Sport Psychologists – Applied and International Since 2005
Category: General Sport Psychology
This is a full list of articles and publications from the Sports and Performance Psychologists who have worked for Condor Performance since 2005. Enjoy!
Body Language for Sport and Performance is a free article by internationally renowned sport psychologist Gareth J. Mole from Condor Performance.
Working on body language is a key component of sport/performance psychology.
A Quick Introduction to Body Language
The first and most important aspect of improving your body language is to accept/believe that the way you look on the outside doesn’t always need to match how you feel on the inside. Before reading the remainder of this article, I would like you to reflect on the following question for a few minutes.
If you don’t buy into this fact, believing that certain strong emotions are always going to come out (“I couldn’t help it”) through your facial expressions and the rest of your body, then there is no point in moving on to some of the strategies below until you have worked out a way to prove yourself wrong.
Suppose you have no idea how, then hire an acting coach for a few hours and ask them to teach you. Alternatively, please email us to request to work with performance psychologist Brian Langsworth, an expert in this area due to his background in the performing arts. Alternatively, please scroll to the bottom of this blog, where I have added two of my favourite body language improvement videos from YouTube.
If you’ve been reading some of my colleague Madalyn’s excellent recent sport-specific articles, you’ll be aware that actions, thoughts and feelings are more separate (independent) than most people believe. Body Language movements are actions and actions alone. They are neither thoughts norfeelings.
But if you are already a believer, then read on …
Body Language is best broken down into three main areas.
First, we have the face (eyes and mouth), then the head, and finally the rest of the body (the parts below the neck). Generally, Body Language doesn’t incorporate other nonverbal forms of communication, such as tone of voice or grunts. However, this is undoubtedly another aspect that can be improved. Think about how important communication is in team sports and how little non-verbal communication is targeted for improvement in such teams (not the ones we work with, of course).
A nice, gentle introduction to improving your body language is to go through these three areas and mix them up. Many athletes and performers who take body language seriously (typically, the most successful ones … surprise, surprise) use a mirror or record themselves whilst doing this, but it’s not essential. Why not try right now? Make a happy face, then a sad one, then a calm one, followed by an angry one.
The Next Step …
The next step is to try and identify what you believe is the Optimal Body Language (face, head position and rest of body) for certain predictable situations that are common in your sport/performance area.
For example, you may be a tennis player and recognise that immediately after the conclusion of each point is a key opportunity to display a particular form of body language. It can also be helpful to identify destructive body language in these situations.
Remember, one of the most significant disadvantages of feeling that you have no control over your body language is that you are providing a considerable amount of unnecessary information to your opponent. If you and I are playing a competitive match against one another, I will want you to be as unaware as possible of how I’m travelling. From the outside (to my opponents), I would like to appear neutral.
The template for this would look something like this (which you can copy and paste):
In situation X, I would like my face to appear A, my head B, and my [replace with the name of body part] C.
Here is an example for a tennis player;
In a situation where my opponent is arguing with the umpire, ideally, my face would appear calm with a slight smile, my head upright, looking towards the crowd, and my hands behind my back. What would be counterproductive is to approach the chair and look frustrated by putting my hands on my hips and shaking my head.
🤫 Expert Tip: Neutral Body Language is almost always better than Positive Body Language.
Now It’s Your Turn …
Once you have established your Body Language preferences, it’s time to practice them. At this stage, using a full-length reflective surface or a recording device is highly recommended. How you think you look from inside your body might not be what you’re looking for, so you can adjust before the actions start to become second nature (via repetitions).
The final stage is to determine whether you can replicate the situations through more mentally demanding practice. In other words, in the above example, this tennis player would first practice Optimal Body Language in any setting and later conduct practice sessions in which, during a practice match, their hitting partner intentionally stops to argue with the umpire. And of course, any other situation previously identified in which displaying the appropriate body language may be challenging.
The final part is to embed this body-language practice in everyday training contexts. There is rarely a substitute for repetition, and, as explained in a previous blog, in the end, Practice Makes Permanent, not perfect.
Get In Touch
If you would like professional assistance with your Body Language for Sport and Performance or any other mental area, use the form below to get in touch. If you want to know more about our monthly options before contacting us, then watch this 13-minute video first.
Some of the most common myths about sport psychology and mental toughness are debunked by leading Sport Psychologist Gareth J. Mole
Sport Psychology Myths may outnumber the facts, due in part to a lack of consensus and unity among the profession’s custodians until now.
Sport Psychology Myths – Where To Start?
I am sure all professionals feel like this to some degree. That their working world is full of myths and half-truths. But given the nature of the work we do and the relatively newness of our profession, I believe sport psychology is undoubtedly up there in terms of misconceptions. Below are some of our favourites – in no particular order. I use the word ‘favourite’ because of the combination of how often we encounter them and the potential benefits of debunking them.
Myth 1: Sport Psychology Is Like Counselling, Therapy
This is a classic half-truth, as it is literally half correct.
Some elements of the work we do are similar to those of counsellors, therapists, or clinical psychologists. For example, the confidential nature of the relationship, and we can help with mental health issues if required. But the other half of the process is much more likely to resemble a coach. For this part, we’re more likely to be talking about goals and how to achieve them.
