for endurance is really important, too.

What would you say about preparing … It’s a good idea to prepare when you’re feeling good, when you’ve had a nice cup of tea, and you relax and you sit down at the computer, and you’re burning incense or whatever you’re doing to make yourself feel good. But on the exam day, you may not be feeling good. Would you recommend that people prepare when they’re tired or hungry or in other states?

Harley de Vos:

Absolutely. That’s really music to my ears. Definitely. You want to spend some of the time doing your preparation, preparing when, yeah, when things are really difficult for you. When you’re not at your best. As you say, when you are tired or when you’re hungry or whatever it is. Because you’re absolutely right, on exam day, we can’t guarantee that you’re going to feel at your very best. One of the important things in performance is you don’t have to feel your best to perform your best. There’s a big difference between those two.

Jarrad Merlo:

Nice.

Harley de Vos:

Absolutely, doing, practicing when you’re not feeling well is really, really important. Definitely, we want to be doing that at least some of the time. Some of the ways that I guess can help that, for some people that might be studying in the evening at the end of the day, when they’re really tired. Or they’re putting in a solid block of studying before dinner when they’re hungry. Just being able to deal with that. Doing some studying when you don’t want to do it, when your mind is protesting it, it’s telling you to go and do other things. But actually just sitting down and doing that is really important, so that you develop experience at being able to produce the work when you don’t feel like it.

Jarrad Merlo:

Great, yeah. I remember taking the IELTS test and had to get up at about 7:00am to get to the testing centre, then I had to wait in line for hours. I can’t remember what I ate for breakfast. But then the first part is the writing test where you have to write a 250 word essay and other bits and pieces. That’s at 9:00 in the morning. I really thought to myself, wow, how many people wake up and write essays? That doesn’t happen. So that would be a really good practice, to wake up and get in that mindset.

Harley de Vos:

Yeah. I think there’s a lot to be said for being able to try and replicate exam-like conditions as part of your studying. So doing some work at the time, so yeah, if you’ve got an early morning exam, practice getting up, getting out of bed, getting ready, and doing study at that time so that that becomes a little bit of a routine for you. I think that’s really important.

Jarrad Merlo:

Yep, absolutely. What about, most people are okay, they get a few jitters, that they manage through and whatever, it’s not such a big deal. But we do have some people who write in and they genuinely suffer anxiety issues. What practices do you recommend? Practices like mindfulness meditation or physical exercise. How can these people leading up to their exams sort of calm their nerves?

Harley de Vos:

Yeah. So certainly, for anyone that is struggling with an underlying mental health issue, it’s important to know that there is help available, and that there’s really good help and support out there. So certainly for anyone who’s in that category, I would strongly encourage you to go and speak to someone. Maybe someone like myself who has an interest in performance, but also has a strong interest in mental health. Or it might be someone who specialises in an anxiety disorder or something else. But that’s really important, that you want to sort of work on that.

If we’re talking about general, I guess, performance anxiety and how to manage those nerves, certainly the mindfulness meditations and guided exercises and relaxation can be really helpful. What I would caution against though is if people aren’t already familiar with that, it’s probably not a good idea to start doing it. We don’t really want to be introducing anything new right before a major performance, because that can actually be detrimental to performance. For those that have experience in that, absolutely, that’s a really good practice to maintain. But if you haven’t, and it’s only a few days before the exam, don’t start now.

Jarrad Merlo:

Don’t go on a meditation retreat?

Harley de Vos:

I wouldn’t be doing that.

Jarrad Merlo:

Fair enough.

Harley de Vos:

What else can help, certainly movement is really important. I guess in the days leading up to the exam, part of that daily routine should be some form of moving. Why that’s really important, whether that’s going for a walk, or going to the gym, or having a hit of tennis with a friend, doing a dance class if you can do them at the moment. But whatever it is. So moving your body’s really important. We know that’s a really great way for us to reduce stress. When we move, it helps our body to metabolise cortisol, which is our stress hormone, so that’s really important.

Then also we know that movement is really important for cognition. Okay, it helps with learning and with memory. So definitely doing something every day’s going to be really important. In terms of, I guess, closer to the exam or on the day of the exam, what can be really helpful is deep breathing and knowing how to deep breath. Deep breathing is really effective physiologically at actually changing our brain chemistry.

One of the things that we know is when we are in a stressful situation, such as an exam, our threat system is activated. Part of our brain gets activated, and that’s when we start to see our heart rate increase, our breathing gets shallower and faster, our digestive system shuts down, which is why we can experience the butterflies in the tummy, we become sweaty, we might become jittery. So they’re all the physical signs we experience. Plus, there’s also the cognitive element, with the worrying and the catastrophising thinking.

Breathing is really good, because it actually helps us to switch which parts of our brain are activated. A little bit like when we’re anxious, it’s like our foot’s on the accelerator, okay? But to perform really well in the exam, you need the brakes on. We need to slow it down. Breathing’s really good for that.

A little useful exercise that can help is what we call box breathing. This is simply just to breathe in through your nose for four seconds, hold that breathe for four seconds, breathe out for four seconds, and repeat that. And it’s just like you’re going around a box. For those who are very visual, they might want to imagine that box just in front of them, and that can just be a nice way just to help slow down the breathing, which is really important. That’s one aspect.

The other thing which I think is also important to acknowledge is that exams are difficult and they are stress provoking situations, and they’re designed in many ways intentionally to do that. Part of it is also, I guess, a willingness to tolerate discomfort, knowing that this exam’s going to be difficult, but it’s really important for me to do that because it’s going to help me with future studies, or with other aspects of my life. So it’s really important that I do this exam and I’m willing to sit with the discomfort that I might experience along the way, in order of working towards what’s important for me.

Jarrad Merlo:

Well said, yeah. I’m a big fan of acceptance. Just saying, you know what? My heart’s going to flutter, my stomach will feel terrible, my hands will sweat. Who cares? I’ll get over it.

Harley de Vos:

That’s okay, it’s normal. That’s just my body responding to a threat. It’s okay. I’m here to do a job, and I’m going to do that.

Jarrad Merlo:

Yeah, good one, well said. All right. So what about sort of night before the exam with diet and sleep? What do you have to say about that?

Harley de Vos:

Yeah. Again, we don’t want to change anything a day or two days before. We want to keep doing our same routines. Hopefully, everyone has a good sleep routine where they go to bed at the same time every night and they wake at the same time, and if they’re not, it’s probably a good idea to be doing that. Particularly a few days before the exam. If you’ve got a 9:00am exam, and you know you have to be up at 6:30 in the morning so that you can have something to eat and you can get to the exam, then practice getting up at 6:30 a week before, the longer the better, so that you can just consistently waking at that time, even on weekends.

With that, then, you’re also going to try and set a bedtime that’s the same. So it might be 10:00pm or whatever. That’s the time that I’m going to bed. I’m going to build that into my routine. We want to keep that the same. I have heard anecdotally that for some athletes, that for them, they find the sleep two nights before their competition is the one that they most want to get right.

Jarrad Merlo:

Right, interesting.

Harley de Vos:

Because of the night before, things can happen or whatever. Again, we can perform in the short term, even if we haven’t slept well. If they can nail it two nights before, then at least they’ve had a really good sleep and a good rest and they know that they’ll be right to go. Making that sleep a priority’s really important. But certainly, the night before, I think what is really important is you want to do your last revision of notes. You don’t want to be studying any new material that close, because that’s going to impact performance.

So just a revision of notes. You want to give yourself a really good break.

Jarrad Merlo:

Good. I agree.

Harley de Vos:

So it’s about, I’ve reviewed my notes, I’ve done what I can, I’m ready to go.

Jarrad Merlo:

I remember in high school, basically having that attitude. It’s like, there’s nothing more I can do now. So I might as well just chill out, watch a movie, relax.

Harley de Vos:

That’s exactly right. That’s really important. I’d encourage people to do that. To be switching off and really trying to relax and unwind the night before. Making sure that there’s a period of time, probably at least 30 minutes, ideally 60 before bed, where you’re not on any devices. Just to help sleep. Make sure that your room is a good place to sleep is really important as well. That it’s cool, it’s dark, it’s quiet.

Jarrad Merlo:

Yep.

Harley de Vos:

As free from clutter as much as possible. We’re not studying in bed or anything like that, because that’s going to impact it. Certainly that unwinding process is really important. I think that’s a big thing. The other thing that’s also important in this is if you are really anxious the night before an exam and you can’t sleep, don’t spend long periods of time laying in bed not sleeping.

Because what we do is, we actually condition our mind that that’s what we do. We go to bed and we just lay there and we think. Give yourself 20 minutes, half an hour, max. If you’re not asleep, come up. Get out of bed, go into a different room, do something that’s really quiet and not stimulating. Maybe it’s reading or some coloring or some journaling, or listen to some really soft, calming music. And there’s some really great soundtracks that you can get. You know, sounds of rain on the roof and things like that can be really good.

Again, be aware of caffeine and how much caffeine you have too close to bed. For those that do enjoy a cup of tea or coffee, caffeine before can help increase alertness and can help, there is an effect there. Certainly, if you’re someone who likes a coffee in the morning like I am, well have your coffee in the morning before the exam. That’s important to do. But don’t have the coffee probably at dinnertime, because you might not be able to sleep.

