athlete's mental skills workbook

A TALENTED MIND Your Talents Realized

THE TALENTED ATHLETE A Mental Skills Playbook

Michael Cerreto, MS, CSC National Certified Sports Counselor

A Talented Mind

2500 Castle Hill Road Midlothian, Virginia 23113

804-272-3927

[email protected] www.atalentedmind.com

© 2004 A Talented Mind

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The Talented Athlete

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CONTENTS PREFACE Page 8

Reach For Your Full Potential In Sports Importance Of Managing Your Mental Performance CHAPTER 1: LIFE-LONG LESSONS FROM SPORTS Page 11

The Role Sports Plays Throughout Your Life Carrying Lessons Forward What They Learned On the Playing Field

Robin Roberts, TV News Anchor Question to ask yourself

Traci Des Jardins, Chef and Restaurant Owner Question to ask yourself

Lisa Caputo, Corporate Vice-President Question to ask yourself

Donna Shalala, University President Question to ask yourself

Your Top Lessons Learned As An Athlete CHAPTER 2: THE BRAIN-BODY CONNECTION Page 21

The Brain-Body Connection In Sports The Brain-Body Loop How Your Senses Help You Navigate Your Sport

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CHAPTER 3: ATHLETES’ VISION: YOUR BRAIN’S WINDOW TO YOUR SPORT Page 25

Vision On the Playing Field Vision Motor Skills

Tracking Focusing Vergence

Vision Perception Skills Eye-hand and eye-foot coordination Visualization Directionality Sequencing

Developing Your Sports Vision Abilities SportsVision by Wilson and Falkel CHAPTER 4: MENTAL PERFORMANCE BASICS Page 31

Mental Factors That Affect Performance Focusing Your Attention

Shifting your attention Controlling Your Behavior

Processing information Following rules and taking risks Speed of decision making

CHAPTER 5: FILLING THE EMOTIONAL TANK Page 37

Using Communications To Fill Emotional Tanks Communicating support and encouragement Communicating criticism and anger Communicating ideas When people use ideas to keep other teammates down

Effective Leadership Fills Emotional Tanks Good team leaders have a need to control others Good team leaders have self-confidence

Criticism Impacts Emotional Tanks

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CHAPTER 6: MENTAL PERFORMANCE UNDER PRESSURE Page 45

Effect Of Pressure On Performance Three Ways To Respond To Pressure

Staying centered helps control your arousal level Arousal levels needed for different sport skills

Over-Responding To Pressure Causes Errors Distracted by things going on around you Distracted by thoughts inside your head Distracted by focusing on one thing too long

Conquering the Negative Performance Cycle Breaking Free From the Negative Cycle

Preview your performance Guide to good previewing CD that helps you improve your previewing skills Body sensing Controlling your arousal level through relaxation CD that helps improve your relaxation and stress control

A System Designed To Cope With Pressure and Stress CHAPTER 7: MENTAL SUCCESS DURING PRACTICE Page 59

Your Mental Approach To Practice Developing resilience—the key to sustained success Know why you are practicing Give yourself time to practice Practice mental skills Evaluate your mental performance before & after competitions Understanding your mental tendencies in competition

CHAPTER 8: IMPORTANCE OF SELF-CARE 3

Taking Care Of Yourself Create your own athletic gameplan

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Assessing Your Mental Performance How well do you perform up to potential? What improvements are needed to play up to potential? Do you have a mental or physical performance problem?

Importance Of Setting Skill Development Goals How goals affect your self-confidence Skill goals have big effects

Creating Your Goal Gameplan REFERENCES 3 ABOUT A TALENTED MIND Page 75

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PREFACE REACH FOR YOUR FULL POTENTIAL IN SPORTS AND LIFE

You have a calling to reach for your full potential. You have talents and gifts that are meant to help you achieve important aspirations, overcome obstacles, and fulfill your purpose.

As an athlete, sports gives you the unique opportunity to develop your mental and physical talents to reach your full potential, help teammates, and be a successful competitor. Your involvement in sports teaches you lessons that can guide you throughout life.

While it’s natural for athletes to focus primarily on developing physical skills only, you need to understand that your mind and body are not two sepa-rate parts that operate independently. They are linked and jointly impact your performance on the playing field and in life. The more you train and condition your mental skills in unison with your body, the more you become a well-rounded athlete and person.

This workbook is designed to help you learn about the mental-side of being an athlete, and how your mind and body can successfully work together. It also gives you tools to develop your mental performance. Several of the men-tal skills explained in this workbook are based on the work of the legendary sports psychologist Robert Nideffer, Ph.D who has helped make the mysteries of the mind understandable and manageable for athletes throughout the world.

Please take the time to read each section and do the exercises through-out the workbook. The more you work on your mental game, the more you strengthen the mental muscles needed to develop into a well-rounded athlete, competitor, and person.

If you have not taken the Athlete’s Mental Edge™ online assessment of your mental performance style as an athlete, please contact A Talented Mind at 804-272-3927 or email [email protected]. This assessment and its interactive, online 32-page report has helped Olympic, professional and ama-teur athletes improve their mental performance on the playing field and in other parts of their lives. You can also benefit from having the same unique view of your mental style and how it can help you achieve your aspirations.

Please visit our website at www.atalentedmind.com to learn more about how to fully develop your natural talents as an athlete and a person.

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IMPORTANCE OF MANAGING YOUR MENTAL PERFORMANCE

ELEMENTS OF PERFORMANCE

As an athlete, your performance in practice and competition depends on three key elements: • Your physical ability to play the game • Your knowledge about your sport (the fundamentals and rules) • Your mental skills such as your ability to set goals, collaborate with others,

and stay focused under pressure

If you are like most athletes, you consciously develop the physical part of your sport and its strategies and rules. You train your body to perform the physical moves to be successful in games and learn how to executive game strategies and plays. But, like most athletes, you probably do not focus on training your mind to help you be successful in practice and critical game situa-tions. Most athletes leave the mental side of their performance to chance, but it is often the dividing line between success and failure. There are two situa-tions in which this most important as explained below: when you are competing at elite levels of your sport, and when you are in high pressure situations. COMPETING AGAINST EQUALLY MATCHED OR SUPERIOR COMPETITION

When you compete against opponents with lesser talent, you can usu-ally dominate them through your superior athletic abilities. Your mental per-formance has less of an influence over you winning or losing.

When you compete at elite levels, the difference in athletes’ physical and technical abilities is very small, about 3%-5%. This means that elite ath-letes basically have the same physical abilities. The difference between winning and losing at elite levels hinges more on how your mind performs.

When athletes are asked why they win against elite opponents who have equal or superior athletic abilities, they do not mention physical skills or knowledge of their sport. They say, “We win because we are more motivated to do whatever it takes to outplay those teams.” In other words, when faced with elite competitors who have equal physical abilities, the athletes who can control their minds under pressure, limit distractions, and mentally motivate them-selves typically win.

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COMPETING IN HIGH STRESS SITUATIONS

When you compete in high pressure situations (such as final moments of a close game or in a championship match), the pressure you place on yourself can cause mental errors. For instance, in stressful situations, you may start putting too much pressure on yourself or your teammates to be perfect which can result in you becoming overly tense and making errors. Or, you may become upset at your teammates and overly criticize them instead of being supportive and mo-tivating.

In short, high stress can cause your mind and body to make errors at critical moments. How you control your thinking during these situations can significantly help you defeat opponents who are experiencing the same high pressure and may not have good control over their minds.

STARTING THE JOURNEY

Your journey to develop strong mental abilities for practice and com-petition starts with putting your sports experience into a bigger perspective. The first chapter of this workbook enables you to explore the important les-sons you are learning as an athlete that can help you throughout your life. By first exploring the life lessons you learn from your sport, you better understand how your mental and physical experiences as an athlete can last a lifetime.

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CHAPTER 1 Life-Long Lessons From Sports

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THE ROLE SPORTS PLAYS THROUGHOUT YOUR LIFE

Think about the lessons you have learned in your life so far. Think about what your successes have taught you. Think about what you have learned from your struggles. As you get older, you understand more about the world and how to succeed in it because of your many experiences—and that includes your experiences as an athlete.

Your participation in sports can be a golden time for learning lessons and life skills you can use forever. As an athlete, you learn about:

• Setting goals

• Working hard

• Managing your time

• Teaming with others and resolving conflicts

• Coping with failure and success

• Dealing with pressure

• Going after what you want

These qualities are important for you to be successful as a student, worker, parent, volunteer, etc.

Some people stay active in competitive sports throughout their lives, while others stop after a few years. Regardless of how much time you spent as an athlete, you need to be sure that you take full advantage of the positive lessons you learn along the way.

In this chapter, we explore how different people benefited from their experiences on the playing field. After reading each biography, you can iden-tify the many positive lessons you have learned as an athlete and how you can use those lessons throughout your life.

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CARRYING LESSONS FORWARD

In a recent survey, women executives ex-plained how sports played a major role in their ca-reers, as listed below.

86 percent of women business leaders surveyed said sports increased their self-discipline.

81 percent said that sports helped them become better team players.

69 percent said sports helped them develop leadership skills that contributed to their profes-sional success.

68 percent said that their athletic experiences prepared them to cope with failure.

60 percent believe that women who play sports are more productive employees.

59 percent said that playing sports has given them a competitive edge over others. Source: “From the Locker Room to the Boardroom: A Survey on Sports in the Lives of Women Business Executives,” Oppenheimer Funds/MassMutual Financial Group. Health Magazine

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ROBIN ROBERTS NEWS ANCHOR ABC’S GOOD MORNING AMERICA When Roberts was 8, she joined a team in the only sport then available to young girls in her home state of Mississippi: bowling. As a pre-teen in the early ‘70s, Roberts rolled her way to the state championship. In high school, she ran

track and played basketball and tennis. She went on to become Southeastern Louisiana University’s third leading basketball scorer and re-bounder of all time.