Obviously, some performance psychologists will tend to be more like a therapist, whilst others will lean more towards the coaching approach. This is one of the most significant advantages our clients enjoy. With such a strong and varied team of psychologists, we can literally allow our clients to tell us what they’re looking for. And with very few exceptions, we can ensure their psychologists are the right kind. If you want to book a 20-minute chat with one of our New Enquiries Officers, you can do that directly here.
Myth 2: The ‘Natural Talent’ Myth
This is a humdinger of a myth. The notion that we are born to be potentially excellent at something, regardless of the amount of effort we put in. In my view, people confuse what they regard as “natural talent” with biological and genetic variation.
The classic example is when young athletes hit puberty, and some suddenly become taller and heavier than their peers. Although there is no doubt these growth spurts play a role in influencing the outcomes of sporting contests, they should not (yet often are) be regarded as natural talent, as there is nothing talented about your genetic makeup.
In fact, I try to get my sporting clients to stop using the word “talent” altogether. Quite simply, there are performance variables that are either controllable, influenceable or uninfluenceable. What you inherited from your parents falls into the last of these three categories. Simply put, you cannot influence your genetics, and therefore, they should occupy as little of your attention as possible.
⬇️ Do you disagree? Argue your case below in the comments section ⬇️!
Myth 3: The ‘Best Time to Start’ Myth
Mondays, or the 1st of the month or the old favourite January! Don’t get me wrong, in much of the work we do, we use time as reminders. For example, using Sunday night as a cue to plan the next seven days. However, these time point myths are often used as an excuse to delay effort.
We know this firsthand from the number of enquiries we get for our Sport Psychology services at different times of the year. We still get about the same number of enquiries in December compared with any other month. However, unlike other months, most people who decide to start working with one of our sport and performance psychologists delay it until January.
The best time to start improving your mindset is now, or as soon as possible.
Myth 4: The ‘Thoughts Can Be Controlled’ Myth
As current and past Condor Performance clients know, we often encourage our clients to consider the level of control or influence they have over different aspects of their performance.
Just over 15 years ago, when clients of ours added ‘thoughts’ to the controllable column, we didn’t challenge it. But recent research suggests that although we can influence our thoughts, we can never control (guarantee) them. This is not to suggest that traditional thought improvement strategies (such as reframing) are a waste of time. It suggests that thoughts (rather than actions) should not be relied on as an essential ingredient in your performance plans.
A classic example of this is the work we do around pre-performance routinesin start-stop sports. In the old days, we constructed short routines with both actions (put on my glove) and thoughts (“focus on just this shot”). But in recent times, we have removed the thought component, so our clients’ routines are now all action-based.
⬇️ Do you disagree? Argue your case below in the comments section ⬇️!
Myth 5: The ‘You Have To Feel A Certain Way To Perform Well’ Myth
Same as the above basically. In fact, as humans, we have even less influence over our emotions than we do over our thoughts. Consider extreme emotions like grief. Sure, there are several things that you might be able to do to lessen the experience of grief if you lost a loved one. But these kinds of interventions are only going to make a slight difference. Those that imply you can control your emotions (an unfortunate number) or suggest that you can actually make the grief go away entirely through your own volition.
Myth 7: That a ‘sport psychologist’ only works with athletes
Not true.
We have been operating long enough now and have tracked enough data to answer this categorically. Yes, the majority of our monthly clients are still athletes (70%).
But the rest are a multitude of performers, including politicians, dancers, students, and emergency workers. One of the most significant groups of non-athletes we work with is a sporting coach.
It is my hope and belief that as time passes, a greater percentage of our work will be with coaches. Helping mentally astute coaches become even better, they are working with someone genuinely qualified in this area. If you are a coach and interested in improving your mental coaching skills, this is the best place to start.
Myth 8: ‘Face-to-Face Sessions Are More Effective’
At Condor Performance, we were delivering sessions via video conference technology long before the coronavirus hit and made it normal.
Furthermore, we measure client satisfaction and can say with empirical confidence that there is no difference between “face-to-face” and “telehealth” sessions. In fact, according to our numbers, clients who have all sessions via video conference do slightly better on mental health and mental toughness outcomes.
Myth 9: The ‘Experience Is Everything’ Myth
This sport psychology myth is the easiest to believe or understand. But it’s still wrong. The issue with the concept of experience is that it assumes the superior number of hours was spent in the right way. It is also thought that the performer can learn from mistakes. As both of these assumptions are rare (in my experience), experience is, at best, overrated and often detrimental.
If you’d like to bust some more sport psychology myths, have a listen to the answers to our FAQs here. Do you know of any other common sport psychology myths that are not covered above? If you do, please add them to the comments section below, and we’ll then add them when we update this blog. If you disagree with any of these sport psychology myths, please present your argument in the comments below.
This article by sport psychologist Gareth J. Mole is about the beauty of having an unwavering commitment to the process (effort) regardless of the outcome (results).
We have the most influence over our process goals.
What Are Process Goals?