Jarrad Merlo:

And probably don’t introduce any new foods into your diet the night before. Or just certain foods I would avoid, like chili, obvious things like that.

Harley de Vos:

That’s right. If anyone has any sensitivities or intolerances to certain foods, be steering clear of them the night before. Yes. Eating just a normal, healthy meal is really good. I’d encourage you to do that. Don’t eat too close to going to bed. Give your body a chance to actually start digesting and processing that food before you go to bed. That’s really important. You do want to eat something that’s wholesome, that has good proteins, plenty of vegetables there, some good fats and carbohydrates in that. Just eating what you would normally.

Jarrad Merlo:

Nice. Good one. All right, let’s imagine it’s on the day. The alarm goes off. What do you recommend first thing up?

Harley de Vos:

Look, I think everyone has … Some people have very deliberate and structured morning routines, some don’t. But certainly, it’s important between waking and getting ready for the exam that you’ve had a really good, filling breakfast so that hopefully you’re not going to go into the exam hungry or so that your blood sugar’s stable. We don’t really want them crashing through the exam. So nothing too sugary.

It might be a smoothie with some fruit and Greek yogurt, or in the winter months, a good porridge or oatmeal. Something like that, that’s going to give you sustained energy beforehand is really important. It’s not going to be too sensitive in the tummy and cause you any issues there. Having breakfast. If you do like a cup of tea or coffee in the morning, have that and give yourself time to have that. A good idea to drink plenty of water as well. You want to be hydrated as you go into the exam as well, because we know dehydration affects your ability to think.

Jarrad Merlo:

Yeah, good one. Good. All right. So don’t change it up too much, that makes sense. Big breakfast. I’m a big fan, I like healthy fats, avocado, stuff like that, that seems to sustain my energy for a long time.

Harley de Vos:

Perfect, yeah. Avocado toast, with an egg or without an egg could be ideal. This one is more my own personal experience more so than anything I know from science. But for me, when I was always doing exams at uni, I always had this motto that if I looked good, then I would feel good. And if I felt good, then I could perform better.

Jarrad Merlo:

Nice, yep.

Harley de Vos:

For me, making sure that I had a shower, had a shave, put on jeans.

Jarrad Merlo:

Yep. I like it.

Harley de Vos:

I was going out in my trackies and Ugg boots. That was something that was important for me. And for others, that might be important as well.

Harley de Vos:

Taking a little bit of pride in how you look. You don’t have to wear a dinner suit to the exam.

Jarrad Merlo:

Good one. Yeah.

Harley de Vos:

But something just fine and casual. You’re going to be, probably think about different layers in case it’s really cold in the exam room or in the hall, wherever it’s done. Or if it’s really hot.

Jarrad Merlo:

Yeah.

Harley de Vos:

That’s really important as well, that you dress depending on the conditions. If it’s too hot or too cold, that might impact your ability to perform well.

Jarrad Merlo:

For sure. Yeah. I think also, you want to make sure you’ve got your transport organized. The testing center might be far away. Make sure you’ve got your Uber booked, or you know which train station you’re getting off at. Even doing that the week before, just so you know what that routine is, you don’t want any surprises on the day of the exam. You certainly don’t want to rock up late. Or as I did once, rock up and realize I hadn’t actually booked the test itself.

Harley de Vos:

Yes, you want to make sure you’ve done all that sort of stuff right. So you’ve got that. You give yourself plenty of time, I think is really important. In the event that the trains aren’t running, for example, if you’re taking public transport. You’ve got to get an Uber and still get there. You’re better off being at the exam center early and having to sit around rather than rushing around late. We want to just try and eliminate as much stress as possible. Again, doing all that stuff, doing it early, having your research done early, knowing where you have to go, how you’re going to get there, how long it’s going to take, that’s really important.

Jarrad Merlo:

Yeah. One of the things you have to do when you take one of these tests is sit in the waiting room. I see people with notes, they’re doing their last minute cramming. One thing I like to do is actually take a pen and a piece of paper and just start writing. I find, when I just start writing off the bat with no, how can I say this? After a few sentences or a few paragraphs, I start to get in the rhythm, my brain starts to get in the writing rhythm. So obviously, it’s a bit like warming up before the exam. I think that’s really helpful. Just to practice writing an essay in the waiting room, just casually. Not putting any pressure on yourself, but just getting those bloods flowing.

Harley de Vos:

I think that’s a great idea. I think particularly when the focus is on actually the writing rather than the content is really important as well.

Jarrad Merlo:

That’s it, yeah.

Harley de Vos:

Personally, I’d probably be discouraging people from reading notes. Like if you’re in the waiting room, you’re not going to gain anything at that point.

Jarrad Merlo:

Yeah, I agree. I agree, it’s too late.

Harley de Vos:

If you don’t know by the time you get into the waiting room, you’re not ready to do it. And that’s not going to help. If anything, you’re going to actually hinder your performance. You’ve got to get all your studying done before.

Jarrad Merlo:

That’s right. Some of these tests are also paper-based tests, and you have to write your essay with a pencil. That was a real shock to me the first time I had to do that. I hadn’t written with a gray lead pencil since I was in grade six at school. Actually, I mean I had the strength. But I tell you what, my hand was getting pretty sore. My handwriting was getting pretty messy by the end of it. I think a good practice would’ve been to actually write a couple of essays, do my preparation with the gray lead pencil. That would’ve been helpful.

Harley de Vos:

That’s a really great point. And definitely, certainly, if you can know as much about the exam before you’re going to do it, so that you can prepare accordingly. So yeah, if it’s going to be done with a gray lead pencil, well practice writing with a gray lead pencil.

Jarrad Merlo:

Yes. Good one.

Harley de Vos:

Then you can buy those little grips that you can put on the, so possibly, if you’re allowed to bring something like that in, put it in your pocket. Then if you do have to write with a pencil, at least that might help, keep your hands from cramping and tightening up, so to speak. Little things like that’s really important. But definitely, you want to be practicing what you’re going to have to do in the exam in the days before you go into the exam.

Jarrad Merlo:

Good one. All right, let’s imagine you’re in the exam room and you can open your test booklets and begin writing or begin reading or whatever it is you’re doing. Let’s say somebody, at this stage, let’s say it’s the reading section. And this is where emotion can really affect cognition when it comes to reading. I’ve experienced this. I’ll give you a funny little example. I was teaching the other day, I teach online, these live classes. There was about 250 people watching me as I was explaining the answer to this multiple choice question. I totally forgot what the answer was.

I had to work it out in front of 250 people as they watched me. All of a sudden, my mind just shut down and I couldn’t read that paragraph properly. It was like, whoa, whoa, whoa. I had to just say to the students, listen, I’ll just come back to this in a minute, bought myself some time. But that can certainly happen. What would you recommend to people when they’re looking at the paragraph and it’s just not making sense to them, because there’s too much emotion, too much anxiety going through their mind?

Harley de Vos:

I certainly think when you go in and sit down, that’s a really good opportunity to have a couple of those deep breaths we talked before about the box breathing. That’s a good thing. Just to try and really calm and center yourself in that moment. I think that’s really important. Then when you start reading, again, having a breath before you actually start. If you find that you’re reading something and it’s not making sense, or you can’t read it, just stop, take a moment, and then come back to it.

Jarrad Merlo:

Good one.

Harley de Vos:

Or move on to a different section and I think that’s really important. You don’t want to spend too long on something you’re not being able to comprehend and not understand. That’s only going to further increase any anxiety you might be feeling. Taking that time, possibly something you could do before the exam, and you can certainly do once you’re in the exam, if we talked earlier about movement and how important that is. But we can still move. Even if we’re seated, we can still stretch and things like that. Just taking a little bit of time, either your reading time or throughout your exam, just to do that, is really important as well.

Harley de Vos:

If you started reading a section in reading time, and you’re finding it really hard to comprehend, well just put it down for a moment, have a quick stretch, move the arms around, just sort of shake your legs out, have a slow, controlled, calming breath, and then try again.

Jarrad Merlo:

I agree, man.

Harley de Vos:

And see if that works.

Jarrad Merlo:

There’s breaths that you take where you become really conscious and aware, that can really just stop that compounding mechanism of the mind when it starts to spin out of control.

Harley de Vos:

Yep. Definitely even, some people sometimes, just shutting your eyes for a moment and then reopening them, and just allowing yourself to re-focus can also help.

Jarrad Merlo:

Yeah, yeah. Good stuff. Good. All right. What about, just maintaining attention, maintaining concentration throughout this exam. I think obviously, we’ve had a good breakfast, that’s going to help a lot. What else is there that we can do to keep the focus?

Harley de Vos:

I think what’s important to realise, if you’ve got the exam and it’s going to go for three hours, you’re not going to be able to sustain your attention for that whole time. Just know that humans don’t concentrate for that length of time. What helps, I think, is just to break it down into smaller chunks. You might do it per question or per section. You might work on focusing on, you’ve got to write a short essay. So that’s, okay, I’m going to focus on that. I’m going to write that. Then I’m just going to give myself a minute after that, just to stop, to breathe, just to move a little bit.

