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.
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.
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.
‘The off season is one of the best times for elite athletes to be working on their mindset’ says International Sport Psychologist Gareth J. Mole
The best athletes in the world are almost always the ones with the best Off-Season Mindset.
What Is Your Off-Season Mindset?
The “Off Season” is an odd sporting term. It typically implies that athletes and coaches from around the globe only have two gears. “On” during pre-season and the competitive months where they give everything. And then “Off” for the rest of the year when everything stops.
This Black and White / Either Or / Binary way of conceptualising the sporting year is counterproductive. Certainly from a mental standpoint. Almost without a doubt, the origin of the term Off Season comes from a bygone era when training was regarded as almost entirely physical. So these athletes would’ve overdone it physically for eight months and hence required complete rest and recovery for four months.
However, this whole idea falls apart pretty quickly when you look at modern-day high-performance preparation whereby a lot of improvement requires little or no physical movement whatsoever.
The Five Pillars
Anyone who has completed our online Mental Toughness program – Metuf – will know that “preparation” can be broken down into 5 pillars: Physical Capability (PC), Mental Toughness (MT), Tactical Wisdom (TW), Technical Consistency (TC) and LifeStyle Choices (LC).
If we assume these 5 pillars are of equal importance then really only Physical Capability (PC) requires more body than mind. The other 4 pillars are “above the neck” processes, needing little or no physical exertion.
So for highly demanding physical sports (for example CrossFit, rugby union, rugby league, American Football, AFL and endurance sports – to name the first few to come to mind) then it’s only Physical Training that might want to be reduced during the gaps between the end of the competitive season and the start of the next preseason.
But even this is questionable. If the physical demands are adequately managed during the season then the necessity of an off-season of little or no physical effort is reduced.
A Season Is A Long Time
Part of the work that we do as one of the biggest independent groups of sport psychologists and performance psychologists in the world is to pass on invaluable “mind hacks” to our monthly clients. One of these is to tweak the way we think about time.
We encourage our 1-on-1 clients to use months and weeks rather than seasons or years. In summary, use weeks to plan and review efforts. Use months to monitor progress (KPIs etc). And if you must only use periods longer than this to set goals.
Start with a week-by-week approach. Think about a week as a block of 168 hours. Add your ideal sleep-in first. Not just amounts but bedtime and wake-up time too. Then add the stuff you have little or no influence over. For example, school or medical appointments. Finally, fill in the gaps with a healthy mix of process blocks across the 5 pillars.
This typically results in 52 weeks of “the right amount” of effort instead of 40 weeks of overdoing it followed by 12 weeks of undergoing it (oh, how very common this is).
The Biggest Clue
One of the biggest clues is how you feel mentally and physically at the end of the competitive season. If you are desperate for the break then there is a good chance you’ve been overextending yourself. Many individuals involved in elite sports believe that the primary purpose of an off-season is to recover from burnout. But the sports science is clear now. Burnout harms performance consistency, so we should be designing our preseason and the season to prevent burnout. Sometimes, less is more.
The concept of best-kept secrets is a bit of a cliche in sport. But having said that some things genuinely seem to separate the best from the rest. One of these is not so much the amount of time spent on training but the way it is designed and implemented. Not all 60-minute training sessions are equal. Some will be outstanding, whilst others can be damaging (it would have been better if they had not taken place at all).
Need A Hand?
If you feel like you might benefit from a professional helping hand in developing a smarter way of going about your preparation then why not get in touch? Regardless of how you contact us, we will attempt to get back to you within a couple of working days and talk you through the unique way in which Condor Performance goes about our sport psychology consulting.
Some big philosophical questions will come up at some point, if they have not already. For example, ‘Who am I?’, ‘What am I meant to do here?’, and ‘What am I trying to achieve with my life?’
I have always been intrigued by the concept of purpose. We go about our daily tasks, but when asked why, most of us are stumped.