The best examples of real Mental Toughness happen well away from the spotlight. But we rarely hear about them.
At a recent social event, I was part of a conversation that contained one of the best examples of Mental Toughness I can remember in a long time. And I will use this anecdote to explain what might be the most essential ingredient for performance success ever discovered.
The father of a five-year-old boy told of his son’s sudden interest in fishing. So the father decided it would be a great idea to take the young lad on a fishing trip. This, despite neither of them knowing anything about the sport. After buying some basic equipment and getting some tips from the guy in the tackle shop, the plan was to head out the very next day to see what they could catch.
So the father and the son woke before dawn and headed out, all excited. All day, they fished, improving their casting technique and enjoying each other’s company as the hours ticked by. But no fish were caught that first day. So they decided to try again the following day. But once again, they didn’t pull a single fish from the water.
This Continued For 14 Days Straight …
Each day, they’d wake before the sun came up and try their best to catch fish. And at the end of every single one of these 14 days, they came home empty-handed. Well, empty-handed from a number of fish points of view.
When the father finished telling the story, the obvious question had to be asked.
How did you maintain your enthusiasm/motivation day after day despite catching no fish?
The father thought about this for a while.
After some careful reflection, he replied. His son seemed to be almost entirely satisfied with the actual process of fishing. In other words, sitting on a riverbank holding a fishing rod with his old man. He quite literally was not doing it to take home a whole lot of dead fish. Any potential outcomes to this magical process would be considered a bonus or just an occurrence. This young five-year-old boy, without anyone teaching him, had what we would call an Extreme Process Mindset.
A Lesson for Performers
There is an incredible lesson to be learnt here for those involved in sport and performance.
Although “results” are essential, if you’re not enjoying the actual process, then ultimately you’re not going to get very far. The reason for this is relatively simple.
Results are only somewhat influenceable.
Imagine the number of factors beyond your influence in trying to get a fish to bite a tiny hook. It is even possible that the fishing spot chosen by the youngster and his father contained no fish.
Results are only somewhat influenceable. Imagine the number of factors beyond your influence in trying to get a small white ball into a four-and-a-quarter-inch hole in the ground. If you are unable to get some level of pleasure from the process of attempting to get the little white ball into the hole, then you are in trouble.
If this sounds like you, get in touch, as helping athletes with these kinds of mental challenges is precisely what we do.
Examples of Process Goals
There is a subtle difference between a process and a process goal. A reasonable explanation of a process is just an action or a task. Brushing your teeth is a process. Doing some visualisation is a process. Planning your meals ahead of time is a process. Taking an ice bath is a process.
But none of these examples qualify as process goals. Having the intention of brushing your teeth twice a day for at least two minutes in the way the dentist showed you. Now that, my friends, is a process goal.
Process goals are slightly different. They essentially take these actions and tasks and ask, “How are you going to commit to them?“
Repetition is the essence of success. Stop expecting miracles from activities you only do once or twice.
Imagine a soccer goalkeeper. She has identified a desire to improve her ball distribution. She knows what processes are required. Practice hitting targets through both throwing and kicking the ball. A commitment to one weekly 60-minute ball-distribution session is scheduled in the goalkeeper’s calendar.
This is the process goal.
The goal is to spend 60 minutes improving this particular motor skill. If this session is forgotten or done poorly, then the goal is not achieved. If the goalkeeper manages 60 minutes of very high-quality practice in this area, then this process goal is achieved.
Even if her actual ball distribution does not improve, the process goal is still achieved!
Is she enjoying this practice session, or enduring it?
Be Careful of Outcomes
Let’s be honest: a highly motivated goalkeeper who spends an hour a week specifically working on their ball distribution is very likely to improve it. But as we learned from the young fishermen, this cannot be the main reason behind the exercise.
If this goalkeeper were one of my clients, I would try to ensure that the actual process was rewarding and fun. Rewards can come in many shapes and sizes. Maybe she loves the idea that she is working on something important. It might be that she is particularly fond of the person who is feeding the balls back to her. Or maybe she is just one of those people who would much rather be outside on a sunny day than sitting in front of a screen.
If an obsession with outcomes dominates your performance landscape, try putting processes and process goals first. Put the horse before the cart, so to speak. As the great Bill Walsh said, “Let the score take care of itself”.
Commitment is arguably the most critical aspect of Sport Psychology and Performance-related Mental Toughness. This article is worth reading twice!
“Desire is the key to motivation, but it is determination and commitment to an unrelenting pursuit of your goal – a commitment to excellence – that will enable you to attain the success you seek.”
Mario Andretti
Commitment is the foundation of mental toughness
Commitment: The Foundation of Mental Toughness
As regular readers of our Mental Toughness Digest articles will know, we often talk about the challenge that comes with the interpretation of words. How important are words? Surely from a psychological flexibility point of view, it’s only the actions that matter, no?
Kind of. Yes, there is no doubt that “actions speak louder than words,” but certain words, especially when we view them more meaningfully, may help us.