“I can’t stress enough how important sports was in develop-ing my self-confidence, and what a difference that’s made in my life,” she says. The confidence helped Roberts succeed in the male-dominated world of sports broadcasting, where she worked her way up from local markets to ESPN and ABC sports.

Just last year, she accomplished something few other sports-casters have—crossing over to network news, where she contributes to World News Tonight and 20/20 in addition to anchoring the news desk.

Source: Health Magazine

WHAT THEY LEARNED ON THE PLAYING FIELD

To help you start exploring the life lessons you have learned as an ath-lete, you can look through the eyes of four people who developed successful lives based on their sports experiences. You learn about how a news anchor, senator, chef and restaurant owner, actor, corporate executive, comedian, uni-versity president, and sports anchor attribute their success to their playing days.

What lessons have you learned from sports that are similar to the ones learned by Robin Roberts?

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JOHN MCCAIN

UNITED STATES SENATOR FORMER PRISONER OF WAR When McCain was asked to reflect on his ex-perience in sports, he said, “If I were to de-scribe myself as an athlete it would be, ‘mediocrity at its finest.’ And yet, if I took

sports out of my life, there would be a huge vacancy.” McCain was a wrestler and football player in high school,

and he boxed at the U.S. Naval Academy. He believes that his experi-ences as an athlete prepared him to overcome many difficult chal-lenges throughout life.

“When I was in prison for five-and-a-half years in Vietnam, I got beat up a lot. It wasn’t easy, but I’m sure glad I had the experi-ence of contact sports, because I learned perseverance and how to recover. To this day, I have never learned how to lose.”

McCain’s will to win and abilities to overcome obstacles have helped him be a successful leader on the Senate floor, and helped him negotiate new legislation that positively impacts people’s lives.

Source: The Games Do Count

What lessons have you learned from sports that are similar to the ones learned by John McCain?

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TRACI DES JARDINS

CHEF-OWNER JARDINIERE RESTAURANT, SAN FRANCISCO In the early ‘80s, there were few women chefs, and Des Jardins faced a lot of skepticism while training in New York and France. “That mind-over-matter discipline I learned through sports really helped me stick it out in such a macho

culture,” says Des Jardins, who swam competitively from age 4 to 16 and played recreational soccer.

Her will to win in the culinary world paid off: By age 23, she was chef de cuisine at Patina, a top restaurant in Los Angeles; in 1995, she won the coveted James Beard Rising Star Award. When she opened Jardiniere in 1997, it quickly became one of the country’s hot-test restaurants.

Des Jardins’ sports experience taught her how to stay fo-cused on an important goal over time and navigate the many obstacles in her way. The discipline she learned in sports has certainly paid off and helped her become one of the nation’s leading chefs.


How has your sports experiences helped you develop goal set-ting skills like Des Jardins?

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How has your sports experiences helped you develop goal setting skills like Des Jardins?

What lessons have you learned from sports that are similar to the ones learned by Bernie Mac?

BERNIE MAC COMEDIAN AND ACTOR When Mac was in high school, he played many sports such as basketball, baseball, football and boxing. When he reflected on the lessons he learned through sports, he said “Sports taught me a lot about sacrifice, obedience, love and dedication. New day, new practice, new game.”

“I thought you always had to prove yourself every day. I was never a thrill seeker. I saw guys in high school who would finish the game and run to the scorer’s table and say, ‘Look, I scored seven,’ or ‘I scored 12.’ I went right to the locker room. It’s the same with comedy. When I’m done, I stick the mike in the holder and I’m gone. Applaud if you want, but I’m thinking about tomorrow, because I get a kick out of topping what I’ve done.”

“I took my sports experience to my life on stage. That’s why I’m so disciplined.” Mac’s discipline has helped him develop his craft as a comedian over many years, and star in television and the movies.


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LISA CAPUTO

PRESIDENT WOMEN & COMPANY, CITIGROUP DIVISION Caputo, who played tennis, field hockey and basketball in high school, and whose field hockey team at Brown University won the 1984 Ivy League National Championship, credits much of her professional success to a lifetime of

athletics. In 1993, at age 27, she became press secretary for first lady Hillary Clinton and deputy assistant to the president.

When she left the White House in 1996, she became vice president of corporate communications and synergy at CBS, then vice president of global communications at Disney Publishing Worldwide, before moving two years ago to the world of finance and her current position. “At a young age, I learned how to be disciplined and man-age my time,” she says. “Team sports also helped me develop com-munication and interpersonal skills.” But what Caputo remembers most fondly about her days on the playing field is the group dynamics. Her college teammates remain among her closest friends. “There’s such a deep bond among teammates—you really develop a one-for-all, all-for-one attitude,” she says.


How has your sports experiences helped you develop communi-cation skills like Caputo?

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ROBIN WILLIAMS

ACADEMY AWARD WINNING ACTOR COMEDIAN When Williams was in high school, he played many sports such as football, soccer, wrestling, and cross country. When he finally found him-self running cross country, he said “Wait a min-ute, this is more than just sports; it’s actually a

good kind of discipline where you’re pushing yourself and also experi-encing this kind of almost Buddhist moment on those long runs where you see no one.”

Now as an Academy Award winning actor, Williams reflects on what he learned from his cross country running experience, “The stamina you develop from sports also is a huge factor in later life. When I’m on stage, some people ask, ‘How do you go two hours?’ I say that it’s easy. Sports gives you the endurance; for me it’s a long race, not a sprint.”

To Williams, it’s a combination of intense concentration and relaxation that helps him keep going when the going gets tough. He learned these abilities as an athlete and continues to use them today.


What lessons have you learned from sports that are similar to the ones learned by Robin Williams?

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DONNA E. SHALALA

PRESIDENT UNIVERSITY OF MIAMI The daughter of a tennis champ, Shalala com-peted at a time when there were few opportuni-ties for young women. A standout softball player (one of her coaches was George Stein-brenner, now owner of the New York Yankees),

she also played tennis in college. “The biggest lesson I’ve learned in playing sports is the value of teamwork and its infinite applications,” says the former U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services.

A longtime advocate for women’s sports, she continues to spread the gospel. “All girls must be encouraged, coached, and, above all, inspired to take the field, to test the limits of their endurance, and to know the joys—and the heartache—of competition.”

The lessons Shalala learned about great teamwork from sports helped her in roles such as a U.S. Secretary and University President that require good listening and compromising.


How has your sports experiences helped you develop teamwork skills like Shalala?

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JAMES BROWN TELEVISION SPORTS ANCHOR AND RADIO HOST When Brown got cut by the Atlanta Hawks as the last rookie on the team, he explained that the coach said to him, “Well, you went to a good school, you’ll be able to do well in the game of life, but I’m going to go in a different direction.”

Brown was crushed, “My dream was not going to be realized. I had the athletic rug, figurative speaking, snatch from under my feet. I was crushed. Crushed!”

“Now fast forward well into the game of life. I’m working as a professional now, and people rightfully accuse me of being a bit of a workaholic. But it goes back to the lesson learned—that painful lesson—that I wasn’t prepared to capitalize on an opportunity when it came. I vowed never, ever to let an opportunity pass me by that I was ill prepared for, and that’s why I try to do a wide range of things.”

The lessons Brown learned about always being prepared has helped him reach the top of the sports broadcasting world, and con-tinues to drive his desire to excel.


What lessons have you learned from sports that are similar to the ones learned by James Brown?

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YOUR TOP LESSONS LEARNED AS AN ATHLETE

The following questions are designed to help you identify the suc-cesses and challenges you have faced as an athlete. On the next page, you will use this information to determine the top three lessons you have learned as an athlete.

What are the successes you have had as an athlete? What are the goals you’ve achieved as an athlete that you set for yourself? What are some of the obstacles you overcame as an athlete?

SUCCESSES & CHALLENGES

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Based on the successes and challenges you identified, list the specific behaviors you have exhib-ited as an athlete that helped you achieve your successes and goals, and overcome obstacles up to this time. Then, list the specific behaviors you should have exhibited in the past if you knew better about how to behave at that time.

What are the top three qualities you developed as an athlete that you can use throughout your life?

KEY BEHAVIORS

TOP THREE QUALITIES DEVELOPED

BEHAVIORS THAT HELPED ME BEHAVIORS I SHOULD HAVE

EXHIBITED IN THE PAST

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CHAPTER 2 The Brain-Body Connection

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THE BRAIN-BODY CONNECTION IN SPORTS

It is important for athletes to understand how the brain-body loop impacts their performance. As an athlete, you cannot just train your body in sports. You must also prepare your mind in conjunction with your body be-cause they both work seamlessly together and impact each other.

If you make a costly error during a game, you may say “I feel sick about how I did.” Before a big game, you might remind yourself to “play your guts out.” You may blush when your teammates congratulate you after getting a game-winning hit or basket. You may not be able to sleep the night before a big game because you can’t stop worrying. These feelings are exam-ples of how your brain controls your body.

Your body also has the power to control your brain: food, exercise, illness, injury, and other physical experiences affect how you feel and think. Exercise can make you feel more energized. Being injured can make you feel anxious. Even minor circumstances such as being out of breath during prac-tice can change your mood; and positive situations such as a teammate patting you on the back can give you added energy.

According to the DANA Foundation, the medical research to under-stand how the brain and body communicate has provided important insight into the different ways the brain and body are connected in constant commu-nications. As explained by Floyd Bloom, M.D., Flint Beall, M.D. and David Kupfer, M.D. in the book The DANA Guide To Brain Health, major brain research is uncovering how the brain acts as the body’s central command post in life and sports, as summarized below.

BRAIN-BODY LOOP

The brain is connected to every part of your body, and to the outside world, by a communications network of nerves and messenger chemicals. Your nerves form circuits that extend from your brain to the spinal cord and then to the far-reaches of your body. Hormones produced by your body’s glands and internal organs send messages along these nerve pathways.