At this point, we may think about things of meaning or significance to us. For example, an athlete may find meaning in playing a leadership role in their team. Or a sports coach may love helping an athlete achieve their goal.
But This Is Only The Tip Of The Iceberg
Richard Leider, an international bestselling author and coach, describes purpose like this.
“The deepest dimension within us- our central core or essence– where we have a profound sense of who we are, where we came from and where we’re going. Purpose is the quality we choose to shape our lives around. Purpose is a source of energy and direction.”
Our purpose is the reason we do something or why something exists. It is having a clear direction or goal that drives our choices and actions. The Japanese call it ikigai, – a person’s reason for being.
A real sense of purpose is one of the most fundamental human needs. It is vital in shaping our lives and bringing us satisfaction. It is the subjective perception that one’s daily life is worth living and full of energy and motivation. There are three core components of purpose:
Goal orientation
Personal meaningfulness
A focus on aims beyond the self
Purpose Is Unique
There isn’t one definite area that needs to be fulfilled to live a more meaningful life. People derive purpose from various activities. For example, Arnold Schwarzenegger continued to pursue his plans to become a great bodybuilder despite reservations from his parents and others.
For the Okinawan community, a sense of purpose involves working in their garden to bring vegetables home, working a stall in the morning market, or giving social support to the elderly.
Viktor Frankl, an Austrian psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor, explored the idea that purpose is essential for human well-being and resilience. Even when faced with extreme suffering and adversity. He suggested that having a purpose gives people a reason to keep moving forward, providing a sense of direction, motivation, and fulfilment.
Purpose is unique and arises from one’s values, passions, and sense of responsibility.
Why Purpose Matters
Research has shown that having a sense of purpose is connected to experiencing less conflict when making decisions and can help overcome stress, anxiety, or depression. It is also shown to increase health and decrease mortality rates. In the Netflix documentary Live to 100, having a sense of purpose is believed to be one of the most influential factors contributing to individuals’ longevity.
Companies driven by purpose are also shown to have better growth, increased employee productivity, and higher success rates. A sense of purpose in life has ripple effects on most areas of life.
Benefits of Purpose for Sports Performance
Greater goal engagement:Setting goals that motivate you to work hard towards achieving them helps to provide a sense of purpose. This old but still helpful article by the Founder of Condor Performance, Gareth J. Mole, delves into this topic in more detail.
Higher emotional resilience: You will inevitably encounter challenges and tough moments during your sporting career. This makes it even more important to return from these testing times more robust than before. Having a clear sense of purpose helps us remember our reasons for doing what we are doing and continue working towards becoming the athlete and person we want to be, even after disappointing performances.
Higher levels of internal motivation and passion: Having a strong sense of purpose can help maintain a high level of internal motivation that draws on the core reasons you became involved in your sport and your inner desire and enjoyment when feeling that sense of achievement. It may help to reinvigorate your passion for participating in your chosen sport and spark new areas for achievement. It has been suggested that when athletes can play sports and live their lives with a sense of purpose, they feel connected to something bigger than themselves.
Why Don’t I Know My Purpose?
Knowing about purpose and its benefits doesn’t automatically result in knowing yours, and often, people will struggle to define their purpose in life. This is because we are usually distracted from our goals or pressured to follow a path away from our core passions.
It is estimated that only 20% of adolescents report having a sense of purpose. And that 59% of American adults felt they had found a purpose and meaning in their lives. This suggests that developing a sense of purpose is complex and may take a long time. Our sense of purpose needs to be discovered, and it is only by working on purpose and consistently asking ourselves, ‘Why do I get up in the morning?’ that we inch closer to finding the answer to this question. We must commit to discovering our sense of purpose, as without purpose, we will find ourselves lost and far away from our true fulfilment in life and work.
It goes without saying that there will never be a substitute for working one-on-one with qualified sports and performance psychologists (like the growing team at Condor Performance*). However, I have compiled some quick tips below that may at least help you get started.
5 Tips To Help You Find Your Purpose
Explore what is personally meaningful to you about sports.
