Category: Mental Toughness Digest

What Is Perfectionism?

I thought starting this article on perfectionism with a couple of dictionary definitions would be useful. First of all, this is how The Cambridge Dictionary defines it:

“perfectionism” – UK  /pəˈfek.ʃən.ɪ.zəm/ US  /pɚˈfek.ʃən.ɪ.zəm/

The wish for everything to be correct or perfect

And now the Merriam-Webster Dictionary:

A disposition to regard anything short of perfection as unacceptable

I have added another few possible definitions of perfectionism of my own that might lean more towards the sport and performance context:

• Not satisfied until certain things can no longer be improved and/or
• Unhappy and unsatisfied with anything short of the perceived best and/or
• Obsessed with the improvement of something, often to the detriment of everything else.

Not All Bad

Perfectionism, as is the case with anxiety in my last article, often gets a bad rap. But as is the case with anxiety, I will argue below that there are actually some aspects of perfectionism that we want. As some of my clients will know, I often talk about keeping the beneficial aspects of wanting to be perfect but moving away from the negatives.

This is easier said than done. What helps a lot is when you have used the methods on yourself. Yes, that’s right. Yours truly is correctly labelled by many as a perfectionist. But I have learned, via decades of self-reflection and hard work, to manage it in a way in which it’s mostly useful. I have tamed the tiger. 99% of my perfectionistic traits benefit myself, my family, clients, colleagues and my endeavours. The final one per cent still ruffles a few feathers!

Most Of Our Clients Are Perfectionists

It should come as no surprise that many sporting and non-sporting performers who consult with sport psychologists are chasing improvement. For a start, many of our clients are amongst the most successful at what they do in their particular domain. We are blessed to work with some of the best golfers, tennis players, motorsport drivers, MMA fighters, and cricketers – you name it – in the world.

Occasionally, we are part of their journey from wannabe to world record holder. Or we join them when they have already reached the top 1% of their performance domain. But this is still far from where they would like to be.

Many of our clients are typically already very good at something but are remarkably unhappy about how good they are compared to where they want to be. Our clients, therefore, range from extreme and obsessive perfectionists right through to mid-range type of perfectionists.

I would find working with somebody at the opposite end of the spectrum much harder. Somebody who did not give two hoots about their performance, equipment, training environment, nutrition, etc. Wow, that’s a tough case. 

Origins of Perfectionism

According to this excellent article by licensed psychotherapist Sharon Martin, ‘the root of perfectionism is believing your self-worth is based on your achievements’. Wow, that’s a big clue. Guess whose achievements are more noticeable/visible than the everyday population? High-level performers and athletes, that’s who. The text below in green is a direct copy and paste from Sharon’s article and is in line with the reuse guidelines on her website.

“Perfectionism is often present when some combination of these factors exists:

• Rigid, high parental expectations
• Highly critical, shaming, or abusive parents
• Excessive praise for your achievements
• Low self-esteem or feeling inadequate
• Believing your self-worth is determined by your achievements
• Black-and-white thinking
• Efforts to feel in control
• Cultural expectations”

As you browse this list above, do any ring a bell for you? They certainly do for me.

How To Manage It

Often, one of the most useful ways to start looking at the solutions to something is first to examine the issues that can occur when it is left to be as it is. Basically, what might happen if you decide to do nothing at all?

Most of the issues are related to striving for the impeccability of something that is only partially under our influence. For example, the perfect lap time. Or the perfect round of golf or perfect race. Obviously, it depends on how the individual is defining these, but mostly, it is about some form of result. This is a very difficult position for anybody to find themselves in. Wanting certain combinations of results so much that anything short is a disaster, but only having some influence on whether or not the results actually happen. You can see why, for so many perfectionists, this combination can cause a lot of issues.