One of the best examples in the English language is replacing the word ‘problem’ with ‘challenge’. A straightforward swap of just one word can help. About ten years ago, I was working with an international sporting team, and we were playing an away game in Indonesia. The team’s humans were all complaining that the heat and humidity would be a problem. I asked them all to see this as a challenge rather than a problem. I actually went so far as to ban the word ‘problem’ from the moment we set foot on Indonesian soil. It’s always hard to know just how much impact a psychological intervention actually has, but it certainly felt like it really helped.
Commitment vs Motivation vs Other Words
As a qualified sport psychologist with more than 20 years in the trenches, I have always been drawn to the word commitment more than motivation.
Why? There are a few reasons, actually. First, the word ‘commitment’ is embedded in the title of the framework most commonly used by our team of sports psychologists here at Condor Performance.
We lean heavily on Acceptance and Commitment Training in the group and individual consulting we do. It’s worth clarifying that ACT is the process and that Psychological Flexibility is the outcome:
Psychological flexibility is the goal and core concept of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT). ACT is the therapeutic approach or set of principles and techniques used to develop psychological flexibility. In short, you can think of psychological flexibility as the capacity or skill, while ACT is the method for building that skill to live a more meaningful, values-based life, even with difficult experiences.
The other reason why I love the word commitment is that it feels like we can do something about it if it wanes. In contrast, motivation seems much more rigid. Variations in motivations seem more feelings and mood-related. But commitment and determination seem closely linked to actions.
Committed Performance and Sport Psychologists
Since founding Condor Performance in 2005, I have welcomed many psychologists to our team. I don’t keep a count, but I would estimate the number is close to 40 or 50 by now.
Yet only about a quarter of these ‘starters’ remain. What is it about our current team that separates them from the dozens that have come and gone? Apart from some prerequisites, such as outstanding knowledge across Sports and being qualified up to the eyeballs, it is their commitment that shines through. Their willingness to do sessions very early or very late. Their determination to improve their sporting knowledge of a sport that is not one of their historical strengths..
Due to the client-focused monthly optionsour clients choose from, which encourage shorter, more frequent sessions at times that suit them (not necessarily us), real commitment is tested from the get-go.
Nothing questions commitment in our line of work quite like sitting in traffic for an hour to deliver a 30-minute session, or getting up at 6 a.m. because of a time zone difference. The cracks tend to start appearing early for those who are not really committed to helping others improve.
Do You Want To Improve Your Commitment?
Although the current Condor performance team is almost at full capacity and we are in the process of bringing on board two or three more psychologists to be ready for the start of 2026, there is still some availability within the current team.
Therefore, if you would like to have a non-obligatory 20-minute phone or Google Meet conversation with one of our two New Enquiries Officers (Tara or Lizzie), then send us an email to info@condorperformance.com with details (names, sport, mental challenges 😜, location and phone number) about you or the person you are enquiring for. Typically, we respond within 24 hours.
Motivation is about more than a subcomponent of sport psychology and mental toughness. This article looks at delayed gratification and more.
“If you don’t eat this marshmallow, you’ll get two later on”
Too Many Theories
I have long held the view that an overabundance of theories plagues most areas of psychology. Don’t get me wrong, I know we need research to support our professional decision-making. However, in my view, there are too many subpar theories, models, and papers out there. Google Motivation and sport psychology theories, and you’ll see what I mean.
This then significantly increases the workload of applied sport and performance psychologists, such as the current Condor Performance team. We try to read as many peer-reviewed journals on sport psychology as possible. Unfortunately, we have to sort through the mountain to find the gems.
Oh, and there are some real gems.
One of these is the work done on delayed gratification via the Stanford Marshmallow Experiments. Starting in the 1960s, Walter Mischel conducted a series of studies that provided a significant clue about the motivational requirements of successful people.
One Marshmallow Now Or Two Later?
In these studies, children between the ages of four and eight 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 chose 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 usually after about 15 minutes.
Remarkably, in the majority of the tests, about half the children devoured the one marshmallow almost immediately. The other half would exercise great willpower 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-powered youngsters went on to achieve better exam results. They were happier and more likely to have good relationships. They ended up with much better jobs than the kids with lower willpower.
Below is a 6-minute TED talk that provides a more detailed explanation of the concept and experiments.
Here is the video link to Joachim de Posada’s 2009 TED talk, which we frequently reference in the context of delayed gratification as a key mindset for peak performance. Enjoy.
Although I assume that Professor Mischel had little interest in the specific field of sport psychology, I can’t imagine another branch of psychology where the concept of delayed gratification is more relevant.
Delayed Gratification and Performance
Delayed gratification is really just “doing something difficult now in the hope that it will prove worth it later on”.
Of all the hundreds of theories on motivation in sport psychology, this is, in my opinion, the most useful. Quite simply put, one of the chief reasons why so few succeed is that they can’t link their short-term struggles with their long-term aspirations.
Most athletes and coaches try to 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 naturally love getting up at 4 am 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 explain to them one of the most essential and overlooked ingredients to success: 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 if all the Marshmallow experiment participants had 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 sports psychologist shows pictures of other kids succeeding?
Imagine if all the subjects had been taught proper mindfulness techniques, thus allowing ‘urges’ just to be noticed.