The brain reads these messages by using special interpreters to trans-late them. These busy communications circuits make up what is called your “brain-body loop.”

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The brain-body loop controls the most basic things you do in your life such as sleeping, going about your daily activities, eating, training with your team, competing, and the very act of living in the world from minute to minute.

HOW YOUR SENSES HELP YOU NAVIGATE YOUR SPORT

Every day you use your senses to detect changes in your world—some good, some not—and then act on them. That includes your world of sports. If you see an opposing player coming toward you on the field, you maneuver around her. If you hear the home crowd yelling for you during a game, you start playing harder. Your ability to navigate your sport depends on your brain’s ability to detect and interpret signals and then send its own commands to parts of the body to respond.

In addition to your five major senses (sight, hearing, touch, taste and smell), the brain also works with the body to help you balance (equilibrium, monitor body positions), and keeps track of how you move (kinesthesis). Additional senses track your body temperature, blood, and hormones.

With all this sensing, it’s a surprise your brain doesn’t collapse or ex-plode. It’s a good thing that your brain is as talented at organizing informa-tion as it is at detecting it.

Immune System

Cardio. System

Endo. System

The Brain-Body Loop: The body’s main com-munications systems (immune, cardiovascular and endocrine systems) get messages from your brain through the nervous system and hormones. In turn, these systems send signals back to the brain to complete the loop.

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As you train your mind and body for competition, keep in mind that every change you make in how you think affects your body, and every change in your body affects how your think. This knowledge is vitally important to how athletes train and compete. For instance, if you feel mentally nervous and tense during competition, you can focus on relaxing different muscles in your body. This causes your body to send messages to your brain that you are not in a stressful situation and your mind starts to calm.

As you explore new ways to improve your mental performance in sports, you need to always remember the strength of your brain-body loop.

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CHAPTER 3

Athletes’ Vision: Your Brain’s Window To Your Sport

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AN ATHLETE’S VISION: YOUR MIND’S WINDOW TO YOUR SPORT

To fully understand how to develop effective mental skills in your sport, you need to learn about the primary way athletes bring information into their minds— through vision. If the quality of your sight is not appropriate for your sport, your mind is at a disadvantage because it cannot process good information.

This section explains how your vision plays an important role in your sports performance and your mind’s ability to understand what is happening. This section is an overview from the research of Thomas Wilson and Jeff Falkel published in their book SportsVision. The following will help you ex-plore how well you use your vision to bring information into your head during practice and competition.

VISION ON THE PLAYING FIELD

As Wilson and Falkel explain, most coaches think that if their athletes can see 20/20, nothing more is needed in the visual area. This misconception is common in youth to professional sports. Studies have shown that even some elite Olympic athletes have not undergone a basic visual screening, and very few are exposed to any sort of training to enhance their sports vision. Your vision is like any other motor system in the body. It can be trained and improved, just like you use drills to improve overall sports performance.

When an athlete takes the field of play, many things go through his or her head. Where is the ball? Where are my teammates? Where are the oppo-nents? How is the weather affecting the game? Probably, the last thing that enters an athlete’s mind is, “How is my vision working at this particular mo-ment in the game?” Yet athletes should be completely in tune with their vision in order to perform at their best.

Every sport involves vision in one way or another, yet very few coaches or athletes spend any time training athletes’ vision to perform well in competition. To perform at the highest levels, you have to be in tune with two important areas of visual skills: your visual motor skills and visual perceptual skills.

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VISUAL MOTOR SKILLS

Visual motor skills are probably the easiest ones to relate to sports performance. If athletes cannot move (motor) their eyes quickly and effectively, they cannot perform sports tasks well. In fact, if physical skills are equal, one difference between good and elite-level athletes can be that elite athletes move their eyes more effectively and efficiently for the duration of the game. There are three basic visual motor skills that are important for all athletic perform-ance: tracking, focusing, and crossing.

TRACKING

Tracking is the eyes’ ability to follow an object from one point to an-other. Tracking is done in two ways. The first is the ability of your eyes to smoothly follow an object through space, as when a wide receiver follows the ball from the quarterback to his hands. The second is the quick jump of the eyes from one point to another. After making the catch, the wide receiver has his eyes jump to another part of the field to see who is going to try to tackle him. FOCUSING

Focusing is the ability to quickly, easily, and accurately look at some-thing close to you from something far way. This skill is necessary for a player to pay attention to a specific object or area on the field. Training your vision can help you perform this focusing task with less fatigue. CROSSING AND UNCROSSING

This is the ability to accurately cross and uncross your eyes, which allows you to maintain single vision (like a binocular) from near to far and from far to near. Crossing is when your eyes move inward and uncrossing is when they move outward again. This allows you to shift the distance at which your eyes are aiming quickly, easily and accurately, as when a batter follows a softball from pitcher’s hand to home plate.

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VISUAL PERCEPTION SKILLS

Another important area is called visual perception. Athletes need to concentrate on the ball, the position of their teammates, and where an oppo-nent is playing while ignoring the distractions that occur during competition.

For example, a shortstop needs the ability to remain focused on catch-ing the ball, looking to see where the runners are, and being aware of where the second baseman is in relation to the bag. Because the shortstop has practiced a particular play over and over again, she can focus on making the catch, without deliberately looking at all the other activities going on around her during the game. Her visual perception skills have been trained and allow her to perform effortlessly.

The following are examples of visual perception skills that help your mind know what is happening when practicing and executing plays.

EYE-HAND AND EYE-FOOT COORDINATION

By simply participating in a sport, you naturally improve your sports skills, or you may stop playing that sport altogether. While excellent coordina-tion between eyes and hands is critical to most sports, athletes must also have outstanding eye-foot coordination to get into the best position to use their eye-hand coordination. Eye-foot coordination includes balance and agility which are important for all sports. VISUALIZATION

Visualization is the ability to see an image or scene in your mind. This key skill is necessary for consistent performance and concentration. Visualiza-tion can include important tasks such as remembering the patterns of a play in football, or the sequence of turning a double play in baseball. DIRECTIONALITY

Directionality is the ability to quickly and accurately perceive left and right and to project left and right out into space. This seemingly simple skill can become very difficult in stressful situations. By concentrating and working on developing a better sense of direction, you will find that simple left and right decisions can be made more efficiently and quickly under the stress of competition. Athletes who are aware of left and right become increasingly aware of their own bodies. Improving your sense of direction also improves your balance and field awareness.

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SEQUENCING

Sequencing is the ability to organize visual information in a given or-der. Sequencing helps you organize instructions, plays and events during the game. It also helps you attain and organize information you see. Through this ability, you can see the greatest amount of information in the shortest amount of time. Sequencing also helps you effectively remember images such as com-plex play diagrams.

THE BOTTOMLINE

If you can perform the visual skills well, as explained in this section, you will consistently be able to bring information from the world around you into your head so your mind can process good information about the sports action instead of bad information that can cause mental and physical errors.

DEVELOP YOUR SPORTS VISION ABILITIES

If you are looking for an innovative way to improve your mental and athletic performance on the field, vision training may be one answer. The book SportsVision: Train-ing for Better Performance by Thomas Wilson and Jeff Falkel outlines a program to teach athletes to see the ball, the field, teammates, and the opposition better, giving them the ability to perform well.

This book provides athletes, coaches and parents with more than 50 sports vision training exercises and activities. The exercises are sport specific and easy to use at home, on the field, or in the weight room. Visual needs and training exercises are provided for 17 different sports.

To buy SportsVision, please visit the online book store at A Talented Mind at www.atalentedmind.com

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CHAPTER 4 Mental Performance Basics

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MENTAL FACTORS THAT AFFECT PERFORMANCE

There are two basic elements of how your mind influences your ath-letic performance that are explained in this chapter. The first is how you choose to focus your attention in a way that is appropriate to the action at hand. The other is how you control your mind and body to behave in ways appropriate to your sport. These two mental factors are critical starting points to understanding the most basic parts of how your mind works in sports and what you must control to be successful.

FOCUSING ATTENTION INSIDE & OUTSIDE YOUR HEAD

The previous chapter explained how important your sense of vision is in helping your mind follow and respond to the action around you. Beyond your sense of vision, you make decisions every second about what and how you need to pay attention at that moment.

Every sport requires athletes to focus their attention in different ways. For instance, a golfer needs more narrow focus outside his head to pay attention to a small white golf ball; while a soccer player needs to use a broader focus out-side his head to see the whole playing field and anticipate how plays will un-fold. As explained below, there are three basic ways—Narrow, Wide, Ana-lytic— any athlete can focus his attention in any given moment:

• Narrow: Narrow Focus Outside Your Head— Narrow focus enables athletes

to pay attention to small details, objects, people or movements outside their head, such as: focusing only on a softball being thrown from the pitcher or only on the player you are guarding. When focusing narrowly, however, you are less aware of other things going on around you (wide view) and the thoughts inside your head (analytic focus) which can result in errors.

• Wide: Broad Focus Outside Your Head— Wide focus enables athletes to be

aware of many things going on in the world around them such as: observing how different players are positioned, how the play is evolving, and the signal the coach is calling from the sidelines. When you have a wide view of what is happening, however, you are less aware of details (narrow focus) and the thoughts in-side your head (analytic focus) which can result in errors.

• Analytic: Focus Inside Your Head— Analytic focus enables athletes to pay

attention inside their heads to analyze situations and solve problems such as: developing game strategies, determining moves that will avoid defenses, or figuring out how to improve a faulty jump shot. When you analyze things inside your head, however, you are less aware of what is going on outside her head (narrow and wide focus) which can result in errors.

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SHIFTING YOUR ATTENTION

Most athletes have one preferred way they like to focus their attention among the three methods explained. When athletes are under moderate pres-sure in practice or competition, they can usually shift their focus among the three styles without getting locked into using just one. For instance, one min-ute you are focused on dribbling a ball (narrow focus); then you notice defend-ers approaching (wide focus); and quickly think about a way to allude the de-fenders (analytic focus); then you focus again on the ball (narrow focus); and stay aware of how well you alluded your defenders (wide focus).