This red flag can be extended to all important areas of performance that are not guaranteeable (most of them). Want the perfect equipment all the time? Sorry, sir, your bags did not get put on this flight. Feel like you play your best in perfect weather conditions. Oops, it rained too much last year and not enough this year. What are you gonna do about it? Do you believe you need to be feeling and thinking great to perform at your best? Good luck with that, pal.

The Clinical Underbelly

There is the clinical underbelly of an extreme quest to be perfect. Everything else important in your life often gets neglected and put to one side. Yes, as tragic as it is, there is a pile of divorced people out there because their spouse cared far more about what happened at the home ground (sporting venue) than at home (place of abode).

And with this example, we find our first clue to the first possible solution. More often than not, elite athletes and performers will define themselves far too much by what they do. Ask one of the world’s best surgeons who they are, and they’ll probably say, “I am a surgeon”.

Of course, the real question that would warrant this exact response is “What do you do?” and not “Who are you?”. So, one powerful psychological strategy is to help the person define the answer to these questions separately. “I would like you to tell me who you are without replying with any clues about what you do (for work, or school, etc).”

One Person But With Many Hats

For elite performers, two of these hats should be related to their sport or performance area. Not three, not one, not zero, but exactly two. One of these hats ought to be The Trainer. Obviously, depending on the domain, it might be more appropriate to use the word preparer. The second hat wants to be the Performer or Competitor.

Conclusion

In summary, trying to be perfect has some benefits, but like a runaway bull, it needs to be tamed to be useful. If you would like some professional help with this, flick a quick email to our Intake team below, and they’ll get back to you within a few days.

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Sport and Performance Related Overthinking

• Much of our work as sport psychologists and performance psychologists centres around the relationship between thoughts and performance.
• Through mindfulness-based strategies, we can learn to reduce the impact of our thoughts on our performance consistency.
• At Condor Performance, one of our main goals is to help our clients develop a more helpful relationship with their minds so they can perform at their best.
• If you have no time to read the article but really want some help with your thoughts and overthinking? Get in touch by clicking here and giving us the basic details of your struggles. One of the team will get back to you within a couple of days.

In general, psychology is the relationship between thoughts, emotions and behaviour. As experts in the field of sport and performance psychology, we consult around these same three areas but with one eye always on their impact (or lack of) from a performance standpoint. One of our main consulting goals is to help athletes and performers understand how thoughts, emotions and performance really interact. This is often very different from how most of them believe that they interact.

Thoughts and Performance

Reflecting on my own experiences as an athlete and now working for Condor Performance, I would argue that the most challenging mental aspect of any performance is trying not to overthink it. It is clear that our thoughts have the capacity to be a barrier to performance, but through psychological research and practice, we also have the capacity to overcome this mental barrier.  

All of us have experienced our minds going into overdrive. As soon as we face something important or threatening, our mind goes into a state of overthinking. Overthinking is not a comfortable mental state to be in, making it a lot more difficult to do the things we train to do on a daily basis. We often hear athletes and performers say that they perform at quite a high level during training but find it difficult to perform well on competition day, often stating that their thoughts get in the way. Most competitors associate a higher level of importance with competition than training, so it makes sense why they overthink during this time.

The logic behind this is very sound. He wants his clients to overthink concepts such as getting the most from training, planning training sessions and “what to do in a lockdown” but underthink the actual day of competition.

Thoughts Are Just Thoughts

Most athletes and performers don’t realise that it is actually the relationship they have with their thoughts that gives them power over their performance.  

So why do we overthink? We think like this because our brain is hardwired to view the world in certain ways and for a very important purpose. Like emotions, our thoughts play a huge role in our survival. One of our mind’s jobs through thinking is to generate all possible outcomes and predict and preempt the worst possible scenarios. In other words, problem solve through these potential events so that we’ll be prepared in the slight chance they do pan out.

Our brain does a lot of the thinking in the lead-up to something happening so that when it does, we can rely on the Limbic System (home of the fight or flight response) to help us survive this threatening or important event. Basically, our brains are the perfect overthinking machines.