However, elite sport, especially at the highest level, requires a bit more delayed gratification than 15 minutes. On many occasions, the significant “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! Consider the young athletes who sacrifice time with friends and family during their teenage years, only to reap 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 difficulty some of them experienced was the tussle between their own strength of mind and their own temptations.
Applied Sport Psychology
At Condor Performance, one way we help those we work with embrace delayed gratification is by encouraging them to track their progress.
Key Performance Indicators 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. The proper monthly checks, in my opinion, are the most potent motivators available when you can’t actually use marshmallows.
Easier said than done? If you’d like to receive details about our one-on-one sport psychology services, you can get in touch with us in several ways.
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 can happen to anyone at any time. What is this hockey player feelings right now?
Choking in Sport – What Exactly Is It?
Choking is one of those interesting terms that is commonly associated with sport psychology but less commonly found 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 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 labelled 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 detail. 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 of 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 following.
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 individuals who excel at executing their skills in practice are better at doing so because they are 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 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 smartly 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 the feelings of extreme pressure. The result is that they then have to try to execute their skills in competition while experiencing feelings of extreme nerves or stress that were not present during practice. To add insult to injury, they then fuse these feelings with their actions, unaware that feelings and actions can be separated.
There are several tried and tested ways to approach this. Although reading this blog should never replace working one-on-one with a qualified sport psychologist, the information 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 this is by replicating situations that you dislike or find challenging.
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 sports 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 anxious. Easier said than done, many might say. I often use the analogy of driving a car (apologies to our younger readers). Manoeuvring a vehicle safely is a challenging motor skill with significant consequences if you get it wrong. Yet, most of us (who drive) do a great job of trusting our muscle memory. We quickly reach a level of expertise behind the wheel where we don’t have to try hard to drive well; we do. What if you approached sporting contests in the same way?
Arrive, ready, relax, and trust your training.
3. Use Performance Routines
Action-only pre-performance routines can be a great way to stay grounded at 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 situation. You didn’t really think that Rafa Nadal 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 more about routines, you can refer to 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.
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.
Goal setting and goal getting are not the same
Goal Setting Basics
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 know how.
Before we help you out with this, let’s remind ourselves of something important. It’s helpful to separate 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 to 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 is the skipping equivalent of doing it once a year, and hoping this will have a long-lasting 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. If done correctly, 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 the easy bit. It’s the stuff required to get you there where the magic happens – so to speak.
Start With Your Preferences
The scientific literature mentions 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 complex reality of elite competitive sport is that very few will achieve their long-term goals. Preferences will soften the blow if you don’t make it without impacting 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 works well.
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. The person coming up with their long-term preferences must know this. We only have some influence on these futuristic outcomes, sometimes less.
When working with my clients on goal setting, I typically start by exploring their preferences. However, not always. If I sense that focusing on preferences will be most beneficial for the individuals in front of me (on the screen), then I do just that.
Fit Young Man Sitting on his Mat and Using his Tablet Computer After Doing an Indoor Physical Exercise.
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.
These are performance aims and indicators that we have more influence on compared with our long-term preferences. Typically, we have a lot of influence on these key performance indicators. And here is one of the secrets of many of the world’s best athletes. Due to having more influence 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 performance goals might be statistics from competitions. For example, you might track ‘greens in regulation’ for all rounds of golf in February and compare the results with March. Or maybe you focus on training progress instead. Perhaps you can see if all that skipping is doing anything by repeating a heart rate recovery test at the start of each month.
Processes – The Secret Mindset of The World’s Best
The final piece of the goal setting 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 to doing this effectively. First, realise (know) that you have even more influence on your processes than you do on your progress and preferences. I would say ‘a huge amount’. You have a tremendous 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, or what you used to be able to do.
If you’d like some professional help to set and then achieve 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 to complete one of our questionnaires, in which you can ask for info on our 1-on-1 sport psychology services.
Are athletes and coaches more or less likely to experience mental health issues compared with the general population?
Sport psychologist Gareth J. Mole addresses this and other related questions.
Mental Health Challenges for Athletes
Mental Health And Mental Toughness Are Not The Same
All too often, sport psychology is misconstrued as therapy for athletes. If you watched the wildly popular Ted Lasso series, then you’d be forgiven for believing this. On the other hand, sometimes “mental coaches” overlook the human elements and focus entirely on the mental aspects of performance.
Both approaches are wrong, ineffective, and, at times, dangerous and unethical.
Competitive Athletes Have Three Layers
When it comes to the increasingly popular concept of performance psychology, it can be helpful to view the “performer” as having three layers. Each layer is better off by the strength of the layer or layers underneath.
The bottom layer is 100% related to the person, not the performer. We could refer to this as the COPING layer. If there are problems here, then these are genuine mental health concerns. Mental Illness lives here.
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 will impact their performance. However, it’s likely to hinder them in several other areas as well. By way of an example, let’s consider a competitive athlete who has clinical depression. This serious mental disorder 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 a mental health recovery facility.
The Middle Layer
The middle layer is all about mental well-being. Mental well-being and mental illness are not the same despite obviously being related to one another. Somebody can have poor mental well-being but still cope very well as a human.