When pressure is high, athletes often stop shifting among the differ-ent ways of focusing attention and start using the one they prefer the most, which may or may not be appropriate to the situation. For instance, if you prefer to focus inside your head to analyze situations, you may start analyzing a problem (analytic focus) when you really need to be focusing on how well you are dibbling a ball in play (narrow focus). Not using the right type of focus can lead to performance errors.

By understanding your most preferred way of focusing your attention (either narrow, wide, or analytic), you can anticipate and control how you shift your attention in high pressure situations instead of getting locked into using just one style.

CONTROLLING YOUR BEHAVIOR

Excellence in sports requires discipline to control your mind and body in ways that are appropriate to your sport. For instance, basketball requires players to make very fast decisions; while golf requires slower, more deliberate decision making. If a basketball player likes to think a lot before making a de-cision or a golfer wants to quickly hit the ball without considering the best ap-proach, these players will not control their behavior appropriately to be suc-cessful. The following explains three factors that influence how well you con-trol your behavior in practice, competition, and other parts of your life. PROCESSING INFORMATION

Some athletes like a lot of action and information coming at them all of the time because their minds are good at multi-tasking. Other athlete’s like a slower pace. These two types need to be in sports that match the level of action and information their minds can process.

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For instance, the athletes who like a lot of action prefer fast-paced sports, such as basketball, tennis and soccer, in which they have to process a lot of information. While the athletes who like to process less information and need a slower pace gravitate to sports such as golf, diving and baseball.

You need to also be aware of how your preference for a busy life in general can hinder you as an athlete:

• If you like a more fast-paced life, you have to make sure you stay disci-

plined to your sport and not get distracted by people and situations that are less important to your sport. Some athletes who like a fast-pace create an overly busy life for themselves (school, work, family, friendships and sports) that causes them to avoid the basic preparation needed in their sport.

• If you like a slow-paced life, you have to make sure you don’t try to create

a slower pace in your athletics by avoiding certain activities such as talking with your coach and teammates, or practicing more for competition.

FOLLOWING RULES AND TAKING RISKS

To be successful, athletes need to follow the rules established by their coaches, team, officials and the league. By playing within the rules, athletes develop discipline and avoid taking risks that have a high degree of failure. However, at times, athletes need to play outside the rules and take some calcu-lated risks that have a high likelihood of success.

For instance, a softball pitcher and catcher may have an agreed upon sequence of curve balls and rise balls that they will throw to specific hitters. Consequently, hitters come to expect that sequence and wait for one specific pitch they know is coming. When the pitcher sees a hitter sitting on a specific pitch, she may decide to surprise the hitter with something unexpected but only throw that unexpected pitch when it will not significant hurt her team. The pitcher decides not to follow the rules and changes the pitch sequence to create an element of surprise in lower-risk situations.

There are times, however, when athletes can act too impulsive and make critical mental errors. For example, during an important basketball game, a point-guard makes effective passes for most of the game. With two minutes left in the game and the score even, the guard is extremely tired and stressed. He starts making bad, impulsive passes that are stolen and result in his team losing. Throughout the season, the same player continues to make the same impulsive mistake when he gets tired at the end of games.

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These two examples illustrate the need to control your behavior so you know when to follow the rules or work outside of them to take appropri-ate risks that give you a competitive edge. SPEED OF YOUR DECISION MAKING

As mentioned, each sport requires athletes to make decisions at differ-ent speeds. The faster the pace of competition and the more head-to-head clashes between offense and defense in games, the faster you need to make decisions in your sport. Therefore, you need to consider how your decision-making style helps or hinders you from performing the fundamentals needed to be successful. You need to first identify the speed by which your sport re-quires you to make decisions based on three options:

• Slow speed enables you to think and prepare extensively before you act

such as in golf and diving.

• Moderate speed means you have periods of preparation and action in sports such as baseball, softball and football. The time between the prepa-ration and action is shorter than in golf and diving.

• Fast speed requires you to think in the middle of the action with very few preparation periods such as in basketball, lacrosse and soccer.

After you identify the decision-making speed required in your sport, you need to reflect on how comfortable you feel making decisions either slow, moderate or fast. If you don’t feel comfortable with what is required, you should think of ways to better adapt your decision-making style to your sport, or experiment playing other sports that may better fit your speed of decision-making.

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CHAPTER 5 Filling The Emotional Tank

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USING COMMUNICATIONS TO FILL EMOTIONAL TANKS

Athletes and teams have to rely heavily on what’s called their “emotional tank,” which is the level of positive energy they have stored inside themselves to be motivated and to compete. To keep the emotional tank filled, athletes need to have supportive relationships with different people and groups such as coaches, team members, trainers, parents, schools, leagues, and officials. To develop these relationships, you need to be a good communicator.

There are three different types of communications you can use with other people: Support and Encouragement, Criticism and Anger, or Ideas. Each type impacts how athletes create relationships with others and how they fill other people’s and their own emotional tanks. These types of communications can also be misused at the wrong time to demotivate athletes and entire teams. That’s why many coaches want to select players who can add positively to a team’s dynamics through the way they communicate and conduct themselves. Coaches avoid players who can suck the energy out of a team by always com-municating negativity, apathy and anger.

The following explains the three types of communications you and others can use to fill everyone’s emotional tank.

COMMUNICATING SUPPORT AND ENCOURAGEMENT

An important way athletes and coaches communicate something sup-portive is by creating positive goals for themselves and others that they discuss together. If the goals are compelling and reachable, they are motivating.

To reach these goals, athletes and teams also need the support of other people. You can communicate your support for teammates and coaches by doing the following:

• Cheering them on • Pointing out what they did well • Offering to help with a problem • Calming them down when they put too much pressure on themselves

By communicating your support, you fill the emotional tanks of your teammates and send a clear message that they can rely on you.

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Your expression of support, however, needs to be genuine. Telling a teammate that she “did well” when it is untrue will make your support seem hollow. Telling a teammate that “mistakes and slumps are natural and experienced by everyone” and offering your help will make your support credible and uplifting. Remember, one of the most powerful impacts of communicating support is that you help teammates feel included and safe. One of the worst things team-mates can do to each other is to make someone feel excluded because of his or her performance.

COMMUNICATING CRITICISM AND ANGER

Athletes can be very critical of themselves and others because they are constantly evaluating performances. If done effectively, criticism can help ath-letes improve and compete at higher levels. However, significant criticism and anger toward an athlete can become destructive and make the athlete feel help-less. Helplessness is something an athletes should never be made to feel by teammates, coaches or parents.

If you are too critical and angry at a teammate and attack him person-ally for a poor performance, you will drain his emotional tank which will nega-tively affect the whole team. If you use criticism to point out how he can im-prove and offer assistance (compared to personal attacks), you create a chal-lenging and supportive relationship.

Sometimes athletes are frustrated by their own performance or an op-ponents, and take their anger out on teammates, coaches, and officials without owning their own feelings. You need to always be aware of how you are ex-pressing feelings of anger and frustration because you can demoralize team-mates instead of filling their emotional tanks. To help yourself during the times you are angry and want to be overly critical, you need to ask yourself “How can I view this situation differently so I help my teammates and not de-flate them and myself by getting too angry?”

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COMMUNICATING IDEAS

When people share ideas, they are communicating non-emotional information such as training techniques, game strategy, and equipment ideas. Athletes and people in general sometimes use the discussion of ideas to com-pete and argue with each other. Have you ever discussed something with a teammate, such as a game rule, and started arguing about who is right and wrong to a point where you are both angry? If so, you moved quickly from discussing a simple game rule (non-emotional issue) to competing with each other personally (emotional).

Competing over ideas (who is right and wrong) can create unnecessary conflicts with coaches, teammates and officials. You can tell a discussion over an idea has moved from being constructive to competitive when you notice anger and negative emotions. It’s amazing how a discussion about who is the greatest athlete of all times can turn into a raging argument with hurt feelings.

When People Use Ideas To Keep Other Teammates Down

Most teams have a hierarchy, or pecking order, based on who is the best athletically, more senior, or socially accepted. The players or coaches at the top of the team’s food-chain may use how ideas are discussed to keep other players down and in their place.

For example, a player who is not as accepted by her teammates shares an idea during a team meeting. The other players and coach criticize her idea. Then, later in the discussion, one of the best players on the team expresses the same idea and everyone agrees. This is another form of unconscious team competition that is used to keep certain players in their place.

This type of communications can have a negative impact on teamwork because some players feel left out. Remember, a whole team is needed to win throughout a whole season, so everyone needs to feel included and valued.

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EFFECTIVE LEADERSHIP FILLS EMOTIONAL TANKS

Being a leader in your sport can be an effective way to fill people’s emotional tanks and keep them motivated. Team leadership, however, can be a double-edged sword. According to the sports psychologist Robert Nideffer, “Effective leaders in sports are generally directive but the best ones learn how to be directive without losing their cool and making their teammates feel bul-lied. While athletes who want to lead can significantly help a team, their driv-ing force to lead can also be harmful if they do not control themselves.”

As explained below, most athletes who want to lead must understand their need to control other people and situations, and understand their level of self-confidence (the belief that their way is best and they can rely on them-selves). TEAM LEADERS HAVE A NEED TO CONTROL OTHERS

Some athletes have a greater need to control other people and situa-tions. These athletes typically want to be team leaders. Effective team leaders can positively control others by being good role models; being supportive; pro-viding constructive feedback; and sharing ideas openly. Athletes who can manage their own need to control in order to be motivational are effective leaders.