Because of the important role that our thoughts play in survival, it’s something we don’t have a lot of influence over. Our default cognitive response to an event is always going to be one of caution. It is our mind’s job, as a reason-giving machine, to go straight to the “negative” and list all the possible bad things that could happen. This is often called the negativity bias. Our mind is never going to go straight to the positive, and because of this, the idea of changing the way we think is a well-intended waste of time.

Thoughts Play A Role In Survival

Don’t get me wrong; you can try and change a single thought or three with some success, but the very notion of learning to think more positively as a habit is flawed. Imagine if our minds didn’t think in this way? Instead of stopping at the crossroads to check if traffic is coming because your mind is saying, “Better to be safe than sorry,” imagine the carnage if our thought in this situation was, “Just go … peak hour is over … you’ll be right”. Splat!

We don’t step out onto busy roads because our mind tells us we might get hit by a car. We don’t stand too close to the edge of a cliff because our mind tells us we might fall. But we often hold back on performance day because our mind tells us we might get it wrong or we might not be good enough. Unfortunately, when this happens, we’re letting our protective mind dictate our behaviour rather than our performance mind.

Developing Psychological Flexibility 

Through building an awareness of the mind, our goal is to ultimately build what is known as “Psychological Flexibility”. This is basically the ability to engage in functional and congruent behaviour with one’s values irrespective of their private experiences (thoughts, emotions, memories, cravings, bodily sensations, etc.) (Kashdan & Rottenberg, 2010).

“Through developing psychological flexibility, individuals have the capacity to let their actions dictate their thoughts and feelings, not the other way around.”

For an athlete who values challenging themselves and seeing what they’re capable of, the idea behind building psychological flexibility is to help them live out these values through their sport despite any difficult thoughts or uncomfortable feelings they have. For a performer who values creativity and giving enjoyment to others, developing psychological flexibility means teaching them the skills to go out and perform in the presence of any yucky private experiences they might have. 

“ACT” on Thoughts

Psychological Flexibility is the main goal of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, an effective psychological intervention used across clinical and performance settings. Not surprisingly, ACT’s popularity in the sporting domain is growing. Why? It’s the most effective framework when working with a highly perfectionistic cohort.

Accept Most Thoughts, Then Let Them Go

Athletes and Performers often come to mental toughness training wanting to learn how to rid of their difficult thoughts. However, the attempt to get rid of them is actually the source of the problem. To get rid of difficult thoughts, we need to focus more on them. And when we’re more focused on them, we’re not focusing on what we need to do now.

We call this becoming fused. Meaning we’re so caught up in getting rid of the difficult, though, that we can’t focus on anything else. Before we know it, ten minutes have gone past, and we’ve been cruising through the game on autopilot, not really paying attention to what we’re doing and certainly now showcasing the best of our physical abilities. 

Diminishing The Power of Thoughts

Through regular mindfulness, athletes and performers learn how to notice their thoughts, acknowledge and accept their thoughts, and let their thoughts come and go without a struggle. Through developing a relationship with our thoughts in which we learn to observe and watch them come and go without engaging too much in them, the power of those thoughts is often diminished as a by-product.

In order to do this, we first need to acknowledge that there is a part of us that thinks, but there is also a part of us that notices that we think. A part of us that can take a step back and observe what we’re thinking. Through accessing this “noticing self”, we can become aware of those thoughts without getting tangled in them and choose how we’d like to respond to them. We can either let the thought stop us from doing what we’re doing, or we can notice it and choose to redirect our focus back to what we’re doing.

The Power of Mindfulness

One of the best ways to practice bringing awareness to our thoughts is simply through regular mindfulness. Recently, Gareth created the below free 10-minute guided audio called Really Simple Mindfulness. It’s free for you to use and/or download. If you do, please add some comments at the bottom of this article.

We Are Not Our Thoughts

We can add to this by developing a relationship with our thoughts whereby we view them as separate from us. By noticing our thoughts and silently verbalising them (e.g. “I notice I am thinking…”), we can separate our thinking self from our noticing self.