Then I’m going to go onto the next section. So we actually break it down into chunks, and I think that’s a really helpful thing to do. I know, again, another personal thing that I used to do, and depending on the exam conditions whether this is allowed. But I, in exams, would always take what I would call a tactical toilet break. In the middle of the exam, whether or not I needed to go to the bathroom, I would just go. I would just give myself two, three minutes out of the exam room, maybe splash a little bit of cold water on the face. Just reset, refocus, an opportunity to get the blood flowing, because you’re moving around.

Then coming back in and going again. For me, I always found that the time that I would lose by doing that, I would gain because I was able to sustain my attention for longer. Something like that, I think is important. Don’t, I suppose, my advice would be don’t think that you have to sit in your seat for the whole three hours and do the exam from start to finish. We can break it up, we can break it down. If you do need to get out and come back in, that can actually be really, really valuable.

Jarrad Merlo:

Well said.

Harley de Vos:

That would be something I would consider. But again, using our breathing is also really important during that exam as well. Just being able to take those calming, centering breaths just to reset. I think breaking it down into smaller sections, one helps to reduce the complexity of the task, which makes it a little bit easier for us to do. Jay, if you and I were going to go and climb Mt. Kilimanjaro, for example, and we stand at the bottom, we look at the top and we think wow, that’s really high, that’s really long, I don’t think we can do it, you’re forgetting the fact that you have to take individual steps to get to that point.

Harley de Vos:

If we start focusing on those individual steps, eventually, we get to the top.

Jarrad Merlo:

Good one, yeah.

Harley de Vos:

Then we can apply that similar principle, when it comes to an exam, that sometimes we lose sight of what we actually have to do because we get overwhelmed by the complexity of the task. But if you actually think, okay, I’ve got this section to do, then I’ve got this section, then I’ve got that section, well I’ll just break them down and I can do that. I can do one section, and then I can do the next section.

Jarrad Merlo:

Great, well said. The biggest way that candidates will screw up their test in the writing section is not their grammar, it’s not their vocabulary range, it’s actually writing off topic. Because what candidates typically do, or what they can do is, they’re in such a rush and it’s like, go, bang. Then they’ll quickly read the question prompt, not read it properly, they’ll scribble out an essay without sort of, as you mentioned, which I think is a great point, stopping after the first paragraph, the introduction, going, okay, does that makes sense? How am I going to link the second paragraph, writing that one, looking at the question prompt again. Just doing it stage by stage. Well said.

Harley de Vos:

Yeah. I think even on that, from when I was at school, when I had to write essays and exams, some of the advice I received was always spend a couple minutes actually making a little plan for what you’re going to say and how you’re going to say it. I think again, that time, that if you can spend a moment or two just jotting down some ideas about what’s really important, that will save you time, and that helps to ensure that what you’re writing is on topic. Because there’d be nothing worse than writing a really great essay but it’s not relevant to the question that’s been asked.

Jarrad Merlo:

That’s it, that’s it. Okay, cool. The other one, and I guess the last bit is talking about the speaking section. Why this freaks candidates out is because when they’re dealing with the listening, the reading, and the writing, they’re dealing with a piece of paper that’s in front of them, right? But then all of a sudden, they’re now dealing in the speaking section with another human being with what’s going to interlock it as someone who’s going to be asking them questions and responding to them. This is an interesting one. I guess it differs between exams.

Other exams like PT, you’re actually speaking to a computer, which people find very helpful. That can actually … They prefer that to speaking with a person. My recommendation for this one is that these IELTS examiners, for example, they’ve seen all sorts of people come through, and they’ve seen people in all sorts of states of mind, right? They’re professionals. If you’re shaking or quivering or whatever, that’s not what they’re worried about. That’s not what they’re paying attention to. They’re paying attention to your language.

If you do find yourself in a situation where you’re having anxiety that’s completely normal, as we’ve said before, just sort of accepting it and going you know what? My hands are shaking, I can’t maintain eye contact, whatever’s going on, it doesn’t really matter. That’s not what you’re being scored on there. But, do you have any last suggestions about the speaking section when they’re in front of a person? What would you recommend there?

Harley de Vos:

Yeah, look, I think that big part about accepting is really important. Recognising that it will be a challenge. Again, trying to do as much practice as you can beforehand to prepare for that. So talking with different people, practicing getting used to that, trying to make that, I guess, as pressurised as you can. So it might be doing it when you’re tired, doing it when you’re hungry, doing it with someone you don’t know, getting them to make up material that you’re not aware of. All that sort of stuff so that you get used to doing that.

I think probably when you’re actually in the moment, what I would say is, it’s okay to have a breath and a pause before responding. So what I would imagine would probably happen a lot of time is someone starts talking to you, and your mind starts to think, okay, well what do I need to say? What do I need to say? Then you start talking, maybe it’s not coming out as you’d like, or you’ve lost track of words.

It’s like a bit of a snowball, it just spirals and it just gets worse and worse. Actually take a time to pause and process what you’ve been said, what’s been said to you, sorry, before you, then, respond.

Jarrad Merlo:

Be cool. Yep.

Harley de Vos:

That would be probably my advice. Again, just trying to really slow things down. Even if you’re just buying yourself half a second or a second, that can be enough time for your brain to actually compute what it is that you need to say. So I guess, get your brain to work before your mouth is probably going to be really helpful in that setting, I would imagine.

Jarrad Merlo:

It’s good to really pay attention to the other person. Because your body’s going to be going through all sorts of physiological whatever it’s going on, swirls and whirls, and twists and turns and stuff like that. If you’re paying attention to the person asking you the question, really putting your concentration on understanding what they’re saying, your body can do its thing, that’s fine, and you’ll respond appropriately, which is really important.

Harley de Vos:

Look, absolutely right. And there’s something to be said where if you can make your focus a little bit more outward, so direct it on the other person. What are they saying? And what’s my job? My job is to relay the information that I have to them, or to engage with them in a conversation. That’s my job. And if we can just move that, shift our focus, then it helps take it off the fact that you might be really anxious and uncomfortable in that moment. But you become less aware of it because your focus is now on them and what they’re saying. Which then actually helps you to do what you need to do.

Jarrad Merlo:

That’s it, that’s it. Yeah. Yeah. Well said. It’s quite interesting. I do a bit of meditation. One of the things that I’ve become aware of it how often my body can be in pain, but I’m just not aware of it. Because I’m not paying attention to it, it doesn’t really matter. There’s all sorts of pain shooting around my body, and my shoulders, in fact, if I pay attention now, it’s like my shoulders are quite sore. But up until that point, it didn’t matter, because I wasn’t focusing on that. I was focusing on having a conversation and whatever I was doing at work earlier. Yeah, cool.

Great. All right. This has been a really, really good talk. I think this has been full of helpful bits of information for people who do have to take this high stakes exam. And it is high stakes. They’ve got their visas or their university entrance riding on it. We’re very empathetic, sympathetic to that. Any last things you’d like to say?

Harley de Vos:

Yeah. Probably the last thing, I guess, from my point of view is it’s really important to believe in yourself.

Jarrad Merlo:

Good one.

Harley de Vos:

You’ve earned the right to sit these exams because of what you’ve done beforehand. Not everyone gets that opportunity. The All Blacks have a saying, that pressure is a privilege. The idea being that if you find yourself in a situation where you feel pressure, that’s actually a privilege, because you’ve earned the right to feel that pressure. I think in many ways, sitting an exam relates quite well to that, the idea that I’ve earned the right to be here. So yes it is going to be stressful, because it’s a high stakes situation. But I’ve earned the right to do it.

I think that’s really important. Believing in yourself, trusting your processes. Trusting that you’ve done the work that will get you there is really important. That’s where we talked earlier about having really good preparation and good study habits early.

Jarrad Merlo:

Totally.

Harley de Vos:

Is important because that’s what gives us confidence. That’s our trust that I’ve done the work, that now I can deliver when it counts. I think that’s really important. The final thing as well is, I think just really to embrace the challenge and to try and enjoy that experience. Yes it’s difficult, but if you can try and enjoy it and see it as an opportunity, I think that’s really important. In a lot of difficult situations, we perceive as a threat to whether or not we get a visa or we can get into a university, and that makes it really hard.

Harley de Vos:

But if we can start to see it as a challenge and as an opportunity, that just shifts our mindset slightly and allows us to accept the difficulty that we’ll face, to accept those nerves that are going to be there and the self doubt, but allow us to do what we need to do to get the performance that we need.

Jarrad Merlo:

Yeah. Great, man. Cool. Going to kick the exam’s ass, that’s what it’s about.

Harley de Vos:

That’s exactly right.

Jarrad Merlo:

Good stuff. Harley, thanks so much for chatting today. It was really interesting.

Harley de Vos:

No, thanks so much for the opportunity, Jarrad. I’ve really enjoyed it, and hopefully for the listeners out there, they can pick something up out of this and that will help them with their exams.

Choking In Sport

Sport psychologist Gareth J. Mole looks at the main reasons why many athletes can easily perform in training but struggle on competition day.

Choking in sport is basically any decrease in performance due to pressure or psychological factors

What Exactly is Choking in Sport?

Choking is one of those interesting terms which is commonly associated with sport psychology but not so common in the scientific literature. In other words it was first used colloquially to describe ‘falling apart under the pressure of competition’. Since then it seems to have ‘stuck’ as the term used most often to describe mental disintegration.