Athletes who have too high a need to control are often impatient and have authority conflicts with coaches, teammates and officials. They often get into trouble because they are unable to compromise. Because of frequent con-frontations, these athletes are often not selected for teams, avoided by team-mates, or kicked off teams. TEAM LEADERS HAVE SELF-CONFIDENCE Sports competition puts unique pressure on athletes:

You train intensely through long seasons; compete head-to-head against competitors; perform in-front of other people; and have your performance constantly measured and evaluated.

For athletes who have confidence in themselves, these are wonderful

challenges and opportunities. For those with low self-confidence, sports can be emotionally draining and an extreme roller-coaster of highs and lows.

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An athlete with self-confidence believes he is competent in his sport and is a good athlete and person. Someone with low self-confidence believes he is not as good an athlete and person compared to others, and does not trust his ability to perform well in different situations.

Your self-confidence is developed through your experiences in differ-ent situations throughout your life and through feedback from other people. Athletes who have successful experiences working toward a goal and get posi-tive support from others learn that they can trust themselves in different situa-tions. Athletes who have not put their experiences into perspective as positive growth opportunities do not trust themselves. They also develop a more global belief that they are not competent athletes or people.

In short, your belief in yourself provides the mental and emotional reserve you need to train hard, compete head-to-head, continually improve, and feel good about your efforts. And, most of all, it’s an important quality for team leaders who need to be effective role models.

Confidence in yourself is like a strong wind at your back. If you have low self-confidence, you have limited mental and emotional reserves to fall back on to help you cope with the struggles of sports and team leadership.

SELF-CRITICISM IMPACTS YOUR EMOTIONAL TANK

As explained, athletes tend to be a critical bunch. They are always looking for ways to improve. While athletes need to be critical of their per-formance, they can sometimes take it too far. Some athletes go beyond criti-cizing a skill that needs improving and start criticizing themselves personally. How you criticize yourself impacts how much you fill or drain your emotional tank.

For instance, a 1,500 meter runner who needs to improve her speed during the final 100 meters of her races can tell herself “I keep losing races during the final 100 meters. I seem to be getting worse not better. I let people beat me this year who I used to dominate. I should give up. In one year I went from a winner to a loser. I’m just no good anymore. I fail at everything I do.”

If this athlete was going to give herself healthy criticism instead of criticizing herself personally, she would say, “In my last three races, I got beat during the final 100 meters. I don’t like being out-raced. I need to improve my final 100-meter speed. I am going to set a training schedule to do it. I am going to ask my coach to help me.”

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Notice the difference between the two ways the athlete used self-criticism. In the first example, her criticism turned personal. She started cut-ting into her own positive self-image as a person. This is very unhealthy for anyone and emotionally draining. It also keeps people from improving and having the self-confidence needed to master new skills.

The second example was more appropriate and healthy for the athlete. She identified a need and specific things she was going to do (that were totally in her control) to improve her final 100-meter speed. She didn’t criticize her-self as a person. She kept her criticism in perspective and decided to set a training schedule to improve.

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CHAPTER 6 Mental Performance Under Pressure

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EFFECTS OF PRESSURE ON PERFORMANCE

Pressure and stress on athletes can be very motivating or can keep them from performing up to potential. The pressure athletes experience al-ways starts with an event. It could be a coach yelling at you; a mistake you made; an arch rival taking the lead in a game; or losing to an opponent you should have beaten.

You may also relive the pressure from an event that happened in the past during a game or from missing a week of practice and feeling unprepared. You may even feel pressure thinking about an event that may happen in the future during a crucial competition.

Whether the event is in the past, present or future, your mind and body can perceive it as threatening. When you feel stress from an event that you believe is threatening, your mind and body try to balance out the pressure by using very basic coping strategies: You instinctively want to either fight or flee from the threat.

Your mind and body cannot always tell how big the threat really is. Sometimes you may experience a small event that causes you to react as if it is life threatening. For instance, when you start playing a tie-breaker at the end of a tennis match, your mind may react so quickly to the situation that it sends a warning to your body to prepare for a threat. Your body may not immedi-ately know if the threat is an approaching lion attacking you or a tie-breaker so it prepares to react by pumping blood, hormones and other chemicals throughout your body to prepare for combat (fight) or to run for your life (give up).

The following sections explain the different ways athletes can respond to pressure and effectively use it as a motivator to play better instead of mak-ing errors. THREE WAYS ATHLETES REACT TO PRESSURE

As the chart on the next page illustrates, when you feel a lot of pres-sure, you have three different ways you can respond. Two out of the three ways will cause you to over-react to the situation and lose your ability to be flexible in competition. Only by remaining mentally centered can your mind and body remain flexible enough to respond to the challenge at hand.

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MENTALLY CENTERED

Remaining Flexible

You do not over-react, which enables you to stay

focused & adaptable

YOU CAN REACT TO PRESSURE IN ONE OF THREE WAYS

MAD & ANGRY

Over-React

You are more likely to become distracted &

make mental and physical errors

PASSIVE & QUITTING

Over-React

You are more likely to become distracted &

make mental and physical errors

STAYING CENTERED HELPS CONTROL YOUR AROUSAL LEVEL

As an athlete, you are centered when your mind and body are both in the best position to perform well together—you are not distracted and nothing keeps you from concentrating on what needs to be done in the present moment.

When you are centered, the feelings in your body, called your arousal level, are appropriate to the situation you are in. The feelings of arousal you need to be aware of include: the speed of your heart beating; how fast you are breathing; and the tension in your muscles. Some people refer to arousal as how “pumped up” you need to be to perform a particular skill.

Some skills require you to be more aroused (pumped up) than others. For instance, running a long-distance race requires you to be calmer (steady heart rate and breathing, and muscles relaxed for endurance) than running a 100-meter race (faster heart rate and breathing, and muscles ready to explode) which requires more controlled excitement. When your arousal is appropriate to the situation, it helps you focus and respond to the challenge at hand.

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Your feelings of being centered do not mean your mental and physical arousal will be the same in every performance situation. It won't. You use the process of centering to adjust your arousal level so it matches what’s required at the moment.

Your own performance history can teach you how aroused you need to be to perform at your best in different situations. You can also use the scale below to help you understand what your mental and physical arousal needs to be for different activities. For instance, you may need to be at a Level 4: Some-what Excited in one game situation or skill and Level 2: Somewhat Aroused in an-other.

Football blocking and tackling 100 meter race 200 and 400 meter races Weight lifting Shot putting

Long jumping Sprinting Swimming races Wrestling and judo

Most basketball skills Boxing High jumping Most gymnastic skills Most soccer skills Middle distance races Baseball pitching and hitting Diving Fencing Football quarterbacking Tennis Archery and bowling Basketball free throws Football field-goal kicking Golf putting and short irons

Resting or leisure activity

LEVEL 5 Extremely Excited But Under Control

LEVEL 4 Somewhat Excited But Under Control

LEVEL 3 Aroused But Not

Quite Excited

LEVEL 2 Somewhat Aroused

LEVEL 1 Slightly Aroused

LEVEL 0 Normal State

SPORT SKILLS

AROUSAL LEVELS NEEDED FOR DIFFERENT SPORT SKILLS

Arousal Level Chart

This chart illustrates the different types of arousal levels needed to perform specific athletic skills. If your arousal is higher or lower than what is needed for any skill, you may not perform that skill as success-ful as possible. This chart is only a general summary to illustrate the importance of gearing your arousal level to specific skills you need to perform.

Source: Michael Clarkson,

Competitive Fire

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OVER-REACTING TO PRESSURE CAUSES ERRORS

When an athlete over-reacts (becomes too excited mentally and physi-cally) to a high pressure situation and gets overly mad or wants to give up, she is likely to become distracted while trying to cope with the stress she is feeling. When you are distracted, you are not paying attention to “what needs to be done in the present moment” which makes you less effective and can result in errors. There are three different ways you can become distracted as explained below. Most athletes have a tendency to become distracted in one or a variety of the three ways.

DISTRACTED BY THINGS GOING ON AROUND YOU

Some athletes become distracted by the many activities, people and noises around them. For instance, your team may be huddled around its coach at half-time getting instructions and, instead of listening, you are:

• Looking into the stands for people you know, or • Trying to find the source of loud yelling on the other side of the field, or • Watching an approaching rain cloud

The result of being distracted is that you don’t listen to your coach

and don’t follow directions which can cause you to make errors in the game. Being distracted by things going on around you can occur before, during and after competition, and it takes you away from what needs to be done in the present moment. DISTRACTED BY THOUGHTS INSIDE YOUR HEAD

Some athletes become distracted by thoughts inside their head and stop paying attention to the action going on around them. For instance, dur-ing the end of a close game, you make an error that costs your team the lead. While there is time left to make a comeback, you keep thinking about the er-ror: “Why did I make that mistake? I don’t like my coach yelling at me. Are my team-mates angry at me? I blew it again. I always do that. Remember the last game that hap-pened? I let people down. I am a terrible player. I’ll never start another game.”

You are having all of these thoughts inside your head while the game is still going on because you are trying to think through the stress you are feel-ing. By doing so, you lose focus on the action and can make another error; just what you don’t want to happen.

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DISTRACTED BY FOCUSING ON ONE THING TOO LONG

Some athletes become distracted by focusing on one single thing too long and not shifting their attention to what is needed at the moment. This narrow focus on the wrong thing at the wrong time keeps athletes from being flexible enough to pay attention to the action.

For instance, suppose you are fouled badly during a basketball game and you become mad (over-react). All you can think about is the player who fouled you and how you are going to get back at him. Your eyes follow him on the court. Your attention is only focused on the right moment to foul him back. You finally see that moment as he drives for a lay-up and you swing your arm violently down on him for a foul. Then, you still can’t let go of the situation and start yelling at the player and the referee calls a technical foul on you.

Your narrow, inflexible focus on the one player cost your team two fouls and took you away from playing your position. You took yourself out of your team’s game plan by becoming too focused on one thing for too long without shifting your attention.