For this reason, we would label these middle layers CONTENTMENT. Again, this layer remains entirely related to the person, not the performer. The scientifically suggested methods to improve contentment should focus on humanistic factors relevant to everyone, not just those in performance situations. For example, areas such as socialising, getting into nature and sleep hygiene strategies.
The Top Layer
The top layer is all about the mental aspects of performance. We could dedicate the following 20 blog articles to explaining precisely what this refers to, but as many of you know, at Condor Performance, we prefer to keep things simple.
This layer could be labelled as mental toughness. With a much better understanding of the humanistic aspects underlying it, it creates the freedom to be unapologetically focused on optimising performance through psychological means. Improving this layer helps drive CONSISTENCY.
Behind the scenes at Condor Performance, we are conducting our largest-ever research project to identify the exact subcomponents of mental toughness and the processes best suited to boost them. (Our current and future clients will be the first to benefit from these findings, so if you want to have a chat with Tara about working with one of our performance psychologists or sports psychologists, then book yourself directly into her calendar here.)
One of the many benefits of working with a qualified sports psychologist is that we can and do work across all three layers. Although in extreme situations (in the coping layer at the bottom), we may prefer to refer clients to other specialists, we are qualified to help them cope, be more content, and be more consistent (the byproduct of greater mental toughness at the top layer).
Mental Issues Common In Sport
Back to that bottom layer for a moment.
If you’re looking for some cold, hard facts about mental health issues common in sports, I have added a couple of articles at 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 usual psychological risks that the general population faces. However, the world in which they find themselves might increase the chances of facing specific 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, in addition to a job and/or studies, can be highly stressful.
Some excellent questions are 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 it, 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. However, if you are a weightlifter, rugby player, bodyguard, or defensive tackle, for example, then developing the muscle strength to be able to bench press that amount of weight has a payoff in your performance areas.
Suppose 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. However, 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 extraordinary levels of focus (for example), is it worth investing the time required to get there if you’re never really going to need it?
What Does The Data Tell Us?
Are athletes and coaches more or less likely to experience mental issues compared with the general population? 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.
It’s Not Just About Problems
The Positive Psychology movement exists because many psychologists sought to do more than just address mental health issues. Traditional psychotherapy tends 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 on mental toughness were, in many ways, the original positive psychologies.
Additional Reading Related To Mental Health Challenges for Athletes
Some Free Sport Psychology Tips to help you perform better complied by the whole team of sport and performance psychologists here at Condor Performance. Enjoy, share and comment (at the bottom).
A Quick A to Z Guide To Sport Psychology
26 Free Sport Psychology Ideas
Although sport psychology can be a complex and quickly evolving field, it can still allow for some “quick wins”. With this in mind, please enjoy these Sport Psychology Tips and don’t forget to add your comments below!
A is for Attitude
It may be surprising, but as sports and performance psychologists, we don’t often refer to attitude. Attitude is just one of many types of human cognition. When a coach refers to an athlete as having ‘the right attitude,’ he or she is probably suggesting that this athlete’s values and beliefs are in line with their own.
For example, both might regard sporting results as important, but not as important as hard work and effort. The most interesting aspect of attitude is that it is often assessed via observations (e.g., a coach watching an athlete in training). Due to this, it is probably body language that is actually being appraised. Attitude, if we take the term literally, is not directly observable as it occurs inside the mind.
B is for Body Language
Body language is a fascinating area of performance psychology. Research suggests that it dominates how we communicate compared to the words we use. In sporting contexts, this makes even more sense, as it is quite normal for there to be little or no verbal communication. With maybe the exception of the captains or leaders of sporting teams, most athletes of most sports don’t say very much during both training and competition.
For this majority, communicating with teammates or opponents involves the body. By the body, we mean the entire body, from facial expressions to posture to hand gestures and everything in between. How do you improve body language? I suggest starting out by filming yourself in a variety of situations and then watching it back with the sound off.
Determination is very similar to the mental concept of motivation, without being a synonym. Motivation is more about enthusiasm, enjoyment, desire and dreams. Determination might be a good word to refer to the actions we continue with when the enthusiasm for our sport is not there. One of the most common examples is when the scoreboard is not in your favour (no way to win with time remaining). Yet, despite this, you decide to preserve anyway. This is an excellent example of sporting determination.
E is for Enjoyment
The enjoyment we’re referring to in this instance is the kind that most kids tend to have towards their sport before it becomes ‘serious’—the fun of chasing the ball more than getting to it first. The issue is that this enjoyment tends to dissipate once the stakes increase. Many sporting coaches become far too intense during competitions due to a lack of sport psychology training during their accreditation. This is one of the many reasons we have always wanted to work 1-on-1 with sporting coaches.
F is for Focus
Learning to improve focus is one of the easier mental skills. It boils down to knowing when and how to switch on and practising this like any other skill. There are many great examples of how to do this, but short performance routines are often the best mental skill.
There is no getting away from the fact that training the mind is always going to be a trickier mountain to climb due to the investable nature of what we’re targeting for improvement, such as focus.