In this 2013 journal article choking is defined as follows:

“In sport, choking under pressure is a negative athletic experience that may have psychologically damaging effects. The media recognises that choking is a dramatic drop in performance, whereas researchers have labeled choking as any decrease in performance under pressure. This discrepancy between the media’s and researchers’ perception of choking leads to ambiguity among terms and confusion among researchers, applied practitioners, and the general public.“

As a practising sport psychologist I typically don’t use the words choke or choking at all. I prefer to describe the same challenge in a little more details. For example, underperforming in competition due to pressure. Or maybe due to poor concentration?

Can You Help? I Keep Choking …

There are literally hundreds of reasons why people contact us here at Condor Performance. One of the most common, however, is the athlete/performer who excels in practice situations but struggles to reach anywhere near this level during actual competitions. Most of the time they’ll refer to this as choking. “I keep choking” or “I am a choker”.

It’s worth mentioning that there is always a risk when writing about the psychological aspects anything of oversimplifying matters. This is certainly the case here. Be aware of this when I suggest that although there are potentially hundreds of causes of choking most can be attributed to one or a combination of the below.

  • a practice environment that is mentally far too easy (for that person)
  • a competition mindset that is far too taxing (for that person)
  • the perfect storm – a combination of both of the above

And In This Lies The Solution

Quite simply most of those who are better at executing their skills in practice are better as they are doing so in a false environment. One where more often than not there are little or no consequences involved. Go to any golf driving range in the world and you’ll see dozens of golfers (if we can call them that) smashing balls into the distance without caring about where they end up. Take the same golfers and plonk them onto the first tee with three other golfers watching and see how suddenly smashing this particular ball into the distance makes them tighten up and duck hook it straight out of bounds.

Even those who practice smart and try to replicate the mental demands of competition in their preparation often struggle as they tend to fall short of being able to mimic feelings of extreme pressure. The result is that they then have to try and execute their skills in competition whilst experiencing feeling like extreme nerves or stress that were not there during practice. To add insult to injury, they then fuse with these feelings unaware that feelings and actions can be separated.

There are a number of tried and tested ways around. Although reading this blog should never take the place of working 1-on-1 with a qualified sport psychologist the below might be enough to at least get the ball rolling.

1. Make Your Practice Mentally Harder

By harder we mean mentally harder not physically harder. The easiest way to try and do this is by replicating situations that you don’t like or that you find hard. For example, you might prefer to practice in the morning so you intentionally switch some practice sessions to the afternoon. Or you might enjoy practising with others so you do more and more training alone. To get the sweet-spot is not easy. You’re looking for the practice session(s) to be psychologically demanding but not too demanding. A great analogy for this is weight training. If the weights are too light then not much will happen. If they are too heavy they might cause injury and long term harm. It’s the same with mental demands. Too little means no growth, too much means damage. British sport psychologist Dan Abrahams refers to this as stretch and support. Too much and too little stretch are what we’re trying to avoid here. If you are not confident at being able to create your own sweet-spot mentally harder practice session(s) then please contact us here and so we can lend you a hand.

2. Make Your Competition As Relaxed As Possible

Is it possible for an athlete to be too relaxed whilst competing? Not really (don’t confuse tiredness with being relaxed) so we suggest you do what the great Usain Bolt used to do. He only “worked” on things in training. This freed up his competitions to just exist, enjoy himself and let his training express itself without a worried mind getting in the way. In particular, he didn’t worry about being worried. Easier said than done many might say. I often use the analogy of driving a car (apologies to our younger readers). Manoeuvring a vehicle around safely is a difficult motor skill with huge consequences if you get it wrong. Yet, most of us (who drive) do a great job of trusting our muscle memory. We quickly get to a level of expertise behind the wheel were we don’t actually have to try hard to drive well, we just do. What if you approached sporting contests in the same way? Arrive, ready, relax, trust your training.

3. Use Performance Routines

Action-only pre-performance routines can be a great way to keep you grounded at certain key moments both in practice and during competitions. The reason they work so well is that they’re built using the most influenceable aspect of performance – present actions. This means they should remain both easy to do and consistent regardless of the thoughts and emotions of the current situations. You didn’t really think that Rafa Nadel actually sweated that much did you? Rafa’s use of the towel is a great example of a mentally astute athlete using the action of wiping as a reset between points.

If you’d like to read a lot more about routines then you can read this blog or this one. And as always, please use the space below to let us know your thoughts and/or questions on the topic of Choking in Sport.

Mental Blocks

Mental blocks are common in sports like gymnastics. Sport psychologist Gareth J. Mole explores what they are and how to overcome them.

Mental Blocks are more common than you might think …

In this article we will explore the concept of mental blocks. Specifically the kinds of mental blocks that we commonly encounter in a sport and performance context. Without a doubt, some sports are likely to product more mental blocks than others. Which ones? Those that require manoeuvres such as gymnastics, surfing and all equestrian sports to name the most obvious.

For the rest of this article I will use gymnastics as an example. This is what the situation typically looks like when we find out about the mental block. A young gymnast is preparing for a major upcoming competition. For the uneven bars she is confident about the whole routine expect for the The Def (see below).

The Def (bars)

Description: The Def is a Gienger release move with an extra full twist. In simpler terms, the Def is a skill completed on the uneven bars where the gymnast releases the bar, completes a back salto layout with one and a half twists (540°) before catching the bar again.

In the mind of this hypothetical gymnast The Def is a mental block. It’s a skill that is so hard that she can’t imagine being able to do it in training; let alone in competition.

So how we know it’s a mental block as opposed to a different type of block? Is it enough to just take this athlete’s word for it? Not really.

What are the other kinds of blocks?

The main ones are physical and technical blocks. A physical block is when the body simply will not allow for the skill to be executed at this time. This might be due to injury, or literally the size of athlete. Think about a junior basketballer who wants to dunk the ball. She knows how but is just not tall enough (yet) to get anywhere near the ring.

A technical block, on the other hand, is when an athlete currently doesn’t have the “muscle memory” to execute a certain skill. A great example of this is when it golf, a few year back, they allowed long handled putters. For the non-golfing readers, this is a putter (used on the green) that is much longer than normal ones. The technique required to use this new type of putter is not the same as for a normal, shorter putter. So, many players tried it, had technical blocks and then went back to the old style.

Finally, We Have Mental Blocks

Or maybe we should call them genuine mental blocks. A genuine mental block is when the performer really believes that they will not be able to perform the skill. And it’s this belief, and nothing else, that is actually getting in the way of them doing it.

So here are no physical nor technical reasons why they shouldn’t be able to do this skill. One of the most compelling pointers it’s a mental block is if the performer has already done the skill in the past. 

Let’s go back to our example of the gymnast. If she has executed The Def before but can’t anymore this suggests a mental block.

Some sport psychologists might like to find out if there is reason for this. Was there a bad fall once? Maybe she saw another gymnast try and fail? Maybe someone has told her it’s impossible. Personally, I prefer to spend the majority of the mental conditioning on how to help them overcome the mental block. And these suggestions, below, are likely to the same regardless of the cause. And remember, these is not always a cause. This is mainly due to the limited amount of time that we have without our sporting clients. On average, via our monthly approach to consulting, we spend between 90 and 120 minutes “in session” with our clients. So it’s not that we are uninterested in the causes of things (such as mental blocks) it’s that we don’t have time to really get into them.

Baby Steps 

Baby steps refers to simply breaking down the skill into smaller, more manageable parts. Of course this is normally the coaches’ domain but not all coaches are mentally astute. Competence (actions) before confidence (a feeling) is the key here. Competence before confidence means that an athlete needs to be able to do something competently in order to feel confidence. In other words telling them “you can do it” is not very effective. Baby steps are a great way to overcome mental blocks. If done right there is never a large leap in difficulty.

For example, let us imagine that The Def is a 9 / 10 in terms of difficulty. What does a 7 look like? And and 5 or 3? Once these have been established then the gymnast can go back to the number in which they feel competent. Let’s say 4/10. With some patience, they can then work their way slowly up through the numbers. Do not, under any circumstances, jump from a 6 to 9 for example.

Seperate Actions from Thoughts from Emotions

Another way to overcome mental blocks is by realising that actions, thoughts and emotions are not one and the same. By this I mean separate actions, emotions and thoughts into different types of stimulus. This can be done away from training to start with. Through processes like Really Simple Mindfulness anyone can learn to observe their emotions and thoughts and therefore not let them stop certain actions from taking place.

As some of my clients know I like to prove this during sessions. For example, I will ask them to tap their head whilst saying to themselves “I am tapping my thigh”. Once the athlete knows that action are genuinely independent of thoughts and emotions they can use this in training. Using the current example, this means accepting that thoughts such as “I will never be able to do this” are fine. Feelings of panic are to be accepted and they don’t have to stop you from taking the first step (literally).

And if you combine these two ideas, the combination tends to be very effective.

As always, if you’d like a helping hand let us know. 

Work-Life Balance For Elite Performers

Performance Psychologist Chris Pomfret muses about how off-field endeavours can actually help with on-field performances.

Work-Life Balance For Elite Performers

Has there ever been a better time to consider your work-life balance? The Corona Virus, although devastating, is a reset and rethink opportunity for many of us. Are you spending too much time on one area of your life to the detriment of another?

The parents of our younger athletes will often ask us how they might encourage their kids to take their schoolwork seriously. Understandably, young athletes can struggle to see what relevance of studying or exploring long-term work options has to achieve their sporting dreams.