Viewing our thoughts from our noticing self allows us to observe them as they come and go and decide whether to engage with them (try to get rid of them) or allow them to be there so we focus back on our actions. We can take this one step further by personifying our thoughts or giving them an identity we know them by (e.g. The ‘I’m not good enough’ thought is here). The idea here again is that we are stepping into the shoes of our noticing self. In this state of noticing and awareness, we can make more mindful decisions about how we respond to difficult thoughts.

Changing Our Relationship With Thoughts

Ultimately, one goal in our work with athletes and performers isn’t to change how they think but to guide them towards a more helpful relationship with their thoughts. Sure, the thoughts we have about screwing up before going out on stage to perform are uncomfortable but don’t those thoughts motivate you to prepare ahead of time? And yes, the thoughts we have about whether or not we’ll be good enough to pass that exam are frightening at times, but don’t they push us to study and revise for the test to ensure we’re as prepared as we can be? 

Much of this boils down to reframing how we view our thoughts. Rather than evaluating them as positive, negative, true, false, right or wrong, we can look for their helpfulness instead. To overcome the mental hurdle thoughts create, we need to understand that there is always a reason for thinking the way we do.

And of course, if you feel like some expert guidance with all of this, then Get In Touch and ask us about our 1-on-1 sport and performance psychology services – most of which now take place via Webcam.

Ted Lasso Is A Brilliant TV Show But …

Let me just start by saying I’m a massive fan of the show, Ted Lasso. 

For those who haven’t seen the miniseries on Apple TV, it’s well worth watching. The premise is a little bit far-fetched but highly entertaining. On top of the fun factor, there are some fantastic sport psychology concepts and messages contained throughout the seasons. But hidden subtly between the laughs and the logic are some lies. Due mainly to the popularity of the show I felt compelled to point out some of the aspects that are either inaccurate or unhelpful or even both.

I want to be absolutely clear that this is not a criticism of the storyline, acting, writing or premise of the show. But as an applied sport psychologist who has been working in elite sport for the better part of 15 years, there are just some things that are easier for me to spot compared with the layperson.

Ted Lasso Sport Psychology – Possibles

Before I get to the inaccuracies, I thought it would be sensible to point out a few aspects of the show that are totally possible and/or useful.

For those who have not seen it the main character Ted Lasso is an American football coach brought in to be the head coach of an English Premier League (football/soccer) team. It is entirely possible for an elite coach from one sport to pivot and apply his or her expertise in another sport. The reason for this is very simple. When we break down sporting performance into the five most important subcomponents, only two of these are highly sports-specific. Meaning three of the five parts are not. Using this logic it means that the majority of the work required at the pointy end of sport is very psychological in nature. This is the case with Ted Lasso, who is mainly operating as the team’s mental coach.

Yes in 2023 it’s still rare for a head coach to come from a sport other than the one he or she is known for but this is no reflection of the plausibility. The rarity is more a result of some uncreative decision-making at the Board and CEO level.

More Coaches Swapping Sports

This will eventually change. As will the frequency whereby qualified sport psychologists start becoming assistant coaches and head coaches. I talked through this latter prediction during my chat with fellow sport psychologist Dan Abrahams on Episode 103 of The Sport Psych show.

The second aspect of the Ted Lasso show that is realistic is the American’s coaching style. Again without wanting to spoil it for anybody who is yet to watch it, it would be fair to describe Lasso’s coaching style as laid-back and consultative. There is a lot of literature on the standard coaching styles in sports, but there is no doubt that fewer and fewer elite sportsmen and women benefit from a benevolent dictator. The players of the fictitious Richmond FC are not scared of their coach. They want to play well, in part, because they like him.

There are lots of other aspects of the show that real-life sporting teams would benefit from borrowing, such as:

• Training is a healthy mix of fun and bloody hard work.
• Players and coaches are encouraged to be vulnerable (I’m currently working on an article entirely dedicated towards this topic. If you are yet to subscribe to our notifications, you can do so here).
• Good mental health underpins good everything else.