CONQUERING THE NEGATIVE PERFORMANCE CYCLE

When you make an error in competition or feel under pressure, you can mentally and physically plunge yourself into what’s called a negative per-formance cycle, which can result in more errors. Here is how the negative performance cycle works:

STEP 1

You make an error and over respond to it

STEP 2

You have self-doubts & negative

thinking

STEP 3

You become distracted from what you need to

do

STEP 4

You make another error

STEP 5

You go back to Step 1 and start the cycle all over

again NEGATIVE

PERFORMANCE CYCLE

Source: Enhanced Performance Systems

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Let’s suppose you make a bad pass during a basketball game that causes a turnover. To cope with your error, you start thinking about it inside your head and start worrying. You then become distracted from the game be-cause you are worrying inside your head thinking about what just happened. This distraction causes you to make another error which plunges you into an-other negative cycle of worry, distraction and more errors. BREAKING FREE FROM THE NEGATIVE CYCLE

To break free of the negative performance cycle before, during and after competitions and practices, you can use three different methods to center yourself:

METHOD 1: PREVIEW YOUR PERFORMANCE

When competing, some athletes feel unprepared, as if they are experi-encing the situation for the first time. While they know how to execute basic skills, they have difficulty reading situations in competition which can make them feel stressed and worried. One solution is to make sure everything about a competition feels very familiar. You need to develop the mental approach be-fore games that helps you feel as if each game situation is one in which you ex-perienced before.

One technique you can use to totally prepare your mind and body for competition is called previewing. Imagine that you are going on vacation next week to a place you always dreamed about. Before you start your vacation, you imagine all of the great things you are going to do and how wonderful you will feel. This is an example of previewing an ideal experience you want to create, and this same method can be used in sports.

Previewing can be a powerful method to prepare for games by imagin-ing the ideal performance you want to create. You can also imagine yourself in a game situation you fear and visualize yourself effectively responding to that situation. In short, you need to imagine all of the details of the performance you want to create so, when you are in competition, everything seems familiar.

Research has shown that, when your mind previews a performance, your body is also reacting to the situation you are imagining. Even though you can’t feel the small twitching of muscles during a visualization, your body is still previewing a competition in unison with your mind.

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GUIDE TO GOOD PREVIEWING

• Get your body into a relaxed position, and play soft music in the background

• First, start focusing on your breathing

• Breath slowly in through your nose and out through your mouth

• Breath deeply so you fill up your lungs, and fully exhale

• Start visualizing the performance you want to create for a game or match

• Visualize the full game experience from the time you are getting dressed for competition to the time you arrive back home

• Use all of your senses when you visualize the performance:

What do you see happening?

What do you smell?

What are you touching and what does it feel like?

What do you hear?

What do you taste?

• By visualizing with all of your senses, you totally immerse yourself into every aspect of the performance you want to create

• You can visualize the perfect performance on one occasion during a week, and visualize yourself successfully responding to an error or difficult situa-tion during another previewing session that same week

• Visualize before games and practices

• Visualize your ideal performance at least three times a week and on the day of a competition

A CD THAT HELPS YOU PREVIEW

If you selected a sports-specific visualization to accom-pany this workbook, you can use it to preview your per-formance in practice and competition. Your CD in-cludes four different visualizations: Sports-specific practice visualization, sports-specific competition visualization, standard relaxation visualization, and an extended relaxation visualiza-

tion. Please take the time needed each day to use the visualizations to prepare for practices, competition, and to relax. If you want to order a visualization CD, please email A Talented Mind at [email protected], or visit our website at www.atalentedmind.com.

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METHOD 2: BODY SENSING

The body sensing method in sports was developed by the elite running coach Danny Dreyer and is a highly effective way for your mind and body to break free from a potential negative performance cycle that can cause errors. As Dreyer explains, body sensing is the act of feeling what’s going on inside your body. When you swing your leg while running, what does it feel like? Does it feel right? Could it feel better, easier, smoother, more relaxed? When you take any action, body sensing is the voice of your body.

When your mind gives a directive to your body, it will respond with a movement, and body sensing will tell you the effectiveness of that response. Body sensing tells you when you’re working too hard or not enough. It can tell you when to add some muscle to what you are doing and when to take it away.

When things are not going well in competition or practice and you feel stressed, you can use body sensing to focus yourself on the one thing you can totally control—the way your body moves to maintain good technique. When athletes feel stressed, their technique usually falters because they are in-side their heads worrying. By focusing your attention on your body and check-ing to make sure you are using good technique, you are better linking your mind and body.

You are also using the focus on your body to calm your mind. For in-stance, if you are running a race and get a cramp in your stomach, you can focus your attention on relaxing all of your muscles and joints from head to foot and making sure you maintain good technique. Relaxing your muscles and focusing on technique calms your body and mind and focuses your attention on things you can control. It can also keep your body from tensing up until the cramp disappears.

When things are not going well in games and practice, use body sensing to focus your mind on how your body is positioned and moving to perform key fundamentals. This will help you focus only on what you can control and maintain a good link between your mind and body. METHOD 3: CONTROLLING YOUR AROUSAL LEVEL THROUGH RELAXATION

Pacing yourself by controlling how much mental, emotional and physi-cal energy you use during competition is critical to success. If you’re always pumped up with rapid breathing, a fast heart rate, and tense muscles, you will wear yourself down like sandpaper on wood, and run out of gas.

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Good pacing requires you to gauge your arousal level (see page 43) to the skill you need to perform in game situations. You can do so by pacing your-self before, during and after competition by using relaxation techniques.

Your body and mind perform best when they are relaxed. This doesn’t mean, obviously, that you have to be so relaxed you fall asleep. The more ap-propriately flexible and calm your body and mind are in any given situation (even those that call for quick and explosive action) the better they can work together.

You can use many techniques as an athlete that help you stay calm and focused during two key moments, which are great opportunities to pace your-self:

• Breaks in the action (such as during timeouts in basketball or between innings

in baseball), or

• Before each play (such as the moments before each serve in tennis) The basic objective of relaxation is to calm your heart rate, breathing

and muscle tension to help your mind and body recover between the action, or maintain the proper arousal to perform specific skills successfully during the action.

A CD THAT HELP RELAXATION & CONTROL STRESS

If you selected a sports-specific visualization to accom-pany this workbook, you can use it to effectively relax before and after competitions. Your CD includes four different visualizations in which two are geared to help you relax from the pressures of competition and practice. Please take the time needed each day to use the visualiza-tions to relax from the stress of competition. If you want

to order a visualization CD, please email A Talented Mind at [email protected], or visit our website at www.atalentedmind.com.

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REACTION TO STRESS IN THE BRAIN: The stress response evolved as the body’s way of identifying potential threats, deciding how to re-spond and remembering when and where the danger occurred. The hypothalamus directs the release of stress hormones from the adrenal glands. Adrenaline is released first, Cortisol follows, produced in response to prompting by ACTH, a stress hor-mone secreted by the pituitary. The brain also releases endorphins, pain killing hormones. THE AMYGDALA: Sends nerve impulses, setting off fear and the “fight or flight” response and cementing memories of how and where the danger occurred.

A SYSTEM DESIGNED TO COPE WITH PRESSURE & STRESS The body’s stress response is protective under moderate pressure and short periods of intense stress. But the same system can cause damage and illness when subjected to long-term stress, either physical or psycho-logical.

ADRENAL GLANDS: Stress hormones adrenaline and cortisol are released.

CIRCULATION: Heart rate and blood pressure increase, sending oxygen to muscles. Blood vessels constrict to reduce bleeding; fibrinogen is released to speed up clotting.

BREATHING: Lungs take in more oxy-gen, which helps keep the brain alert.

GIRDING FOR ACTION Stored glucose is tapped for energy along with fatty acids from stored fats. The immune system sends immune cells where they are needed to fight patho-gens DIVERTING RESOURCES Some body functions are put off; In acute stress, digestion is slowed; during severe or prolonged stress, the repro-ductive system is suppressed.

HARMED BY STRESS

Chronic or severe stress overloads the stress system, disrupting its normal rhythms. Elevated cortisol levels can cause bone loss, increase abdominal fat, damage memory cells in the hippo-campus or stop production of new hippocampal neu-rons and interfere with immune function. Too much adrenaline keeps blood pressure elevated and can damage vessels in heart and brain and lead to hardening of arteries.

Pituitary Gland

1

2 4

5

3

Source: The Dana Foundation

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CHAPTER 7 Mental Success During Practice

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YOUR MENTAL APPROACH TO PRACTICES

When people think about developing mental skills for sports, they of-ten believe that those skills are needed only in game situations. Success in sports is based on how well an athlete is prepared to compete. In most cir-cumstances, the best prepared athlete or team wins more consistently. So, it is extremely important that you have the best mental approach to your practices, as you do your games. The following explains some ways you can use effective mental skills to make practice more effective. DEVELOPING RESILIENCE—THE KEY TO SUSTAINED SUCCESS

When athletes practice their sport, they have an expectation about how their practice performance should be. Some athletes believe that they need to be as effective in practice as they are in games. When athletes learn or develop a skill, their performance in practice is not meant to be perfect. That’s why it is call “practice.” But some athletes believe that they need to always feel on top of their game during each practice session or they think it’s an indi-cation that they will not play well in competition.

This belief creates a faulty expectation that works against athletes. As the chart on the next page illustrates, an athlete experiences many ups and downs over the course of any practice session. One minute she feels great when running sprints and the next minute she struggles during a long run.

While you may be uncomfortable with the struggles you experience during practice, working through those struggles teaches you one of the most important mental skills in sports—the skill of resilience.

When endurance athletes (such as runners, swimmers and cyclists) talk about their sport, they emphasize that performance requires a great deal of “suffering.” They explain that, during training sessions, they have to work through many challenges and moments of suffering to prepare for the strain of competition. In other words, the coping skills they learn when enduring the strains of practice help them cope with suffering during competitions.

As an athlete, you need to view moments during practice that are not going well as positive times during which you can develop the coping skill of resilience.