It is here that the answers hides. What if you could prove to elite athletes and performers that sometime less is more. What if they knew that hitting the maths books was actually going to help them play better on Saturday morning?

Multiple Pursuits; A Key to Good Mental Health

Let’s start with a fact. Playing careers are short at most levels for most athletes in most sports. There is a growing body of research that demonstrates the need for athletes be participating in a ‘dual career’. Or at least for them to be taking steps to prepare for their post-athletic life. Most competitive athletes retire at a young age. Think of gymnasts who are ‘over the hill’ in the twenties. This not only impacts on their lifestyle and their finances but also ‘bigger picture’ areas such as their sense of self, their social identity, and their sense of direction in life.

In US college sport, for instance, approximately 1% of collegiate athletes become professional athletes. And the average professional sporting career only lasts around 3.5 years (1). One area where the US college system ‘has it right’ is that athletes are required to maintain grades whilst studying in order to play. Traditionally this has not been the case elsewhere in the world, where club-based sporting systems are prevalent or professional development pathways are separated from the education sector.

Heading In The Right Direction

This has changed in recent times however, with athlete education and career guidelines now being set by national governing bodies across the globe.

In Australia and New Zealand many of the major sporting codes now require professional athletes to undertake vocational training as part of their contracts. Essentially a focus on health work-life balance is becoming compulsory like gym sessions. After all, many of these sports have very high injury rates. And some of these injuries, that can happen in seconds, can end sporting careers once and for all.

In the past, professional clubs have ‘paid lip service’ towards career, personal and welfare development. This was due to a belief that their athletes should be focusing solely on improving on-field rather than off-field. To be fair, this hasn’t been helped by a tendency for many athletes to prioritise their sporting activities above all other pursuits. Not surprisingly, athletes choosing to maintain a non-sporting activity achieve better jobs and are happiest with their life beyond sport than those who focus exclusively on sport (2).

T.O.T.I.W.B.E.A.

Some research has suggested that engagement in dual career activities may actually lead to a performance benefit for athletes. That’s right, work-life balance is good for now and later! This may in part be due a sense of balance in life and a sense of security from preparing for the future (3). Interestingly, a recent study showed only 31.9% of elite Olympic athletes decide to follow the ‘sport only’ career path (2). A case study of a club culture within the Australian Football League suggested that club culture supporting whole person development was associated with on-field performance rather than being irrelevant or even competing against performance (3).

In the work that we do in this areas we often use a made-up term called T.O.T.I.W.B.E.A.

T.O.T.I.W.B.E.A. stands for ‘The Other Thing I Want to Be Excellent At.’ This essentially involves something outside of your chosen sport that provides you with:

  • A sense of reward
  • A purpose in life
  • Something to challenge and stimulate you
  • Something to develop skills and competencies for self-improvement
  • Activities to take your mind off training, practicing, playing or competing

In other words, T.O.T.I.W.B.E.A. helps to provide that elusive ‘sport/life balance.’ We prefer this made-up label as it doesn’t imply it has to be obviously job related. For many of my sporting clients T.O.T.I.W.B.E.A. has been a hobby. Or just trying to become a better father, brother or friend.

The Clincher

As the growing body of research shows, when T.O.T.I.W.B.E.A. is defined by an athlete as an academic goal (such as completing a course of study) or as a vocational goal (such as working towards a long-term profession) there are significant rewards to be gained during their playing days and in the years that follow. What this research also shows, however, is that there are a range of barriers to successfully balancing sporting and non-sporting career progression. Chief of these is the issue of ineffective time management (2), along with a lack of understanding or support for dual career development at the family, club or organisational level (4).

With the above in mind it should come as no surprise that time management is organically woven into all the consulting that we do at Condor Performance. By this I mean it would be difficult to imagine us working 1-on-1 with an athlete over an extended period of time without us examining their schedule in detail. Often serious psychological challenges can be overcome by simply looking at what you do and don’t do on a weekly basis. Or by considering the quality of your time as a seperate concept to the quantity.

Would you like some help with your work-life balance? If you would like some professional assistance on anything raised in this article please reach out to us via one of the following ways:

References

  1. Tshube, T. & Feltz, D.L. (2015). The relationship between dual-career and post-sport career transition among elite athletes in South Africa, Botswana, Namibia and Zimbabwe. Psychology of Sport and Exercise (Elsevier), 21, 109-114.
  2. Lopez de Subijana, C., Barriopedro, M. & Conde, E. (2015). Supporting dual career in Spain: Elite athletes’ barriers to study. Psychology of Sport and Exercise (Elsevier), 21, 57-64.
  3. Pink, M., Saunders, J. & Stynes, J. (2015). Reconciling the maintenance of on-field success with off-field player development: A case study of a club culture within the Australian Football League. Psychology of Sport and Exercise (Elsevier), 21, 98-108.
  4. Ryba, T.V. et al. (2015). Dual career pathways of transnational athletes. Psychology of Sport and Exercise (Elsevier), 21, 125-134.

Motivation, Sport Psychology and Marshmallows

Motivation is about more than a subcomponent of sport psychology and mental toughness. This article looks at delayed gratification and more.

Child eating two marshmellows
“If you don’t eat this marshmallow, you’ll get two later on”

Too Many Theories

I have long held the view that most areas of psychology are blighted with too many theories. Don’t get me wrong, I know we need research to support our professional decision making. But in my view there are simply too many below par theories, models and papers out there. Google Motivation and sport psychology theories and you’ll see what I mean.

This then blows out the work load of applied sport psychologists such as myself. I try to read as many peer-reviewed journals on sport psychology as possible. Unfortunately have to sort through the mountain to find the gems.

Oh, and there are some real gems.

One of these is the work done around Delayed Gratification via The Stanford Marshmallow Experiments. Starting in the 60s Walter Mischel did a series of studies that gave us with a huge clue about the motivational requirements of successful people.

One Marshmallow Now Or Two Later?

In these studies, children between four and eight years of age were offered a choice. Each child, in turn, could pick between one small reward immediately or two later. One marshmallow now or two later, you decide? If the child decided to have two marshmallows later then it would be on the condition that the single treat was still there when the experimenter returned. This was normally after about 15 minute.

Remarkably in the majority of the testing about half the children gobbled down the one marshmallow almost immediately. The other half would exercise great will power and wait for the experimenter to return. In follow-up studies, the researchers found that children who were able to “delay their gratification” tended to have better life outcomes. For example, these high will power youngsters went on to get better exam results. They were happier and more likely to have good relationships. They ended up with much better jobs than the lower will power kids.

Below is a 6 minute Ted talk which explains the concept and experiments in more details.

Here is the video link to Joachim de Posada’s TED talk in 2009 that we keep banging on about in the context of delayed gratification as a key mindset for peak performance. Enjoy.

Although I am assume that Professor Mischel had little interest in the specific field of sport psychology I can’t imagine another branch of psychology whereby the concept of delayed gratification is more relevant.

Delayed Gratification

Delayed gratification is really just “doing something difficult now in the hope that it will be prove worth it later on”.

Of all the hundreds of theories on motivation pertaining to sport psychology this is most useful. Quite simply put, one of the chief explanations about why so few succeed is because they can’t link their short term struggle with their long term aspirations.

Most athletes and coaches try and find shortcuts. They throw in the towel when the rewards for their effort are not immediate and obvious. They gobble down the single marshmallow instead of waiting for two. Very few people actually love getting up at 4am in order to do laps under floodlights. But the champions and champions-in-the-making do it anyway.

In the defence of ‘most athletes’ it’s unlikely that anyone has taken the time to carefully explain to them that improving is all about patience. Doing the hard yards in the preseason so the rewards can come during the season.

What If The Kids Had Been Coached First?

What would have happened had all the Marshmallow experimentees been coached beforehand. Imagine a performance psychologist had been allowed to spend time helping the kids mentally prepare first. How about the impact if a performance psychologist shows pictures of other kids succeeding. Imagine if all the subjects has been taught proper mindfulness techniques thus allowing ‘urges’ to just be noticed.

But of course elite sport, especially at the highest level, requires a little more delayed gratification than 15 minutes. On many occasions the truly meaningful “payoff” for effort might only be 10 or even 20 years down the track. That’s a long time to wait for that second marshmallow! Think about the young athletes who sacrifice time with friends and family whilst they are teenagers only to see the rewards in their twenties and thirties.

Remember, the experiments centred around one marshmallow now or two later. The children were not left with a brussell sprout for 15 minutes. This is a super important point. There was nothing mean about leaving the kids alone in a room with one marshmallow. The only difficultly some of them experienced was the tussle between their own strength of mind and their own temptations.

Applied Sport Psychology

At Condor Performance one of the ways we help those we work with to embrace delayed gratification is by encouraging them to keep track of their progress.

Key Performance Indictors can “bridge the gap” between the daily and weekly grind and possible moments of glory. These monthly checks act a little like licking the marshmallow but not eating it. They help remind us about what we might get later on down the track. They remind us about why we’re doing what we’re doing even if it’s uncomfortable. MCs are, in my opinion, the most powerful motivators available when you can’t actually use marshmallows!

Easier said than done? If you’d like to receive details about our sport psychology services then you can get in touch a number of ways.