Ted Lasso Sport Psychology – Near Misses!

Let’s start with the sport psychologist that appears from time to time in the show. The character’s name is Dr Sharon Fieldstone played excellently by actor Sarah Niles. It is possible due to the popularity of the show that this depiction of this particular sport psychologist is the most visible since the professional was first conceived more than 100 years ago.

However …

Is the work that she appears to be doing in the show an accurate portrayal of what real sport psychologists do? Well, not the one writing this article I am afraid.

In most of the scenes in which we can get some sense of the topics discussed between Dr Sharon and the members of the club, she appears to be operating more as a therapist than a sport psychologist. Is there a difference, I hear some of you ask?

If not universally, there ought to be.

The majority of the work carried out by sport psychologists would ideally want to be around mental aspects of performance. At least 60% but possibly more. Sometimes the remaining work can and should be around general mental health, depending on which other qualified professionals might be available to the players and staff. Not on a single occasion can Dr Sharon be seen to be targeting an improvement in football (soccer) specific mental skills.

The Ideal

Given the budget at this level of sport, every club should have a minimum of at least two full-time psychologists working side-by-side. The first wants to be a qualified performance psychologist to predominantly target performance consistency through mental skills training. Working alongside this individual should be a non-sport psychologist who is in charge of the players’ mental health. There are dozens of recognised professions that – on paper – are able to do this role. These include but are not limited to:

• Clinical psychologists
• All other types of psychologists
• Psychiatrists

So, despite Dr Sharon using the title of ‘sport psychologist’ she is not really carrying out the role of one. This is confusing and unhelpful for anyone trying to get a clearer picture of what we actually do.

In other words, the work that she is shown to be doing on screen – which is very much around mental health – does not have a direct link with winning more football matches.

Note above I use the word direct very intentionally. There is now absolutely no doubt that good mental health underpins sporting mental toughness. In other words, there is a robust indirect link between the two. In the same way, good physical health underpins excellent physical capabilities such as fitness and strength. But working on mental health does not automatically guarantee sporting mental toughness. Because the latter is a separate layer of the pyramid and needs to be targeted directly by different processes.

Get Out Of The Consulting Room

When we see Dr Fieldstone doing her stuff in the Ted Lasso show it’s taking place in a consulting room. Highly valuable, but not typical sport psychology work as per the title on the door of the room.

Ted Lasso’s Four Keys To Success

Throughout the episodes, there is a crescendo towards the completion of a very special list. This list is basically the four key ingredients that Ted Lasso regards are the most important for success.

Spoiler alert!

The fourth one below is only revealed at the very end of the last episode of the third season so if you are yet to get to that part, then you may want to stop reading now.

1. Conditioning.
2. Versatility.
3. Awareness.
4. Self-belief.

I don’t have an issue with the first three of these. They might be fairly obvious to most operating in professional sports, but that doesn’t mean they can’t be added to a list. I love the second and third ones, but I wonder what processes need to be implemented to approve them. Not only in soccer/football but any sport where they could be regarded as performance benefits. But I do have an issue with the fourth one.

Self Belief Is Overrated

Self-belief is a controversial concept in modern-day sport and performance psychology. Self-belief is predominantly a collection of thoughts that revolve around how competent somebody feels they are at something.

The issue is when there is an implication that these actions need this self-assuredness. In other words, without a certain level of self-belief, the motor skills are in jeopardy … even if they themselves are highly proficient.

This is not true. Certain thoughts and feelings are (at best) a bonus to performance consistency but not a requirement. In other words, Ted, you don’t need self-belief to play good football.

Given this, to improve The Ted Lasso Sport Psychology list from above I would replace the fourth item with Psychological Flexibility. And if you want a hand in improving yours then get in touch by completing the form on our Contact Us page. We will try to get back to you within two business days.