Set personal goals that align with this meaning.
Explore what is beyond self-motivation. For example, I want to improve the life of my family or be a positive role model for children.
Share your thoughts with others in your inner circle (e.g., family, friends, coaches).
Live your purpose by exploring how you can bring it to life.
Excuse-Making and Mental Toughness – Are They Opposites?
Excuse-Making: An Interesting Concept
The human mind is remarkable and fascinating. It is capable of so much, maybe too much. This short opinion piece will explore the concept of excuse-making. More specifically, it will try to untangle the difference between excuses and genuine reasons as it might relate to the mental side of competitive sport and performance.
The Cambridge Dictionary defines an excuse (noun) as “an explanation that frees one from fault or blame.” So, excuse-making is the act of doing this, and habitual excuse-making is doing this a lot. When I read this definition, I was a little surprised. I was expecting it to be more about facts versus fiction. But apparently not. It appears as if excuses are more like the opposite of “taking responsibility” than about accuracy.
From a sport psychology and performance psychology point of view, it’s essential that we also separate excuse-making into the outward and inner types. By this, I mean saying something just to oneself (e.g., thoughts) designed to free the thinker from fault or blame is not the same as an excuse that is vocalised to another person (or group).
Spoken Words Are Actions, Not Thoughts
Technically speaking, when you open your mouth, and words come out, these are actions. Yes, these words probably started as thoughts. And yes, the time gap between having the thought and then doing the talking can feel so quick that we believe they are the same. But they are not the same. The reason why it’s so important not to confuse them comes down to the vastly different ways we want to handle thoughts, feelings, and actions, as explained in the video below.
Thoughts, Feelings and Actions Are Different
If you take this explanation and put it into the context of inner excuse-making, then really, what we, as sport psychologists, are suggesting is to become more aware of just noticing these cognitions. Ideally, with practices like mindfulness and journaling, we can all become better at lengthening the gaps between the stimulus (the autonomic thought we have little influence over) and response (which action, if any, to take).
Because I am a diehard advocate for Psychological Flexibility as a better approach to sport, performance, life, and everything else, it’s easier to assume that I have no interest in influencing thought processes. This is not true.
Let Me Explain
Consider thoughts as either past, present, or future-oriented. The first two categories are ideally treated with extreme acceptance. Changing a past thought is impossible, and changing a present one is complicated and unnecessary for the critical stuff (actions) anyway, so leave them be.
But future thoughts are different. They have not taken place yet, so there are actions we can take that might lessen the burden on our psychological flexibility later.
Some clients will know I am a big fan of using swimming as an analogy, not just swimming but swimming in the ocean. One way to become a better ocean swimmer is to become more adept at doing your strokes whilst waves are smacking you in the jaw. We can do thousands of things to become stronger ocean swimmers. But at some point, we’d need to accept that looking at future sea conditions – to avoid the most extreme conditions that mother nature can throw at us – is also intelligent. Reduce the probability of extreme burden despite excellent preparation.
How do we reduce the burden on our psychological flexibility? There are many ways to do this, but there is no substitute for monitoring our efforts in the context of learning to make fewer excuses.
Example Please!
Peter has decided he wants to improve his short game in golf. So, instead of smashing balls at the range (which he finds much more enjoyable), he plans to use this time to work on this chipping instead. He decides to get specific and designs some drills that take 40 minutes, and he adds them to his time management plan to do this three times a week.
In simple mathematical terms, he’s aiming for 120 minutes a week of intentional effort. However, the amount of actual effort can range anywhere between 0 minutes and 120 minutes. Of course, it could go above 120 minutes, but this is less likely as Pete is somewhat of a “do what’s necessary kind of guy.”
Peter creates a simple chart to measure how many minutes he does each week. When this number is below 120 minutes, there is a space for him to put why he fell short. Below are three hypothetical entries – can you identify which (if any) are excuses?
Are These Excuses?