G is for Grit
Grit has gained considerable momentum recently, mainly due to Angela Duckworth’s work (see YouTube video below):
H is for Hard Work
There is simply no substitute for hard work.
I is for Influence
Knowing the amount of influence you have on some of the more common aspects of your sport (or performance areas) is mighty useful. A great little exercise you can do is to start a simple three-column table. The heading of the first column is ‘Lots of Influence’, for the second write “Some Influence”, and for the final one label it “Little Influence”.
Now, start filling in the table with whatever comes to mind. For example, you might be spending a lot of time thinking about an upcoming competition, combined with memories of how you did at the same venue last year. So, you might decide to put the Future in the middle column and the past in the right-hand column, for instance.
J is for Junior Sport
If I were in charge of sports in a particular state or country, I would flip funding so that the vast majority of resources went into the junior or developmental side of sports. In other words, the best coaches, equipment, and facilities normally only accessible to the top 0.1% of athletes would be diverted to athletes under the age of 16.
For example, those regarded as the best coaches, like Wayne Bennettin rugby league, would be invited to coach junior players instead. I would ensure that whatever position was created for this had the same or greater salary as top-flight professional coaches.
K is for Keeping Going
Maybe the most powerful cue words in sport. Your mind will virtually always quit on you before your body does. Tell it to Keep Going and see what happens.
L is for Learning
There is a reason why some of the best sporting coaches of all time – for example, Jake White – are former teachers. They treat the performance enhancement process as one long learning experience for themselves and their players. The most appealing aspect of this angle is that poor performances are used as learning opportunities. Errors, for example, are considered invaluable elements of feedback – data that can be used to inform better choices moving forward.
M is for Monitoring
You’re missing out if you are not monitoring at least one aspect of your endeavours. At Condor Performance, we encourage our sporting and non-sporting clients to record one or more “monthly checks”. As detailed in this recent blog post, these monthly checks are like our key performance indicators. As long as you know the correct number of monthly checks to monitor (not too many) and your influence on each of these results (not as much as you think), self-monitoring has zero downsides and plenty of upsides.
N is for Numbers
Whether you like it or not, competitive sport – especially at the elite level – is full of numbers. Certain sports, like cricket and baseball, are so mathematical that the coaches of these sports would be forgiven for thinking of themselves more like statisticians from time to time. This is one of the reasons we encourage our monthly clients to monitor their progress – to allow them to function and even thrive in a results-oriented world. The other reasons for monitoring have already been mentioned above in the M.
O is for Objectivity
Both the M and the N above help with objectivity, but alone, might not be enough. Objectively is roughly the opposite of subjectively, with the latter being heavy on opinions, and the former much more based on facts. For example, it’s standard for athletes and coaches to assess past performances based primarily (or only) on memory or, even worse, on the final result. This is highly subjective, and a bit like any human pursuit, we’d want to be careful about how much of our analysis is subjective. Objective analysis – for example, the number of missed tackles – will be more valuable as the numbers don’t lie.
This is not true – numbers can lie, but opinions are less likely to do so.
P is for Pressure
‘Pressure’ is one of the most fascinating aspects of sport psychology. For a start, it’s 100% internal – a feeling with very real physiological sensations – a little bit like hunger. Because it’s going on inside, it’s less tangible and therefore harder to manage. First, it’s imperative not to consider pressure as good or bad. Let me use hunger to explain. For most of us, hunger is simply a signal to go and eat something. Once we do, the hunger goes away. The food that alleviates pressure is practice. That’s right, high-quality practice is like a pile of organic veggies.
Of course, there is also a benefit to learning to deal with hunger/pressure if no food or practice is available. By far, the best way to do this—in my opinion—is to work with a qualified sport/performance psychologist like one of our team members.
Q is for Quantity and Quality
This is how we break down practice or effort. Quantity is ‘how much’ and wants to be the right amount. Quality is’ how good’ and wants to be as high as possible. We often find it useful to multiply these together. For example, if the highest score for each is 10, then combined, the highest score is 100.
What number did your last training session get?
R is for Routines
See my recent blog post for a full breakdown of routines, which are crucial mental skills for many start-stop sports.
S is for Stigma
There are still many people out there whose beliefs about what sports psychologists or performance psychologists do get in the way of us being able to help them. The stigma comes from the word ‘psychologist’, which too many people still associate with having some mental problem. The general premise that working with a psychologist is a sign of weakness must be broken. A band-aid solution is to refer to ourselves as a coach, performance coaches, or mental skills trainers instead. The issue with this is that it doesn’t help to remove the stigma. Also, it seems a pity not to be able to use the title of psychologist, which took us seven or so years to earn.
T is for Time Management
Being able to manage your own time, your needs, and your wants is one of the most underrated of all mental skills. I work with a LOT of young elite athletes (teenagers on track to be the world’s best in their chosen sport); on the whole, they come to me with poor or non-existent time management skills. Sometimes, a simple suggestion like buying a $5 diary to start recording upcoming commitments can do wonders in terms of accountability, planning, knowing when to say ‘no’ or ‘yes’ to invitations and moving their mindset more towards effort and further from results. For more on Time Management, see this separate post.