Control The Controllables

Earlier this year Condor Performance turned 18 years old 🥳 .

As you might imagine there is not too much in common between the organisation we were in 2005 and the one we are now in 2023. But there are a few concepts that have stood the test of time.

One of these is the concept of control or influence as a pivotal aspect of our sport psychology consulting philosophy.

I was first made aware of this idea when I attended a professional development workshop entitled “Are You A Control Freak?”. I can’t recall the name of the presenter but I do remember the phrase ‘control the controllables’ being used a lot. More than enough for it is leave an impression and motivate me to find out more.

The premise was very simple, logical and appealing. There are a whole bunch of things that we encounter in our everyday lives which we don’t have much control over. Our interpretation of these “uncontrollables” plays a huge part in how our day goes most of the time. And of how our training or performance turns out as well.

Classic Examples

Let’s take the weather as a classic example.

We have absolutely zero ability to reduce the wind speed at any given time. But for a whole bunch of pursuits variation in wind speed will play a huge role in the outcomes and enjoyment of these activities. Golfers, for example, of all abilities score worse when playing in very windy conditions. Sailers, on the flip side, all underperform when the wind blows less.

When I first came across this theory almost 20 years ago it was very black and white. Basically, stuff could be broken down into one or two lists. The first list is everything that you can control. And obviously, the second list is everything that you can’t. It was a key part of my consulting weaponry between 2005 and 2010 … to get all of my clients to create exactly these two lists.

I would try to let these athletes and coaches populate these lists for themselves, but obviously part of the coaching process is to steer them towards “better”. “Do you really think you can control your results?”. Typically the uncontrollable list would contain items such as these:

• Surroundings
• Opponents
• The Past
• Weather
• Results

And in the controllables list would be stuff like:

• Myself
• My Thoughts
• My Teammates
• My Effort
• The Present Moment
• My Feelings
• My Actions

But There Was A Better Way

It took me a while to realise this black-and-white framework was not ideal. In other words, I was quickly able to see that there was a lot of stuff that was neither controllable nor uncontrollable. In fact, virtually everything was somewhere in between these two extremes.

For example, sporting results as one of the biggest distractors. Outcomes by their very definition are not controllable. But some are obviously more than others. In basketball, a player clearly has more influence over their own points tally compared with that of their teammates. The same applies to other people. Team-sport athletes clearly have more control over their own teammates than they do over the members of the opposition. “Hey Sue, try dropping back a few meters”.

So it was around 2010 from memory I moved to a spectrum of control. Anyone who attended any of my workshops from around this time would surely have been introduced to A Mental Dumbbell. The dumbbell was an analogy with absolutely no control on the left and maximum control on the right with the bar between the two sets of weights representing the variances between these two extremes. 

I Always Struggled With The Word Control

The word control in the English language kind of implies a yes or a no. So, as a psychologist who believes in the power of words ‘control’ felt like it was still very black and white. Yes, you can say you have some control over something, but why use this word when there is a far better word for this? Do you want to guess before you scroll down?

That’s right, it’s influence.

So the dumbbell was updated. The far left became ‘no influence’. The extreme right became ‘maximum influence’. And between is all the shades of grey needed. Some influence, lots, a little and so on. So when I hear (or read) Control The Controllables I hear (or see) Influence the Influenceables. Watch the video for a much greater explanation of how to “control the controllables”.

What Influence the Influenceables is really trying to do is to emphasise that various different factors are much more beneficial to obsess about than others. And crucially a lot of these are typically not as naturally exciting as a lot of the stuff that is better off being noticed as opposed to forced.

How Influenceable Are Thoughts?

It is impossible not to form some heavy opinions about where key psychological concepts should fall on the spectrum when this is a central aspect of your working life. In particular, thoughts, feelings and actions. Still, to this day there are a significant number of psychologists who suggest that humans have a lot of influence on all three of these. And in changing one you are likely to change the other two as well.

But that is just not true.