~ The practice pitching green was shut for some kids’ lessons on Wednesday evening, so I could not do my standard drills when I arrived. So, I went to the range instead and fell 40 minutes short of my short game practice this week.
~ I just experienced a considerable dip in motivation for my overall Golf, not just my short game. I played poorly on the weekend, so the idea of investing even more time into a pursuit that is so inconsistent seems ridiculous. Maybe a couple of weeks off is what is needed. I got 0 minutes done this week, 120 minutes less than my commitment.
~ Blast, I picked up a slight shoulder niggle whilst playing touch footy with the guys on Monday night. The physiotherapist instructed me to practice at least 20 minutes during every session (half my usual amount). I didn’t quite manage to double the number of sessions to get to the 120 minutes, so I managed 100 minutes this week instead of 120.
Instead of sharing my insights about which of the above contains more legitimacy than others, it might be more attractive to ask our loyal readers. Please add your comments in the space at the bottom of this article, and I will endeavour to reply to every one of them as they come through. Which of the above (if any) do you believe is an excuse and why?
The Mind Is Not So Different From The Body
Both benefit from some very similar rules. One commonality between the parts above and below the neck is that they both require repetition for changes to become permanent.
This simple monitoring process described above is the most effective method I have ever encountered during my 20 years as an applied sport psychologist in assisting future thoughts to become less burdensome. Let me reiterate something fundamental here to prevent the flurry of comments about me contradicting my preference for psychological flexibility while wanting my clients to have more beneficial future thoughts. Because they are future thoughts (yet to happen) and are potentially influenced by present actions, there is no risk of what we call meta-cognition “distracting” the performer during the present moment.
Ideally, weekly reflections on why an athlete or performer fell short build greater awareness of how they can creatively work towards greater consistency of practice in the future. Maybe the very simple little internal dialogue is something like this.
“It’s gonna be hard for me to practice this week due to the weather. What can I do instead of letting these adverse weather conditions reduce our intended practice? Maybe I could do something inside or practice in the rain, knowing my skin is waterproof. Better still, maybe this poor weather practice will help me when I have to compete in similarly adverse climatic conditions.”
Accepting Thoughts, Especially The Crappy Ones, Is Hard.
So, we’re looking to reduce the workload required for methods such as mindfulness. Developing great psychological flexibility is fantastic and will serve you very well in the future. Still, it is not a magic bullet that makes all future endeavours bulletproof against all challenges.
At the beginning of the article, I clarified that dialogue related to why we don’t manage to do what we intended to do is not the same as when we say this to another individual. What does this second version most commonly look like?
In a sporting context, it is probably most common in elite developmental sports programs. Imagine a softball team with athletes aged between 14 and 17. The coach helps the squad design a combination of group-based practice and tasks that the players must do independently.
A simple self-monitoring system allows the Coach to see which athletes are doing the individualised practice. For the players who don’t enter this data or enter numbers far less than what was agreed upon, conversations can occur about why.
Why would an athlete use an excuse verbally when, in their mind, they know it’s far from a legitimate reason? There are potentially many reasons, but the most common is a lack of sound team dynamics, as described in these past articles here and here.
If you are a sporting or non-sporting performer and would like some professional help with making fewer excuses, then contact us now via this Enquiry Form. One of our team will get back to you within a couple of days.
For me, potential in performance is one of the most fascinating topics to debate in modern-day sports psychology. This article is my opinion on the subject. If you take the time to read my ramblings below, you’ll see that I lean heavily towards the view that there isn’t really such a thing as potential.
From a performance psychology perspective, I would even say that it can often be detrimental. But this is just my viewpoint. Please add your counterargument below in the comments section for those who read and disagree. Debating these topics healthily and respectfully is crucial to improving our understanding. So don’t be shy.