Emotional Intelligence and Managment

Emotional Intelligence. Can we control our emotions? Sport psychologist Gareth J. Mole takes a deep dive into the topic of emotions.

Sport psychology and its big sister performance psychology are minefields when it comes to terminology. What I mean by this is that related terms gets thrown around often and easily. Some of these words are more common than others. For example, ‘mental toughness’ and ’emotional intelligence’ are used and misused more frequently than ‘team unity’ and ‘flow’.

Those of you who are familiar with Condor Performance (the psychologists) and Metuf (the model) will likely know that for a long time we have tried hard to define such terms. For example, for us mental toughness is an umbrella terms that pertains to the “Big Five” aspects of the mental side of sport / performance. In fact, the word Metuf is an acronym for motivation, emotions, thoughts, unity and focus. And of course, mental toughness is not to be confused with the other ‘

But what about the “Big Five” terms themselves. When we use the words emotional intelligence for example are we all in agreement about exactly what we are talking about? Not in my experience, not even close. In fact, I find emotions and related discussions to be the most confusing, and risky, of all the sport psychology concepts.

Some Recent Examples

Let me use an example to explain. Recently on social media I saw a screenshot of a presentation that contained the words “controlling their emotions under pressure”. It was a bullet point next to the words composure, one of “six keys to being resilient” (according to the slide). I added this comment “It is not possible to control emotions, only influence them. It is psychologically dangerous to imply you can”. I will not go into detail about the back and forth that took place after this initial comment except to say this. It would be very useful if there was a censuses on how emotions work and what we mean by emotional intelligence.

With that I will give my professional opinion and expand on my “it is not possible to control emotions” comment. As an applied sport psychologist it’s not really my job to prove that the below is correct, or scientifically robust. Having said that, at Condor Performance, we do collect a huge amount of internal data as part of our mission to be constantly improving. Some academics might argue that because our data is not converted into scientific articles and then submitted for peer review that it is meaningless. I will save my counterargument to that assertion for another time / blog.

Our Guide to Emotional Intelligence

First and foremost we want to agree on what emotions are. They are feelings. Many of these feelings are enjoyable like joy and excitement. Many are not that fun such as fear, nerves and frustration. Then there is the feeling of not feeling anything at all – often called apathy. Some recent studies suggest there are 27 main emotions that most humans experience. This “feels” about right. Especially if you remove the ones that sounds like emotions but are actually thoughts (like worry, for example).

In browsing the list of these 27 emotions I have picked eight as very common for athletes, coaches and other performers:

  • Anxiety
  • Calmness
  • Confusion
  • Envy
  • Excitement
  • Fear
  • Satisfaction
  • Triumph

With these in mind we turn our attention to the question what is your relationship (as a person) to these and other feelings? Is it useful to find the cause of your excitement (for example) so you can replicate it at will? Are strong feelings of anxiety and fear bad – to be stopped like some kind of emotional disease? Do we control our emotions or do they control us or neither of these?

This Is How I Explain It To My Clients

Emotions are just part of the human experience. Internal feelings are one of seven sources of information (stimulus) available to most of us most of the time. The others are sight, sounds, smell, thoughts, touch and taste. All of these groups of stimuli vary in terms of their pleasantness. For example, drinking fresh and sour milk activate different taste buds but both are taste sensations nonetheless. You can apply the same to all seven. We experience fear and excitement very differently but both are emotions, nothing more, nothing less.

The first and most important part of being emotionally intelligent is just becoming better at noticing and experiencing different emotions. Yes, both the pleasant and the unpleasant ones. There are many ways to go about this but there are a couple of rules to ensure it’s helping. Don’t try and change the emotion directly. Wether it be via mindfulness, meditation or moonwalking your task is to “increase your awareness of your feelings with decreased judgment”. I often like to do this by going through all the senses so that there is no real difference between the internal two and the external five. Here is a link to 16 minutes “Really Simple Mindfulness” audio recording we created recently in case you want a helping hand.

Technology – Friend or Foe?

You can certainly use one of the myriad of Apps as well (too many now to list) but remember this. Mindfulness, like exercise, shouldn’t cost you anything. You do not need a gym membership to improve your cardio fitness. You don’t need to pay for the Premium version of an App in order to do mindfulness. Even our “Really Simple Mindfulness” audio recording above is only really designed as ‘training wheels’ until you get the hang of it by yourself.

So becoming better at observing your emotions is the first part of emotional intelligence. But it’s not the only part.

The second part is about realising that although you can never control your emotions you can sometimes influence them. And that choosing to do this might assist with what you’re trying to do (achieve etc).

For example, you might decide that you would like to feel as calm as possible before competitions (exams, performances etc). In your attempt to influence this (NOT CONTROL) you might design a Pre Competition Routine that is full of tasks they YOU find relaxing. With practice (repetition) the likelihood of you feeling calm the hour before kick off or tee off will increase. But real emotional intelligence comes with knowing that there will never be a guarantee (synonym for control) that you will in fact feel calm and relaxed.

Don’t Try And Change Emotions Directly – Ever

And not even here you are not trying to change your emotions directly. If you relaxation tasks are actions (preferable) then you’re really influencing your preferred pre game actions and hoping they make you feel calm. This is very different from trying to calm yourself down.

How do we deal with this? We just notice these unexpected feelings alongside all the other sights, sounds and  thoughts of the situation. Which if you’ve been doing this on a daily or weekly basis (see above) as part of your training will be child’s play.

For those of you who stumbled across this article in search of an applied definition of emotion intelligence then copy and paste this.

“Emotional intelligence is the ability observe and label your own human emotions and to know when and how to influence them”. 

Gareth J. Mole, Sport Psychologist @ Condor Performance

Sporting Comebacks – A Mental Perspective

Sporting comebacks are easier to understand when you look at the different areas that make up optimal sporting performances.

AUGUSTA, GEORGIA – APRIL 14: Tiger Woods of the United States celebrates after sinking his putt to win during the final round of the Masters at Augusta National Golf Club on April 14, 2019 in Augusta, Georgia. (Photo by Andrew Redington/Getty Images)

The Term ‘Comeback’ Is An Interesting One

What first comes to my mind when I think about ‘sporting comebacks’ is ‘coming back to what’? The Oxford Living Dictionary defines comeback as ‘a return by a well-known person, especially an entertainer or sports player, to the activity in which they have formerly been successful’. Which of courses begs the question successful as defined by who and what?

What are some of the most memorable comebacks that you have been involved in as a coach or athlete? How about as a sports fan? Is it the size of the deficit that was overcome or the amount of surprise caused?

Last year, in 2019, we were treated to two of the most remarkable comebacks I can ever remember. But each earned the label epic comeback for very different reasons.

Tiger Wood’s Comeback Win at The 2019 US Masters

Apologies if you already know all of this. However, it’s important for the non-golf followers out there to be aware of the facts around this remarkable sporting victory.

Tiger dominated the international golf scene for just over a decade. It is easy to understand why many regard Tiger’s ‘hot’ years as having no equal in individual sports. Lance might have been a contender but we all know what happened to him! Roger had to share most of the spoils with Rafa and Novak.

Of Tiger’s fifteen major titles fourteen of them came between 1997 (winning his first US Masters) and 2008 (a third US Open). Fourteen majors in eleven years mean he was averaging more than one per year during his glory years.

The Decline …By His Standards

Only Tiger will really know what contributed to the slide in his form. He went from more than a Major a year to none for the following ten years. Theories-a-plenty suggests a combination of factors. Maybe ageing, injuries, improved opponents and non-golfing scandals or a combination? Between 2009 and 2018 his trophy cabinet did not continue to fill up at quite the same rate as per the previous decade.

Tiger won most of his golf tournaments (so far) during the first half of his career.

The above graph is very telling in many ways. For me, the most meaningful takeaway is this notion of success as defined by who and what – as mentioned earlier. I work 1-on-1 with dozens of professional golfers who would love to have Tiger’s trophies from 2010 – 2018 where he managed “only” 9 tour victories (and no majors). In other words, like so much in sport psychology, comebacks are all relative.

Tiger’s win at Augusta in April 2019 will be regarded as a comeback because he used to win these events without even breaking a sweat. Then he didn’t for a while. This resulted in many of these lesser golfing achievements (top 5 and top 10 finishes for example) getting ignored, dismissed or underplayed. Let me say it again. Most pro golfers would give their left leg to have achieved what TW did during his “slump years”.

Sporting Success Is About So More Than Trophies and Medals

I advise my athletes and coaches to be mindful of not letting results (influenceable) play too big a role in what they regard as success. And if you must use sporting results collect a whole bunch of stats not just wins.

Our Metuf model suggests there are five major areas that all contribute to performance success. Physical, Technical, Mental (which includes emotional) and Tactical Preparation act as four ‘engines’ on a performance plane. The rest of the aircraft is like their health and wellbeing. To increase your chances of winning anything you’re better of focussing on there five areas. Sport psychology stalwart Dr Chris Shambrook says it best. “Focus on the input, and let the output take care of itself”.

Tiger is now known to have had a number of physical and personal challenges for most of the previous decade. Maybe these were enough to result in him “only” coming 2nd and 3rd in the hardest golf events in the world. But we will never really know (nor will he) because we can’t unbake the cake.