Acknowledging slight variations in the person, and the type of thought/emotion/action I firmly believe that this should be embedded in the value system of all performers. Your actions – especially the ones that have been well rehearsed – are highly influenceable. If you prefer the word control then they are highly controllable. When looking to ‘Control The Controllables’ basically it’s mostly these highly reliable motor skills. Thoughts are halfway down the spectrum. We have some influence but far less than our actions. And then feelings/emotions are very close to the left. We have a small amount of influence over them. Not nothing at all but typically less than many people believe.

Think about this for a second. Listen to your favourite song, and you might be influencing your mood for a few seconds, you might feel more joy. But try to feel joy for an entire day and you will fail every single time.

This Spectrum of influence, I find is a far better way to explain why at Condor Performance we are such advocates of psychological flexibility. Psychological flexibility is better understood as accepting thoughts and feelings whilst committing to our actions.

Recently, I put the below comment up on social media and it attracted quite a lot of controversy.

There is no such thing as an unhelpful thought or feeling. They just don’t exist. It is only actions (behaviours) that can/should be considered as either helpful or unhelpful. Nobody ever went to jail because they had some unhelpful thoughts and feelings. It is what they DID they put them in the slammer. Nobody ever won anything due to having helpful thoughts and feelings. It’s what they DID that got them the award/trophy/medal/certificate etc. Try to just DO BETTER whilst at the same time thinking and feeling whatever you just happen to be thinking and feeling at the time. 😎 #psychologicalflexibility

If you are reading this then use the comments section below to let me know what you think about this. Be honest, if you believe it’s wrong then say that but try and justify why you disagree with it. It was astounding to me how many people on social media threw their toys out of the cot when they saw this. But when I pushed them to explain themselves virtually all of them went quiet very quickly.

Working With Coaches

One of the most enjoyable aspects of my consulting in 2023 is working with a new wave of young sporting coaches from around the world. Most of them have realised that it is becoming increasingly difficult to be both a successful athlete in a particular sport and then go on to be a world-class coach.

All of these young coaches recognise the huge importance of sport psychology from a coaching perspective. And most of them don’t want to stop actually coaching in order to get a sport psychology qualification.

So the smart ones are baking their cake and eating it. What does that mean? These coaches continue to coach whilst becoming more mentally astute “whilst on the job” by working with an already qualified sport/performance psychologist like myself and my colleagues at Condor Performance.

In the work that I do with my coaches teaching them to Control The Controllables / Influence the Influenceables is a big part of the work. And making sure they can use this concept directly with their athletes. Coaching is stressful, especially at the pointy end so a chunk of consulting with coaches is also about helping them maintain good mental health.

As these coaches are genuine experts in their sports it is exciting to see how they take a number of different mental processes (like the dumbbell) and adapt them for their particular performance area.

If you are a sporting coach and you’d like some details about how to have a world-class sport/performance psychologist in your corner then get in touch today.

What Are Baby Steps?

Most of you have surely heard the term baby steps, right?

Maybe for some, it rings a bell from the classic Bill Murray movie “What About Bob?”. For the rest of you here is a two-minute clip from the 1990’s comedy classic which gets straight to the heart of this concept:

As brilliantly explained by “Dr. Leo Marvin” Baby Steps are about taking small, incremental steps. And as I will explain later they actually don’t have to be towards a goal. In fact, sometimes chasing a goal can create some surprising and unnecessary issues.

Baby Steps for Sport Psychology

Although the concept of baby steps originates more from psychiatry it is just as applicable to modern-day sport psychology. In fact, it might be even more beneficial in performance-enhancement settings than deficit-fixing ones.

There are a couple of important aspects to highlight first. To start with most of the really meaningful stuff in our lives takes a lot of time to develop. So although the concept of baby steps does not directly mention the speed of those steps I think it’s implied. Slow and steady baby steps.

The second aspect central to baby steps is that most improvement is kind of hard to see. Like the nervous steps of a toddler learning to walk sometimes it’s more shuffle than step. And of course, there is a lot of falling over. 