“You Have Some Much Potential”
The word ‘potential’ is used extensively across sports and other performance domains, such as music, art, performing arts, and academics. It is used so frequently that it will almost always be regarded as ‘real’. The context in which it is most commonly heard is to describe an individual performer. Someone who can and should be much better in the future based on current or past ‘glimpses’. For example:
“Our starting quarterback has so much potential but often falls short on game day.”
In other words, according to the individual who said these words—let’s say the coach—this athlete has done things that suggest they could be much better later on but are not right now.
All too often, this is down to moments of brilliance. Maybe it’s moments of brilliance during a practice session with little or no competitive pressure. Or perhaps it was one or two unforgettable moments in a game that made everybody sit up and take notice.
The issue with these moments of brilliance is that they are only moments. Even the sports that last the least time (e.g. 100 m sprint) are made up of dozens of moments. Some sports, like cricket, comprise tens of thousands per match. So, if only a few of these moments are brilliant, then it suggests the rest were not, which is the definition of inconsistency.
So, if consistency is the most sought-after aspect of performance (as my colleague Chris argued in this brilliant article), then moments of brilliance count for diddly–squat.
Genetics and Potential
Not always, but often, potential in performance is used to describe genetic or inherited advantages. In other words, if you go back to the good old nature versus nurture debate, we often label performers as having ‘huge potential’ when they have all the genetically inherited ideals for that sport—a naturally taller basketball player or a heavily set forward rugby union forward.
In these scenarios, being labelled as naturally talented can often be a significant handicap from a mental toughness point of view.
Think about it. Our effort is one of the few areas of performance over which we genuinely have considerable influence. Therefore, consistency of hard work (in the right areas 😬) would have to be the most significant predictor of future success in sports and performance.
Imagine that from the age of seven, you have been told by all the significant people around you that you have genetic advantages. “Tommy has so much potential and natural talent”. If I were Tommy and I heard this repeatedly, it would be easy to believe that I don’t need to put in the same level of effort as some of my competitors to succeed. When you combine this with humans naturally wanting to take shortcuts (see more here: Principle of Least Effort), Tommy is in trouble. His dreams of making it to the top are pipe dreams.
Inside Knowledge
One of the absolute joys of working as an applied sports psychologist is that many of our loyal clients are already competing and performing at a high level. We had/have the privilege of helping some of them get there. For others, we have joined them and their team while they are already at the pointy end, and we have been brought in to help increase the probability that they stay there.
Irrespective, we have conversations with some of the best athletes and performances in the world virtually every day. As I am only one member of the current Condor Performance team, I can’t speak on behalf of all of our uber-elite clients worldwide, but the ones I have worked with rarely talk about potential.
Most of these exceptional athletes were not told they had potential or natural talent during their developmental years.
Due to this, they developed a rock-solid belief system that consistency of effort was the number one ticket to the top. Hard work was above everything else. This work ethic became a habit, and as the years rolled on, it became a much more critical ingredient to performance consistency and excellence than anything else.
Practical Takeaways
What does this mean regarding practical takeaways for those reading this article? I will leave you with some straightforward and hopefully game-changing advice on this subject of potential in performance.
If you’re a coach, I would cease to use the terms potential and natural talent. Just ban them from your vocabulary. If you are an athlete or non-sporting performer, I would encourage you also to move away from these dangerous labels. When you think you are full of potential, notice those thoughts and return to work. If others tell you it, thank them and get back to work.
Consider this if you have been labelled as someone with huge potential. Does hearing this make me want to work harder or not? If you’re one of the lucky few who views your potential in a motivational way, then make sure you have strategies to continue working hard even when those around you stop describing you in this way.
Amount of Influence
From a mental toughness point of view, one of the most fundamental ideas is how much influence we have on stuff. When we look at this in the context of time, it is elementary.
We can not influence the past at all.
We have a vast amount of influence over the present.
We have some influence over the future (due to the amount of influence we have over the present and the impact the present has on the future).
Potential in performance, as well as in any context, is a future-orientated construct. It is a prediction about the future. So, in the same way that putting a considerable amount of mental energy into the past is detrimental (“things were so much better last season why Coach Bob was around”), so too is focusing too much on the future.