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KNOWING WHY YOU ARE PRACTICING

Athletes often practice without fully understanding why they are per-forming specific drills. They have gotten into the routine of “just doing reps, or just doing laps, or just doing miles” without understanding what those reps, laps and miles are really trying to achieve in the way they build strength, speed, quickness and technique. If your mind doesn’t understand why you are doing something during training, it cannot properly prepare you for competition.

Athletes need to first understand what type of skill development is important to their coaches. Coaches are responsible for evaluating a player’s or team’s performance and identifying development needs. Coaches may, at times, develop training sessions without fully explaining the development goals that will be achieved. You need to always ask about the “whys” and “desired outcomes” of each training session so your mind can put the effort into per-spective.

USE RESILIENCE TO GET THE MOST FROM PRACTICES

Personal Resilience Needed

PERFORMANCE LEVEL

High

Medium

Low

PRACTICE SESSION Start Finish

Starting Line

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GIVE YOURSELF TIME TO PRACTICE

All athletes have many demands on their time other than sports. In order to juggle those demands, athletes sometime feel rushed to “get practice in” or “ get practice over with” and not allow enough time to train well.

When you feel rushed in practice, you may not perform drills at the right pace or with the best technique. Drills that are not performed effectively should not be performed at all. There is no reason to train the wrong way.

So make sure you give yourself time to train and not feel rushed. Make adjustments to your schedule so training is not squeezed in and rushed. Finally, if you do have to squeeze in a practice session, try to do less during that session so you can do it well, and not feel like you have to pack a lot of drills into a brief time period. PRACTICE MENTAL SKILLS

Most athletes focus on training their bodies during practice and don’t realize that they are also training their minds as well. To get the most out of training sessions, you need to consciously practice many of the mental skills explained in this workbook such as previewing (page 46), body sensing and relaxation (page 48). The more you practice mental skills, the more routine they will be during competition.

One place to start is by understanding how well you cope with the pressure you feel before, during and after competition. You can use the ques-tionnaire on the next page to evaluate your mental tendencies and identify one or two areas you want to improve and develop during practice.

On the next page are several statements that athletes use to describe their mental state before and after competition. Read each statement and check the appropriate box to the right of the statement that indicates how you feel. There are no right or wrong answers. Complete the “before each compe-tition” section before each game or match, and the “after each competition” section after each game. After you complete both sections for a competition, review all of your answers for that game then answer the questions on page 56 which will help you identify mental skills you need to practice.

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BEFORE EACH COMPETITION

1. I am concerned about this competition

2. I have a strong mental image of the performance I want to create during this game.

3. I know the things I need to focus on during this game that are totally in my control.

4. I am concerned if my team will win or lose this game.

5. I am concerned that I may not do as well in this competi-tion as I could.

6. I have self-doubts.

7. My body feels tense.

8. I feel confident in myself.

AFTER EACH COMPETITION

1. By competing in this game, I learned positive things about myself.

2. My performance during the game was the way I imagined it would be before competition.

3. I experienced pressure during the game that caused me to make errors.

4. When I was under pressure during the game, I focused only on what I could control to perform well.

Not At All

■

■

■

■

■

■

■

■

■ ■

■

■

Somewhat

■

■

■

■

■

■

■

■

■ ■

■

■

Very Much So

■

■

■

■

■

■

■

■

■ ■

■

■

Source: Shane Murphy, PhD.

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Based on your evaluation of your mental performance for each com-petition, please answer the following questions to identify the mental skills you need to practice during training sessions.

• What do my answers on the questionnaire tell me about my mental prepara-

tion before today’s game and how I performed mentally in competition? • What did I do well in my mental performance that I need to continue doing? • Have any of my answers changed since my last game? • What one mental skill do I want to improve that is totally in my control and

not dependent on anything or anyone else? • How will I practice that mental skill during practices?

UNDERSTANDING YOUR MENTAL TENDENCIES IN COMPETITION

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CHAPTER 8 Importance Of Self-Care

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TAKING CARE OF YOURSELF

Because sports is performed in public, athletes attract a lot of people and groups to them. These groups can influence athletes and teams by plac-ing different expectations on them. The chart below illustrates the many groups that can influence any athlete’s performance.

Some athletes are more concerned about what other people and groups think about them than what they think about themselves. Athletes may also feel a lot of pressure from different groups that may not always be helpful.

In a world where athletes attract many people to them, each athlete must take care of herself and manage all of the groups that can have positive and negative influences on her.

CREATE YOUR OWN ATHLETIC GAMEPLAN

To care for yourself effectively, you must start by clearly understand-ing the athletic goals you have for yourself. The more you understand your aspirations and progress, the more you will know how to develop relation-ships with only those people who can help you advance in the direction you want, and avoid people who hinder your progress.

This section provides you with worksheets to evaluate your athletic performance and create your own gameplan for success. Please take the time to complete each worksheet in order to plan the performance you want to create, and better care for yourself as an athlete.

Teammates

Coaches

Game Officials

Trainers

Parents & Family

Friends

School Officials

League Officials

Media

Spectators

Fans Scouts

League School Sponsors

Equipment Suppliers

Opponents

Facilities Staff

Local Community

Regional Community

Alumni

Agents

Groups Can That Influence Athletes

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ASSESSING YOUR MENTAL PERFORMANCE

To help you quickly understand how well you are performing up to your full potential as an athlete, the following provides you with two brief surveys:

• The first survey asks you to assess how well you are performing up to your full potential mentally and physically in your sport (pages 60-61).

• The second survey has you determine whether a performance problem you are having is a physical or mental one (page 62).

You will use the results of these surveys to develop your own athletic game-plan (page 63)You can continually go back to these assess-ments throughout the season to help you continually reflect on your pro-gress.

ASSESS YOUR MENTAL STYLE AND SKILLS AS AN ATHLETE

If you have not taken A Talented Mind’s Athlete’s Mental Edge™ online assessment of your mental style as an athlete, you should do so. The assessment has helped Olympic, professional and amateur athletes improve their mental per-formance on the playing field and in practice. To read a sample 24-page report, visit our website at www.atalentedmind.com, or you can email [email protected] to take A.M.E online.

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HOW WELL DO YOU PERFORM UP TO YOUR POTENTIAL?

As an athlete, the only aspect of your performance you can control is how well you are fully using and developing your mental and physical talents. Please answer the two questions below about the extent you are performing up to your full potential mentally and physically. Then, answer the questions on the next page.

To what extent are you performing up to your full physical potential in your sport?

100 Meters

Great Extent

Some Extent

Very Little

Extent

No Extent

100 Meters

Great Extent

Some Extent

Very Little

Extent

No Extent

To what extent are you performing up to your full mental potential in your sport?

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WHAT IMPROVEMENTS ARE NEEDED TO PLAY UP TO POTENTIAL? IMPROVEMENTS NEEDED

If you are not performing up to your full potential in either category, you need to ask yourself: “What are the areas of my mental or physical performance that I need to improve to better perform up to my full potential?”

NEXT LEVEL NEEDED

If you indicated that you are currently working up to your full poten-tial, you can ask yourself “What are some additional goals I can set for myself that will stretch me as an athlete and provide the added motivation I need to take my performance to a higher level?”

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DO YOU HAVE A MENTAL OR PHYSICAL PERFORMANCE PROBLEM?

Many athletes (and coaches) assume that a performance problem they have on the playing field is due to a physical problem such as poor mechanics or positioning. Some problems, however, are the result of mental errors that, if not detected, can continue to limit your performance. The survey below was devel-oped by the sports psychologist Robert Nideffer, Ph.D. and can help you determine if a performance prob-lem is physical or mental so you can apply the right solutions.

• The performance error I make occurs in a variety of

situations during games or matches. • The performance error I make occurs primarily

when I am in high stress situations during games and matches.

• When I have a problem in games or matches, it

involves only one part of my performance. (Such as when hitting a tennis backhand.)

• When I have a problem in games or matches, sev-

eral things are going wrong with my performance at the same time.

• When my performance is going well, I am satisfied

with my skills. • When my performance is going well, I am not satis-

fied with my skills. • When I have problems with my performance, I feel

bad about how I am doing. • When I have problems with my performance, I still

feel good about how I am doing.

No Yes

No Yes

No Yes

No Yes

No Yes

No Yes

No Yes

No Yes

If your error occurs in a variety of situa-tions, you probably have a problem with mechanics because the problem happens in many situations such as always hitting poor tennis backhands because of a poor grip.

If your error occurs only in high stress situations, your problem is probably mental and has to do with how you are handling stress.

If the problem you are having involves only one part of your performance such as your golf putting, then the problem you are having is probably due to poor mechanics.

If the problem you are having impacts several areas of your performance such as your problem putting causes you to tense up and hit poor drive and chip shots, then the problem is mental because of your difficulty dealing with the stress you are feeling.

If you are performing well and not satisfied with your skills, then you probably need to improve some area of your mechan-ics.

Your mental performance may not be a concern unless you are putting too much pressure on yourself in order to live up to an unrealistic perfect image.

If you are having a problem and feel confident that you can take care of it and improve, then you may need to focus only on making the mechanical improvements to fix the problem.

If you feel unconfident, tense, nervous and question your ability to improve, then the problem is mental. You need to focus on improving one small area of your perform-ance that can be a “quick win” for yourself to build your confidence that you can improve.

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IMPORTANCE OF SETTING SKILL DEVELOPMENT GOALS

The most effective goals you can develop as an athlete are ones that focus on improving a specific skill in your sport. Skill-based goals need to be your primary focus because improving a skill or fundamental is one of the only aspects of your sport that you can totally control. Furthermore, your ability to develop skills that elevate your performance can have a ripple effect on larger goals that are more dependent on other people’s performance and situations such as winning a tournament or making a regional all-star team.