I have always held the belief that slow, steady, hard-to-see improvements are the best type. For they tend to be longer-lasting.

Sure, every athlete and performer has the potential to make huge improvements all of a sudden, but these are typically the direct result of years of hard work where suddenly everything clicked. In most situations, there were a ton of baby steps before the huge step occurred.

Baby Steps With And Without Goals

Despite rumours in some circles, I don’t have a problem with goal setting. Setting goals is fine as long as the “setter” has a vague idea of how much influence they have on what they are “setting”.

I am a decent squash player and one of my intentions for when I hit 50 (4 years from now) is to climb the squash Masters rankings. Now I might set a goal, for example, of trying to get into the Top 10 squash players of my age group in New South Wales. But I am blissfully aware that I only have some influence on this. Another way of saying this is the reaching or not reaching of that future intention is only partially up to me.

Think about it. The quality of the other squash players and their training processes play a monumental part in whether or not I will achieve this goal or not. Imagine if suddenly five of the best male squash players of my age suddenly decided to move to New Zealand to start up a business together. Without me doing diddly squat the chances of me achieving this ranking goal would improve dramatically.

On the flip side, if a small wave of squash-loving Egyptian and Pakistani immigrants moved to Australia in the next few years (both nations are traditionally very strong in this sport) then the chances of me achieving my goal would go down significantly. But without me doing anything differently. 

So how then do baby steps work without setting goals?

Basically, you try and make tiny improvements at something important but without having a bigger purpose. This might be hard for many involved in competitive sports where there might always seem like there is an end goal in mind.

One of the biggest myths about the world’s best athletes is that they all set goals. Absolute hogwash. A large chunk of them just want to get better over time, and then with a huge dollop of patience, they end up at the top of the pile.

Examples

The basketballer wants to improve her basketball abilities but is not too concerned about making it as a pro. The cricketer is obsessed with becoming a more consistent batter but has not sat down to clarify his cricketing intentions over the next 5 years.

Earlier I said setting goals can actually do more harm than good. There are two ways in which setting goals can trip up athletes and other nonsporting performers.

First, is the very existence of the goal as a huge dollar of unnecessary pressure. Now of course in an ideal world using a psychological flexibility framework pressure would not be problematic. In the same way that negative thoughts and feelings ought not to be problematic. The reality is that working with a qualified sport psychologist to ensure that this happens is still the exception, rather than the norm. So too much pressure is an issue for many performers still. And a lot of this unhealthy kind of pressure comes from the expectations of others and the future.

Imagine a golfer going into a golf tournament whereby only a win will give them enough ranking points to get into the Top 20 Order of Merit. The goal they set at the start of the season. Many psychologically inflexible golfers would perform better if they didn’t have this hanging around their necks as they stood on the first tee each day.

The other issue with goalsetting is actually when you achieve them. If not careful ‘getting there’ can act as a huge demotivator. Let me use the golfer from the previous paragraph to illustrate. So this golfer had a season-long goal of finishing in the Top 20 Order of Merit. Now, let’s imagine that he had a better-than-expected season going into the final tournament. In fact mathematically even if he comes dead last in this event he will still end up in the Top 20. Deep down, will he be as focused in these final rounds?

Baking Your Cake And Eat It 

The Japanese have a word that roughly translates to constant improvement. It’s called Kaizen. So a Kaizen Mindset might be the best way to use baby steps. And it’s best done by actually separating out the four performance pillars.

Let’s see if we can slowly improve your sporting abilities without concerning ourselves too much with where it might end up.

See if you can get some objective data on your current physical abilities. Now get to work and try and improve them ever so slightly over the next month. Then retest. Do exactly the same for your current tactical, technical, and mental abilities. For the mental part, you might like to consider mental health and performance-specific mental toughness as being related but not the same thing.

And if you need a hand, we can help you with both (get in touch here).