So, we want to spend most of our energy in the present moment. My response to working with an athlete who believes they have enormous potential is the same as when consulting with an individual who believes they have absolutely none. Ask yourself the following:
“What is my plan for this week, this training session, so that afterwards, there is no doubt that I have improved in one or more meaningfulness areas.”
Permission granted to write this on your bathroom mirror.
Sport psychologists Coaching The Coaches is becoming more and more normal as competitive sport finally starts to understand what we do.
Who coaches the coaches? We do …
Coaching Is Also A Performance Area
One of our great professional delights here at Condor Performance is the opportunity to work alongside sporting coaches. We are privileged to work with coaches across many sports and levels of competition. Most of this consulting is one-on-one, whereby we help them improve their mental toughness and mental coaching skills. Of course, these two areas are related but far from one and the same. So, coaching the coaches really means coaching the coaches mentally.
Collaborating with coaching staff provides a range of challenges and rewards distinct from working directly with athletes. It is immensely satisfying for us to help coaches redirect some of the vast amounts of time and energy spent on their players back into improving their own performance.
That’s right. Coaches are performers, too, even if they don’t actually put on the boots.
An Unlimited Appetite for Learning
Increasingly, coaches at the elite level of sport are taking off-season trips. The idea is to ‘pick the brains’ of other organisations and bring new perspectives back home. Study tours are fascinating exercises with a host of educational benefits. However, they’re not exactly cheap, and that thing called ‘life’ can get in the way.
We are huge advocates for these study tours but accept that they will not be possible for most coaches. Luckily, there is a workaround. You can start working 1-on-1 with a qualified sports psychologist or performance psychologist from the comfort of your own home.
Of course, when it comes to the practical application of coaching tasks and responsibilities, the coaches themselves are the experts, not us. But we become involved in providing mental skills trainingto the coach, not to start developing game plans or overhauling training regimes.
Five Key Questions
Below are five key questions for coaches that are directed at their own performance, not that of their athletes.
HOW ARE YOU PERFORMING OUTSIDE OF THE PLAYING ARENA?
Before we discuss the mental side of your coaching performance, let’s take a moment to look at the bigger picture. Improving your performance in areas that don’t at first appear to be directly linked to the ‘nuts and bolts’ of coaching will, in fact, directly benefit your work with your athletes.
Attending to ‘off-field’ matters will help to increase your physical and mental energy and availability. It will sharpen your focus when coaching. It will enhance your enthusiasm for your duties. Furthermore, it will promote enjoyment of your role and contribute to your general well-being. Finally, it will help to address (prevent) burnout in the longer term. The major targets for improvement for any coach, from a lifestyle perspective, are:
Nutrition. You’re undoubtedly encouraging your athletes to put the right fuel into their bodies. And while you may not be running around on the court with them, it’s important that you do the same. This isn’t just necessary for general health but also for enhancing your mood and improving concentration. Taking care of your nutritional needs seems fairly obvious at first glance. But that’s why it often takes a back seat to other tasks that seem more urgent at the time.
Sleeping is a skill, something that can be improved or neglected.
Sleep. Unfortunately, this is not an exact science and a great night of shut-eye can’t be guaranteed. There are various factors that can get in the way of sleep. So anything you can do to increase the chances of a good night’s rest will benefit life and sport. Taking basic steps to plan for and implement good sleeping habits sounds sensible enough. Like nutrition, sleep can be one of the forgotten components in the grand scheme of coaching performance. See this great PDF for more details.
WHAT DOES MENTAL TOUGHNESS LOOK LIKE FOR YOU?
The mental qualities you hope to see in your players are easier to picture. But what does mental toughness actually look like for you personally? What skills are you seeking to keep improving to perform at your best? Below are some points that keen-eyed readers will recognise fall along the lines of the Metuf model. These are all areas we often discuss when coaching the coaches.