What Tiger had to endure from a physical point of view (injuries and surgeries) would have been enough to force most athletes into retirement. But most athletes don’t have the mindset (grit?) of Tiger Woods.

The nature of sport, especially at the pointy end, is that you just don’t have a chance to dominate if one of your four engines is not functioning properly. Of course, a much more common scenario across all sports are athletes who are physically fine (injury-free at least) but whose Mental Preparation and Toughness isn’t optimised. If this sounds like you please get in touch, we can help, it’s what we do.

The Rest of the Plane

The other major aspect of performance is ‘the rest of the plane’. We could refer to this as mental health and wellbeing. In my work as a sport psychologist I prefer to think about this from a solutions point of view. For example, sleep, nutrition, relationships, rest and purpose to name some of the most common.

It would certainly appear that these areas of Tiger’s life have improved significantly over the past year or so. I would suggest they may well have had an equal – or greater impact on Tiger’s comeback than his return to full fitness. But we will never really know (nor will he) because we can’t unbake the cake.

During the famous green jacket ceremony Tiger finishes it by saying ‘Yeah, I’m excited about show and tell at school’. This suggests how he is thinking about his family in the immediate aftermath of his most epic comeback ever.

Although there is still a lot of data missing proving the link between improved wellbeing and sporting results trust me the two are heavily linked.

Genuine sport psychology will only become mainstream when sporting decision makers realise that happy athletes win more – a lot more.

Another Epic Comeback in 2019

Some comebacks take much less time that the ten years it took Tiger to win another major. Some only take 45 minutes in fact.

Lets fast forward a few weeks and move from the greens of Augusta to the floodlit nights of Champions League football (soccer). The Champions League is Europe’s premier inter-club competition where the best teams from all the major leagues take part in a separate competition the following year.

Again, if you know how the Champions’ League work then skip this paragraph but it’s important to put all examples into context. The Champions’ League consists of first a round robin “pool” format (similar to FIFA World Cups) and then a second knock out stage. All the matches except for the final are played over two legs. This means that the scores from each pair or games get summed to decide the overall winner of the tie. In the event of deadlocks (even number of goals scores across the two games) the team who scores more goals ‘away’ from home will prevail.

In last year’s semi-finals Barcelona (of Spain) took on Liverpool FC (England) and Ajax (Holland) played Tottenham Hotspur (England). After the two first games, it was looking very unlikely that either of the English teams would advance to the final in Madrid. Barcelona took a 3-0 lead into the second leg meaning a single goal for the Catalans’s at Anfield would mean LFC would need to score 5 against arguably the best team in Europe! Ajax fans were forgiven for starting to think about a trip to the Spanish capital after their team beat Spurs 1-0 in London. So they would take a lead, an away goal and home field advantage into the decider.

Yet Despite All The Odds …

Yet despite all the odds both Liverpool and Tottenham Hotspur prevailed. Both the second leg matches were remarkable in their own way and worthy of the label comeback. But the Liverpool comeback would have to go down as one of the comebacks of the century. Especially given that it resulted in them going onto to lift the trophy a couple of weeks afterwards.

There are some lessons to be learnt here from the men who orchestrated these comebacks. For a start, both the managers (head coaches) of these two famous English team appear to take the mental side very seriously. The have created a ‘never give up’ attitude with their respective playing squads. I suspect that their comebacks are always less of a surprise to them than their fans.

In fact, Jurgen Klopp – the German coach of Liverpool – described his players during the press conference after their remarkable 4-0 comeback semi final win as ‘mentality giants’. This is a term I have not come across before but will be passing onto my coaching clients for sure.

Mohamed Salah’s ‘Never Give Up’ T-shirt epitomises Liverpool’s mindset in Barcelona victory in the 2019 Champion League semi final.

How about you? Have you been involved in a sporting comeback? If you have add the details to the comments section below. Better still, describe your mindset before and during the comeback for others to read and benefit from.

Goal Setting – Done Right

Goal Setting is one of the best known of all mental skills – but we have come a very long way since the old days of S.M.A.R.T. goals.

Did you set some goals at the start of 2020 and then have them scuppered by the Corona Virus? Did you think to adjust your goals accordingly? Goal setting is actually the easy bit, it’s the getting that’s tricky.

This article was originally written in 2019 but has recently been updated. It now includes examples pertaining to the Corona Virus and associated challenges.

There are roughly 5000 separate searches for the term ‘goal setting’ every 24 hours around the world. This is the same number of searches for the term ‘sport psychology’. This suggests that athletes, coaches, students, bored teenagers and performers have heard of goal setting, want to do some but don’t really know how.

Before we help you out with this let’s remind ourselves of something important. It’s useful to seperate processes (methods) and their intended outcomes. In other areas of sports science, this is much easier. For example, in physical training one of the intended outcomes is cardio fitness. I assume you could list dozens of activities (processes) that would help improve cardio fitness. Moreover, you would never confuse skipping (for example) with the outcome of cardio fitness.

The Same Applies For Mental Training

The same framework can and should be applied to mental training but rarely is. Goal setting is the method. It’s a process but what are the intended areas we’re trying to influence when we do some goal setting? Furthermore, just like skipping which can be done well or poorly not all goal setting is the same. Most of the goal setting I have seen in the skipping equivalent of doing it once a year and hoping this will have a long last impact on cardio fitness.

Many sport psychologists will tell you that goal setting is all about improving motivation. But I would argue that it’s much broader than that. In fact, if done properly goal setting can become the entire foundation of your personal and sporting/performance endeavours.

Goal setting the Condor Performance way is really Goal getting. Setting long term outcome goals is actually rather easy. It’s the stuff required to get you there were the magic happens – so to speak.

Start With Your Preferences

The scientific literature refers to them as outcome goals, performance goals and process goals. It also suggests that ideally you’ll have all three types as part of your “goal setting” plan. I would agree.

Preferences are a much better label than outcome goals. The hard reality of elite competitive sport is that very few will actually achieve their long term goals. Preferences will soften the blow if you don’t make it without impacting on your motivation. Preferences want to be long term; between one and five years from now. They also want to be about both life and sport (performance). A simple 5 x 2 table of future preferences is ideal.

People with goals succeed because they know where they’re going! Do you know where you want to get to a year from now? What about five years from now?

This is nothing revolutionary. The highly overrated S.M.A.R.T Goals might get you to the same place as the above exercise. One of the key aspects missing from many goal setting systems is the concept of influence. It’s essential that the person coming up with their long term preferences knows this. We only have some influence on these futuristic outcomes.

I am updating this blog in the midst of the 2020 Corona Virus and associated challenges. I will use it to prove my point from the above paragraph. Almost every sporting goal set at the start of 2020 will not happen. Is it your fault? Of course not, you only have some influence on these preferences.

When doing goal setting / getting with my clients I normally start with preferences. But not always. If I feel that for the individuals in front of me (on the screen) ending with preferences will be best then I do just that.

Progress – The Key To Effective Goal Setting

Let’s assume for the sake of simplicity that you have started with your long term preferences. You have done your 5 x 2 table and have ten sporting and personal achievements clarified on paper. What next? The research calls them performance goals, we call them monthly checks.

Monthly Checks are typically performance aims and indicators that we have more influence on compared with our long terms preferences. Normally, we have a lot of influence on these key performance indicators. And here one of the secrets of many of the world’s best athletes. Due to having more influences on their KPIs compared with LTOGs they value the former more than the latter. Most competitive athletes do the opposite and wonder why they spend so much of their time frustrated.

Examples of monthly checks might be statistics from competitions. For example, maybe you’ll track ‘greens in regulation’ for all rounds of golf for the month of February and compare that with March. Or maybe you focus on training progress instead. Maybe you see if all that skipping is actually doing anything by repeating a heart rate recovery test at the start of each month.

Processes – How Champions Are Really Made

The final piece of the goal setting / getting puzzle is arguably the most important. What processes (activities) are best right now for you? By ‘right now’ I mean today and this week. There are two keys in doing this effectively. First, realise (know) that you have even more influence on your processes that you do on your progress and preferences. I would say ‘a huge amount’. You have a huge amount of influence on how to spend your time. Secondly, focus on what you can do. Good process planning doesn’t even consider what you can’t do not what you used to be able to do.

The current Corona Virus is a great example of this. Most athletes and coaches around the world are spending too much time thinking (talking) about what they can’t do right now. This common but unhealthy mental habit then makes it harder to think about the thousands of ways around challenges like lockdown.

If you’d like some professional help to set and then get some goals then get in touch. You can request a Call Back (form to the right on computers, below on smaller devices). Even better (as it gives us more background on you) is complete one of our questionnaires in which you can ask for info on our 1-on-1 sport psychology services.

Mental Toughness Is Not The Same As Mental Health

Leading Sport Psychologist Gareth J. Mole explains the difference between Mental Toughness for Performance and Clinical Mental Health.

Mental Health and Mental Toughness are not the same.
Being Mentally Well and Mentally Tough are not the same thing.

There is an encouraging change taking place behind the scenes in elite sport around the world. Mental health (wellbeing) is starting to be considered an important part of sporting excellence. This is a welcome change from the “win-at-all-cost” and “suck it up” ideologies that existed before. But it’s not all roses and bubblegum. With this Wellbeing Movement there is a risk that many people involved in the pointy end of sport will confuse mental health with mental toughness. Of course although they are related due to both being related to the mind, they are not one and the same.

