How to develop Mental Toughness
Q. What is the biggest obstacle to developing mental toughness?
“Performance anxiety.”
Believe it or not, 99% of all athletes experience anxiety in sports, even world-class athletes.
Q. Why do athletes get performance anxiety?
The answer is different for each athlete, but it usually boils down to this…
Thinking about something bad or negative that could happen in the future causes anxiety
and our bodies to respond as if we were in real physical danger!
To get the athletes out of that fear, I ask questions like, "If you don't win this upcoming
match, will you lose all your friends?
Your home?
Will you be begging on the streets for food?
This gets them laughing and weighing the importance they placed on the match and how much they
have worked themselves up with nothing more than a thought that isn’t even reality.
Then I follow it up with, “ok, then what are you really afraid of that might happen
if you lose or choke?”
Most worry they will "fail" and look stupid.
So I ask, "What is failure?"
As I keep asking these types of questions, they begin to realize what they are really
afraid of is feeling difficult emotions like embarrassment, disappointment, inadequacy,
etc.
So the truth is athletes get performance anxiety because they are afraid of feeling their difficult
emotions.
Q. How do you help athletes get over performance anxiety then?
What athletes need to do is embrace their difficult emotions by understanding that all
emotions are good and useful.
Yes, you heard me right, all emotions are useful…they are nothing more than a signal
from our body trying to get us to act on something important.
Most coaches and even sports psychologist tell athletes to push away those difficult
feelings “by just getting out there and doing it” or “tell yourself you are a
winner.”
But that is like putting a band-aid on a broken arm.
My mental toughness training is unique, because we teach a simple process athletes can quickly
go through, whenever they are feeling a difficult emotion like fear, anxiety, or frustration.
Youth sports athletes really build confidence, when they feel ready to handle any difficult
situation or emotion that comes up.
That releases the FEAR of disappointment, embarrassment or other emotions that come
from losing and then the anxiety disappears.
This is truly unique and different than the way any other mental training is taught and
will make a HUGE difference to your athletes in their game and how they handle life!
Q. Why can’t, so many athletes, bring their best practice game over to competition?
This is, of course, also about anxiety in their sport.
So in addition to teaching them my process to deal with their emotions, we also teach
athletes the best way to use making a decision and commitment to build consistency and take
charge of their thinking.
You see, athletes have been told what to do all of their lives by parents and coaches.
Teens are just beginning the process of transitioning to thinking for themselves.
Most athletes are not aware that the way they think and the thoughts they think about are
a CHOICE.
This may sound simple, but it’s very important.
Athletes need to realize they have the power to decide what they think and believe.
They develop their mental muscle by conditioning it with repetition and practice – just like
in their physical training.
Once they do that, they can FOCUS on the things that improve their performance.
Q. What should they focus on then?
What they love about their sport and the bigger reasons why they play it.
And that’s different for every athlete.
This is what will get them through the tough practices, repetitive drills and the ups and
downs of winning and losing.
Athletes should take some time to write out every little detail about why they play their
sport and then put their attention on that just before and during competition.
We have them put together lists of their strengths and assets so they can go back to it again
and again to build their own confidence and not rely on others to do it for them.
This creates a habit of positive thinking and an attitude of “I can do this” and
leaves no room in the mind for destructive thoughts.
Q. What is a mental block and how do athletes over come them?
Mental blocks stop an athlete from being able to perform a skill or maneuver they know how
to do, but for some reason, just can’t perform.
Something in their mind holds them back.
This is where coaches and parents get very frustrated, because most of the time they
don’t know how to help their athlete break through it.
I believe all mental blocks are dissolvable and have successfully done it with 100’s
of kids.
The solution is to communicate with the body’s intelligence, the inner mind, where the block
was created.
Guided visualizations work extremely well for this purpose.
Using their imagination, stories, certain language patterns and metaphors reach past
surface thinking and connect to what we call the athlete’s “power mind” (also known
as the unconscious mind).
The blocks are usually created to “protect” the athlete from something.
We teach them how to reprogrammed their “power mind” to do it’s job of protection in
healthy ways that support the athlete.
When you get rid of the interferences, then focus, confidence, determination, and resiliency
come more naturally and your athlete will have unbeatable mental toughness.
I’m Craig Sigl, the mental toughness trainer for youth sports athletes.