Motivation
What are your reasons for coaching and wanting to do it well? The immediate response may be that you love your chosen sport. However, it’s helpful to clarify this passion further. Why exactly does coaching appeal to you, and what rewards do you get in return for your efforts? Knowing what matters to us in terms of our chosen sport means that we can keep these values as non-negotiable aspects of our sporting lives.
Emotions
How well are you able to manage your emotions? That term – manage – is used deliberately and does not result from the growing ‘business-speak’ in modern society. Although the term ‘control’ is thrown around freely in sports, we cannot control our emotions as we cannot guarantee them. What we can guarantee are the actions that we take in response to our feelings. Developing competency in recognising and better understanding one’s own emotions – and the impact of these emotions on performance – benefits the coach in their work and enables the coach to teach their athletes similar skills.
Thoughts
Do you spend most of your time worrying about aspects you have little or no influence on, such as your opponents? How to approach thinking is arguably one of the biggest mental mistakes made by performance worldwide. There is a common and very dangerous belief that to perform well, you need to think positively. One of our favourite quotes, to the right, begs to differ.
Unity
How well do you communicate your message to others? Are you able to receive and interpret messages well from others? How effectively can you communicate your message to yourself? Communication is a hugely underutilised skill. Normally, this is due to lifelong habits we develop in everyday interactions. Even minor modifications can yield powerful changes in tasks such as teaching biomechanics or managing different personalities. You can read a lot more about the topic of Team Unity here via this excellent article by my colleague Madalyn Incognito.
Focus
How well can you focus on what is most relevant and useful in your role as a coach? Improving your attention in preparation and competition is equally important. Are you prioritising one over the other at present? The art and science of helping anyone improve their focus is a highly individualised process, so it’s difficult for us to provide generic advice. If you are a sporting coach and struggle to focus, get in touch today so we can start correcting it.
Are You Developing Your Sporting IQ?
Out on the playing surface, tactical wisdom refers to knowledge about the sport. It’s about decision-making skills and knowing when to do something and why. There is an enormous difference between ‘how to’ shoot for a goal (technique) vs. determining if a shot or a pass is the best goal (tactics). Developing decision-making skills is something that the vast majority of coaches I’ve encountered have revelled in. I enjoy helping them teach their athletes how to become smarter and read the play. How to be proactive rather than reactive.
Off the playing surface, these same principles apply to coaches, too. We want to encourage them to continue learning, to seek new knowledge, and to gain deeper insights into their sport. Tactical wisdom for coaches isn’t restricted to coming up with new game plans. Instead, tactical wisdom is looking at the bigger picture and planning how to acquire and utilise knowledge for the benefit of your athletes. As a coach, if you can recognise your strengths and weaknesses knowledge-wise, you’ve immediately begun filling in any gaps and strengthening the existing foundations.
ARE YOU REFINING AND UPDATING YOUR TECHNICAL SKILLS?
When discussing technical consistency with an athlete, we would discuss their ability to execute movements and apply skills the way they want to repeatedly across all conditions in competition. That is, ‘how to’ do something. One of the primary concerns of a coach is to help teach athletes these skills. So, to improve your performance as a coach, it is worthwhile considering ‘how to’ teach your charges.
It is one thing to demonstrate to a javelin thrower how to launch that piece of equipment. However, it’s another to pass on that knowledge effectively and of greatest benefit to that individual athlete. It’s hugely useful for coaches to break from habit where possible and review how they execute their skills in their role as coaches.
How effectively are you teaching your athletes, and how satisfied are you with your current ability to pass on skills/knowledge/information to others? As with all the previously mentioned pillars of performance, the goal here is ongoing improvement in the ‘how to’ of coaching players, regardless of which technical elements are areas of strength for you as an individual.
If you are a sporting coach and you’d like more information on how we can work with you, please contact us via one of the methods below.
Send an email to info@condorperformance.com, and make sure to include lots of background information, such as your sport, your location, your coaching goals, and your challenges.