Thousands of Psychological Models

Psychologists the world over vary considerably when it comes to which frameworks they use to inform their work. Maybe more so than any other regulated profession disagreement about which theories are best is common. On the one hand this is healthy as it encourages robust discussion – a key improvement ingredient of any profession. The issue with psychology, especially sport psychology, is both the size of the disagreements and how they’re handled.

When I started Condor Performance in 2005 one of my goals was to only have the healthy bit (above). By this I mean I set out to put together a team of sport and performance psychologists who all agreed on the core elements of what we did. To this day I am happy for the team to disagree about the smaller stuff but we need to be in unison about which framework is best for our sport and performance clients.

In 2005, most of the sport psychology theories were geared towards either performance enhancement or person enhancement. Often the ideas contained within wouldn’t work together. In fact, some of them would actually damage the other side. As a new qualified sport psychologist I was not satisfied with this status quo. Our clients deserved better.

Metuf Is Born

This was my starting point. Most registered psychologists are quite capable of assisting people with mental health issues (e.g. severe depression). However not many psychologists can help sporting clients with their “mental game”. The part that is getting referred to in famous phrases like “golf is 90% mental”.

I wanted to be able to do both, I wanted to bake my cake and eat it. Then I wanted other performance psychologists to be able to do the same. As 99% of the consulting we do at Condor Performance is one-on-one then I wanted to be a councillor, a coach or both to our growing client base.

Metuf didn’t come about suddenly. In fact the main elements from Metuf didn’t even have a proper name before 2010. They existed as a series of worksheets that we’d use with our clients. These PDFs, now part of our archives, declared that general wellbeing and happiness are not the complete psychological requirements needed to reach ambitious sporting goals.

There are other psychological aspects that may not be that useful for normal, everyday people. But these mental skills are mighty useful when it comes to achieving consistent success. The best umbrella term for these extra psychological strengths is Mental Toughness. 

Pre Shot Routines – A Great Example

Whenever I am asked to defend this position – that mental toughness and mental health are not the same – I use the same example. One of the most useful mental skill for start-stop sports (like golf, shooting, lawn bowls) is a Pre X Routine. For golf, that X is shot but for tennis it’s means point. These short routines have nothing to do with mental health and wellbeing. They never have, they never will.

As Metuf evolved so did it’s place in the bigger picture. We used to believe the ideas would only really work on the mentally well. In other words in the early days we’d often refer our clients to clinical psychologists for “fixing” first. But eventually we worked out that many people where quite capable of working on their mental health and mental toughness at the same time.

Where Does The Word Metuf Comes From?

Despite there being hundreds of mental skills that can be used to enhance human performance there are only a few mental targets. By this I mean when you seperate mental health from mental toughness and try to break down the latter into smaller parts you’re not left with a lot. When we refer to mental toughness five potential improvement areas keep coming up over and over again:

Motivation, Emotions, Thoughts, Unity and Focus. 

The first letter of each of these five words spells Metuf – which is pronounced with a soft ‘e’ as in egg not a hard ‘e’ as in me.

If we look at these five labels we can see where the confusion between Mental Health and Mental Toughness can come from. The first three in particular look like they’d be pretty handy for anyone struggling with their mental health (think depression and motivation, or severe anxiety and emotions). 

But the M in Metuf that stands for motivation is from the context of performance not daily life. The kind of interventions that a clinical psychologist might use to motivate someone with clinical depression don’t resemble the kind of Mental Methods we use to motivate mentally well athletes, coaches, officials and performers. And the same applies for the E, T, U and F.

The Aeroplane Analogy

The analogy that we have been using more recently is that competitive athletes are like four engines aeroplanes. Overall wellbeing is like the main body of the aircraft, Mental Toughness is like one of the engines. In other words there is no point in having Rolls Royce engines if they’re attached to an aeroplane that is falling to bits.

A full explanation of this analogy can be seen through the Introduction Videos of our online Mental Toughness training courses. These intro videos can be seen for free before you decide if you’d like to pay for the entire course.

If watching some video presentations isn’t your thing then reach out to us instead. We now have a team of almost ten psychologists. All of whom can help you with either your mental health, your mental toughness or both.

Mental Health Challenges for Athletes

Are athletes and coaches more or less likely to experience mental health issues compared with the general pollution? Sport psychologist Gareth J. Mole addresses this and other related questions.

Mental Health Challenges for Athletes
Mental Health Challenges for Athletes

As this previous article suggests at Condor Performance we consider Mental Health and Mental Toughness to be different concepts. Not opposites nor completely unrelated but far from one and the same.

Mental Health is ‘the condition of the mind’ as it relates to the individual and their ability to function. Genuine mental health issues will most likely have an impact across a number of aspects of the sufferer’s life.

So the severity of the mental illness is related to how they function as a person interacting with their society. If this person is an elite athlete then of course it might impact on their performances. However, it’s likely to hinder them in a number of other areas as well. By way of an example let’s consider a competitive athlete who has clinical depression. This serious mental challenge may well decrease their motivation to train in their chosen sport. But if it’s a genuine Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) then their motivation will be down across most (all) areas of their life not just their sporting commitments.

The most extreme cases result in the sufferer being institutionalised. For example, having to spend time in either a hospital or prison.

Sporting Mental Toughness, on the other hand, doesn’t work like that. It’s much more likely to be confined to performance aspects only. Let’s use the example of a team sport such as volleyball. One of the subcategories of Sporting Mental Toughness (SMT) is Unity (cohesion, group dynamics, culture). It’s very possible that the lack of team unity experienced by a volleyball team has no adverse affects away from training and games.

Mental Issues Common In Sport

If you’re looking for some cold, hard facts about mental health issues common in sport I have added a couple of articles to the bottom of this article. But this is how I see it. Athletes are human too so as humans they are susceptible to all the normal psychological risks of the general population. However, the world in which they find themselves might increase the chances of facing certain mental issues.

One great example is stress. Eloquently described in the below TEDx video by volleyballer Victoria Garrick. High performance circles are breeding grounds for stress. This is especially true for those involved in low or non-paying sports. The demands of training and competing on top of a job and/or study can be really stressful.

A recent Ted Talk about The Mental Health Challenges faced by Athletes.

There are some excellent questions being debated at the moment around all of this. One is ‘surely everyone would want to be mentally tougher not just performers?’ Not really. First, building genuine mental toughness is very hard. So, although everyone can attempt to it’s probably not worth it if you’re not likely to encounter ‘extreme mental challenges’.

An Analogy

Think of it as being similar to physical health and physical strength. Everyone could try and work towards being able to lift 150 kgs but how useful is it for most of us? Where is the ‘return on investment’? Maybe using the equivalent training time to practice mindfulness would be more sensible. But if you are a weight lifter, rugby player, bodyguard or defensive tackle – for example – then developing the muscle strength to be able to bench press that amount of weight clearly has a pay off in their performance areas. If you’re a librarian on the other hand, not so much. No disrespect to librarians intended. I am sure many librarians are elite performers in their field. But upper body strength is not that beneficial in pursuing librarian excellence.

Developing Mental Toughness works the same. Although everybody would probably be happy to process extraordinarily levels of focus (for example) is it worth investing the time required to get there if you’re never really going to need it?

Some recent publications have asked the question ‘Are Mental Toughness and Mental Health Contradictory Concepts in Elite Sport?’. In other words, do increasing levels of mental toughness have a negative impact on mental health? My contribution to this discussion would be as followers.

No, unless the individual is mentally ill and chooses to only improve their mental toughness. This is like the weightlifter ignoring their broken wrist and continuing to benchpress anyway.

What Does The Data Tell Us?

Are athletes and coaches more or less likely to experience mental issues compared with the general pollution? Luckily, work has been done to answer this question. As mentioned in this excellent article by Joshua Sebbens, Peter Hassmén, Dimity Crisp and Kate Wensley “A study of elite athletes in Australia reported almost half were experiencing symptoms of a mental health problem, and the proportion meeting caseness cutoffs for mental illness were deemed comparable to community data (Gulliver et al., 2015). More broadly, Rice et al. (2016) conducted a systematic narrative review and also suggested the prevalence of mental illness in elite athletes was comparable to the general population”.

I believe this article confirms the values that my colleagues and I at Condor Performance have on this topic on the right ones. In summary;

  • Mental Health and Mental Toughness are not the same nor is one a “part” of the other.
  • Mental Health and Mental Toughness are not opposites whereby when one improves the other goes down and vice versa.
  • Keeping an eye on mental health needs to be part of all sporting programs.
  • Improving mental health has a direct benefit to performance.
  • Free mental health advice should come from anyone. Paid mental health advice should only come from those with recognised qualifications.

It’s Not Just About Problems

The Positive Psychology movement exists because many psychologists wanted to do more than just fix mental issues. Traditional psychotherapy tends to be to get people back to ‘just functioning enough’ and that’s it. It’s like leaving someone mid way through their journey.

Sport psychology and her focus mental toughness were, in many ways, the original positive psychologies.

MENTAL HEALTH CHALLENGES IN ELITE SPORT: BALANCING RISK WITH REWARDDownload
Mental Health in Sport (MHS): Improving the Early Intervention Knowledge and Confidence of Elite Sport StaffDownload