Our values and beliefs guide our thoughts, so if you’d like to update your daily thought processes, then it can be a good idea to think about your values. By values, we mean what you consider to be valuable or important. A nice little exercise to get the ball rolling is listing everything you consider essential in your life and why. For example, you might write ‘8 hours of sleep a night’ and follow that with ‘because it helps me get the most out of various training sessions the following day’—the ‘why’ part is crucial, linking our endeavours to our internal motivation.
X is for eXcellence
Are you striving for excellence? Do you want to become excellent at what you do? How would you define and measure excellence? Is your training excellence? Do you know how to increase your chances of becoming the best possible athlete or coach you can be? For most athletes and performers, especially at the pointy end, this requires some help from the experts. Click here to book a 15-minute Webcam meeting with one of our New Enquiries Officers.
Y is for Yourself
One of the best ways of helping others is to look after yourself first.
Z is for Zest
Zest is one of the traits we look for when we interview psychologists looking to join our team of sports and performance psychologists. Do they have a passion for sports and helping athletes and coaches become better versions of themselves? If not, getting up at 5 a.m. to deliver a Zoom session to a monthly client from another country might just prove to be too hard. Info for psychologists wanting to join our team can be found here.
Sport psychologist Gareth J. Mole looks at the often overlooked role that decision making plays in the outcome of sporting contests.
Below are three of the best YouTube (so free) videos related to decision-making in sport. Below them, I have added my two cents’ worth.
Decision Making in Youth Sport – Mike Ashford
Dr Michael Ashford – Decision-Making Processes in Team Sports
John Brenkus: ESPN’s Sport Science and the Study of Decision-Making
Links Between The Mental And The Tactical
There is debate about the pros and cons of separating competitive sports’ mental and tactical sides.
Our argument is that if you focus on each part as a separate entity, any “crossover” benefit that rubs off onto another area is a bonus to your improvement. Lumping them all together can result in incorrectly assuming you’re doing more than you are. Decision-making in sport is an excellent example of this. In my experience ‘in the trenches’ as a sport psychologist for the last 20 years, decision-making is rarely targeted by itself.
Tactical Wisdom
Recently, several of our one-on-one clients have been asking us for more input into their Tactical Wisdom. TW is very tricky as, in theory, it’s entirely mental, yet coaching these ” in-the-moment” decisions is, and always wants to be, the domain of sporting coaches more than sport psychologists. This is one of the many reasons it makes so much sense for us to work more directly with coaches.
I’m going to use two examples from different sports here to emphasise my point.
First, the decision faced by a golfer about whether to “lay up” short of a creek located just before the green or “go for it” by attempting to hit the ball directly over the creek onto the green. Second, the decision by a striker in football (soccer) when near the penalty area to “have a shot” or pass the ball to a teammate.
Risk Versus Reward
Both of these scenarios have a “risk and reward” element. None of the four options mentioned is terrible, and therefore, the aim is to train your mind to “make the best decision according to the specifics of the competitive situation”. Most decision-making errors occur when the moment’s emotion trumps the competition situation. Here’s a clue about not letting that happen (and yes, it requires a bit of hard work).
First, you’re much more likely to make an unemotional decision if a scenario has been “mapped out” already. The more often it’s been mentally rehearsed beforehand, the better. This is best done by what we call the “If Blank Then Blank” exercise. Let’s go back to our two examples above.
Although there might seem like an overwhelming number of scenarios, there are probably only half a dozen if you think about it. For example:
“If stroke play, then lay up”.
“If match play, then go for green”.
But maybe that’s too simple, so these might be better:
“If stroke play and a par 5, then lay up”.
“If it’s stroke play and windy, then lay up”.
“If stroke play and leading, then lay up”.
“If stroke play and less than 3 shots within the lead, then lay up”.
“If any other situation, then go for the green”.
And for the other example, the footballer:
“If the ball is on/near my right foot with no defender near, then shoot”.
“If any other scenario, then pass”
“If Blank Then Blank”
Human brains are remarkable at learning these “If Blank Then Blank” right from when we’re newborns. Think about it; “If hungry, then cry”. And it carries on all the way to adulthood. “If red or amber light, then slow down and stop”. Certain commentators have and continue to object that this exercise appears to bring “thinking” into what they want to be instinctive actions.
Our answer to this is simple. There’s no escaping that certain moments in certain sports require a lot of decision-making. The “If Blank Then Blank” exercise decreases the chances of a brain explosion while under pressure. In our experience, the greatest benefit of this is the reduction of one of performance excellence’s biggest threats – indecision.
I’m not sure if I’m taking the word too literally, but indecision means delaying a decision due to being “in the decision.” Basically, the decision-making process (risk versus reward) is taking longer as it’s new.
In fact, indecision is so damaging to performance it would be fair to say that you’re better off making the wrong decision quickly and with confidence rather than the right one slowly and full of self-doubt.
Gareth J. Mole (sport psychologist)
If you’d like help improving the decision-making aspects of your sport pr performance areas, fill in this form. We typically reply in less than 24 hours.