HOW GOALS AFFECT YOUR SELF-CONFIDENCE

By setting goals to improve specific skills throughout the season, you focus your mind and body on an aspiration that you can control. When peo-ple work hard at improving a skill and perform it successfully in practice and competition, they eventually develop the belief in themselves that, “If I want to improve a part of my sport or life, I can work hard enough and smart enough to make it happen.” This learned belief has a major impact on an athlete’s confidence to face challenges and find ways to succeed.

If you focus only on achieving a larger goal that you cannot totally control, such as winning, you can develop feelings of helplessness if you don’t consistently achieve that goal. You may begin to feel as if your efforts are fruitless and lose confidence in your ability to take on new challenges success-fully.

SKILL GOALS HAVE BIG EFFECTS

While it is normal for athletes to have big aspirations, they need to focus more on developing the skills that will help them achieve their larger goals. Skill-based goals are helpful to your progress as an athlete and your personal growth. Setting skill-based goals is a way for you to emphasize per-sonal responsibility and stay focused on improvement. All other goals are secondary for your growth as an athlete and person.

The following provides a seven-step process that can help you create effective goals to enhance your athletic skills.

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CREATING YOUR GOAL GAMEPLAN

Each of the seven steps below requires you to complete or review different worksheets in this publication to record your answers and plan your goals. STEP 1: What are my goals this season in three areas: for my team, personal per-formance outcomes, and skill improvements? Every athlete has three goal levels they need to set for a season or year: • Level one goals are team-based outcomes for what you, your teammates and

coach want to achieve during the season such as winning a conference championship.

• Level two are your personal performance outcome goals for the season such as to run 30 seconds under your personal best time or average 15 points a game.

• Level three goals are the improvements you want to make in specific skills that are totally in your control to change. Skill goals are improvements you need to make to elevate your performance to the next level and become more consistent in your play.

You should use the worksheet on page four to record all of your goals for each of the three levels. Record as many goals as possible in each category. You will eventually prioritize your goals in step three.

STEP 2: Do my three goal levels fit together? You should review the list of goals you created in step one to make sure they fit together. Start your review with level three goals and move up to levels two and one. During your review, ask yourself: Will improving these skills (level three) help me achieve the level two outcomes I want? Will achieving my level two outcome goals help my team achieve its goals listed in level one? If you answer no for any goal, you should change or delete it.

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LEVEL 1: YOUR TEAM LEVEL GOALS

LEVEL 2: YOUR PERFORMANCE OUTCOME GOALS

LEVEL 3: YOUR SKILL IMPROVEMENT GOALS

YOUR SEASON GOALS

Year:

Player’s Name:

Level & Sport:

Team Name:

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STEP 3: What are my top three skill improvement goals? Most athletes can effectively manage the improvement of only a few skills at any given time. While the skills you want to improve can change throughout the season, you still need to focus on only a few skills at a time. After re-viewing your level-three skill improvement goals on page four, select three skills that, if successfully improved, will have the greatest impact on your perform-ance this season. Record your top three skill goals in the left-hand column of the chart on page seven. STEP 4: What Micro-Skills within the kinesthetic chain do I need to improve for each skill? Each skill you want to improve involves a series of moves (micro-skills) that need to be performed effectively in order for you to execute the larger skill consistently. The people who study how athletes’ bodies need to move, called kinestheologists, refer to these series of moves as the “kinesthetic chain” for any skill. It is important to remember that problems with most performances are often the result of poor skill execution in the beginning stages of the kin-esthetic chain. For instance, suppose that you are a 100 meter sprinter and you are losing too much speed during deceleration over the last 20 meters of each race. After studying your races, you determine that you are not getting enough maximum velocity (your top speed) at 60 meters to create the momentum you need for the later part of the race. As you continue studying your form, you then realize that you are not achiev-ing maximum velocity half way through the race because you do not have a good start out of the blocks. Specifically, you are not driving out of the blocks good enough to create the acceleration you need to achieve top speed. In short, you realize that a problem in the first half of the race is impacting your performance at the end of the race.

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If you want to improve your 100 meter start, you need to evaluate the series of moves you must executive when you are: getting into the blocks, getting into the set position, driving out of the blocks and eventually into the acceleration stage of the race. Each part of this process requires specific body movements (micro-skills) that you need to execute. To improve your 100 meter start, or any other sport skill, you need to isolate the micro-skills within that chain of events that you want to improve and set goals for them. Micro-Skill Goal Example: As the sprinter in the example above, you even-tually determine that one micro-skill you need to improve is to better drive your arms into the running position with more speed and power as you take your first step from the blocks. Setting this goal enables you to practice the proper arm drive and enables someone to monitor your progress when you compete. For the three goals you listed on page seven, identify a micro-skill within the kinesthetic chain that you want to improve. Write that micro-skill in the cen-ter column of the chart. STEP 5: What one thing during competitions will someone observe and meas-ure me doing that indicates I am performing each micro-skill properly? Monitoring your progress is important for your development. In addition to identifying the smaller, micro-skill you want to improve, you need to deter-mine what people will see you doing during competitions to know if you are properly executing that skill in games. For each micro-skill listed on page seven, record in the right-hand column of the chart the one thing someone will observe and measure you doing during games when you are performing that skill effectively. You will use these de-scriptions as milestones to shoot for in your training and competitions. Re-gardless of winning or losing, your measure of success needs to be your pro-gress in meeting your micro-skill goals and milestones.

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TOP PRIORITY SKILL (LEVEL 3) GOALS

Top Three Skill Goals

What Micro-Skill Within the Kinesthetic Chain Do I Need

To Improve?

What One Thing During Games Can Someone Observe

& Measure Me Doing?

Important Reminder: During practices, you need to focus your attention on developing the skill goals you set for yourself. During games, however, you should focus your attention only on the game action and strategy, not on how you are performing any one skill. Let your mind go free during games and focus on the action.

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STEP 6: Who will I have observe me during games to evaluate how well I exe-cute my skill goals? Now that you have your skill improvement goals defined down to the small-est, micro-skills you want to improve, you need to ask someone to observe you during competitions to see if you are executing your skill goal properly. You can ask a friend, parent, coach, or teammate. Select someone who can focus specifically on how you are doing during games. By having someone else evaluate your performance during games, you are free to focus your at-tention only on the game action and strategies. To help your game evaluator record what he or she observes you doing, give that person the Game Evaluation form on page nine before each game. Before doing so, write in the left-hand column of the form what he or she needs to see you doing for each Micro-Skill Goal. These three descriptions should be the same ones you wrote on page eight. YOUR FINAL STEP: Remember to always ask for help, and don’t be too hard on yourself. You need to share your skill improvement goals with your coach and ask him or her for help. There are many people such as coaches, teammates and friends who are available to help you practice and evaluate your progress. Ask as many people as you need to assure that you get the help and support re-quired. Always keep in mind that you need to give yourself time to improve. Don’t expect too much too soon and don’t be overly critical of yourself. Your per-ception of how well you are doing needs to be based on how well you are working toward your goals. Focusing and enjoying the process of improving will help assure that you achieve what you want. Stay focused, work hard, and have fun.

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GAME EVALUATION

What you need to see me doing for each Micro-Skill

Measurable Target Describe how well I executed the skill as planned?

Date & Opponent:

Position Played or Event:

Total Playing Time:

Evaluator:

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References

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REFERENCES

Bloom, Floyd, Beal, Flint and Kupfer, David, 2003, The Brain-Body Loop, The DANA Guide To Brain Health, , New York, New York: The Free Press

Bryner, Andy and Markova, Dawna, 1996, An Unused Intelligence: Physical thinking for 21st century leadership, Berkeley, California: Conari Press

Clarkson, Michael, 1999, Competitive Fire, Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics

Dreyer, Danny and Dreyer, Katherine, 2004, ChiRunning: a revolutionary approach to effortless, injury-free running, New York, New York: Fireside

Duffy, Mary, 2002, What They Learned From the Locker Room, Health Magazine, December, 109-113

Goode, Erica, 2002, The Heavy Cost Of Chronic Stress, The Dana Foundation’s Brain In The News, Vol. 9, No. 32

Grove Consultants International, 1996, Gameplan graphics guide, San Francisco, CA

McEwen, Bruce S. and Lasley, Elizabeth Norton, 2003, The End Of Stress As We Know It, Washing-ton, DC: Joseph Henry Press

Nideffer, Robert M. 1992, Psyched To Win, Champaign, IL: Leisure Press

Nideffer, Robert M. and Pratt, Robin W., 1993, Taking Care Of Business, New Berlin, Wisconsin: ASI Publications

Nideffer, Robert M and Sagal, Marc-Simon, 2001, Assessment in Sport Psychology, Morgantown, West Virginia: Fitness Information Technology

Thompson, James C., 1995, Positive Coaching: Building character and self-esteem through sports, Por-tola Valley, CA: Warde Publishers, Inc.

Weiss, Maureen R., 1995, Children In Sport: An Educational Model, Sports Psychology Interventions, Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics

Wilson, Thomas A. and Falkel, Jeff, 2004, SportsVision, Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics

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A Talented Mind Your Talents Realized 2500 Castle Hill Road Midlothian, Virginia 23113 804-272-3927 [email protected] www.atalentedmind.com

ABOUT A TALENTED MIND

A Talented Mind helps people fully develop and perform their talents:

For athletes, we provide assessments, coaching and education to improve your mental skills in sports and learn lifelong lessons through athletics.

For students, we provide assessment, coaching and education services to help you identify the best college environment and major that appropriately fit your natural abilities, personal and learning styles.

For young adults, we provide assessment and coaching ser-vices that help you understand how to successfully move from the se-curity of family and school to the adult world, and create a life centered around your unique talents.

For parents, we provide coaching and education services to help you better support and nurture your children’s talents in school, sports, or the performing arts and, at the same time, teach your children important life skills.

To learn more, please contact A Talented Mind at 804-272-3927, email [email protected], or visit our website at www.atalentedmind.com.

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