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Sports Psychology and Peak Performance

"Developing the Mind of a Champion"


Dr. Goldberg was the sports psychology and mental toughness consultant for the UConn Huskies and has worked with a number of college and high school football teams and hundreds of individual athletes on both sides of the ball. He specializes in helping athletes bust out of performance slumps and overcome blocks and perform to their potential. As the sports psychology consultant for the University of Connecticut, Dr. G worked regularly with the Huskies football program doing both team workshops and one-on-one sessions. He is the author of Sports Slump Busting, (Llumina Press) and 14 Steps To Mental Toughness, a 7 CD audio mental toughness training program for athletes across all sports.

 

You’d never think of competing without first preparing physically…so why leave your mental toughness preparation to chance!

A few years back I worked with a Division III college football program that had lost 15 games in a row. Their losing streak threatened to go into a third season unless they could quickly figure out a way to turn their bad play around. What really frustrated the coaching staff was that this year’s squad had the talent to win, but consistently found a way to steal defeat from the jaws of victory. The problem: The players expected to lose. They had stopped believing in themselves and each other. Even when they were ahead late in a game, just one bad break would get them thinking, “here we go again…we always blow it. I knew this was going to happen.” This line of thinking would erode their confidence, kill their intensity and tighten them up so they’d lose once again. They were finally able to snap that losing streak by putting into play some of the sports psychology and mental toughness techniques I made available to them.

A very talented receiver with unbelievable hands found himself and his teammates in a position to pull off a big win over a tough conference rival. With a four point lead, possession of the football and just three minutes left in the game, all their team had to do was get one more first down and then run out the clock for the win. On fourth down and six, this receiver ran a short slant pattern across the middle and found himself wide open. In the long split second before the quarterback delivered a perfect strike to him, he began to think, “All I have to do is catch this ball and we win…what if I drop it…then I’ll really be the goat?” Since you can’t think and play good football (Thinking tightens your muscles, undercuts your confidence and distracts you from focusing on the things that will help you make the play), the receiver watched in horror as an easily catchable ball went right through his hands, bounced off his chest and fell hopelessly to the ground! The other team took possession, drove the ball 53 yards and scored the winning touchdown just as time expired.

Late in the NFC championship football game against the Atlanta Falcon’s, Minnesota field goal kicker Gary Anderson came out onto the field with a chance to seal a victory and send the dominant Vikings into a Super Bowl showdown with the Denver Broncos. Anderson was “Mr. Consistency” under pressure and had successfully nailed his 37 previous kicks. Whether it was the pressure, the defensive rush or the atmospheric conditions, unbelievably Anderson missed the kick leaving the door wide open for the Falcons who quickly took advantage of the miss to score a huge upset. What happened to such a good kicker? . There’s no question that your focus of concentration before and during a play will determine how that play turns out. My best guess is that Anderson lost his focus and started concentrating on the wrong things like, how big the kick was, what if he missed, what if it got blocked, etc. How else can you explain such a great kicker missing a very makeable kick? Let’s face it. Your mind is that powerful. Do you have yours working for you?

While you need speed, strength and endurance to play good football, these little vignettes clearly illustrate that you also have to have your head on straight as well. That is, you have to be mentally tough. This means that you have to have the abilities to: Concentrate on what’s important, one down at a time and block out everything else (the crowd, your opponents, the coaches, media, weather, etc.); Quickly bounce back from bad calls, mistakes and bad breaks; Think like a winner and maintain a positive attitude; Manage stress by staying calm and loose under pressure; maintain self-confidence; Avoid getting psyched-out or intimidated; and Keep your motivation & intensity up.

How many football games can you remember playing in where yours or your opponent’s head got in the way sabotaging the performance? Slumps, losing streaks, choking or consistently losing winnable games are all clear examples of the incredible disruptive power of the mind in trashing athletic performance. So where do you fit in here? What kind of head do you have on your shoulders? Are you mentally tough or a mental midget? Did you know that the techniques and strategies in sports psychology can help you develop the mind of a champion and lift the level of your game?

For example, several of the players on the University of Connecticut football team had trouble letting go of their mistakes. They so badly wanted to make a contribution to the team that when they messed up, they’d get really down on themselves. They would then hang onto this mistake for the rest of the quarter or sometimes even longer. (If you want to play great football, then you have to learn to keep your mind and focus of concentration in the “now” of the performance. Mistakes are in the “past.” You have to learn to recognize when your mentally in the “past” and quickly bring your focus back to the “now.”) If you demand perfection of yourself and can’t forgive your mistakes you’ll start making plenty more of them and your game will quickly spiral down to the “outhouse.” Dwelling on mistakes will only kill your confidence and get you trying too hard on the next play. Trust me! You can’t play good football by trying too hard. To be at your best you have to be loose, relaxed and let the game come to you. These UConn players were able to quickly learn and master several sports psychology techniques to help them quickly let go of their mistakes. These included developing a “mistake ritual”, “letting- go” cues and several refocusing techniques.

Want to know the biggest cause of choking in football? Would you like to have the competitive edge over your competition? Then learn to avoid the biggest mental trap that football players and teams regularly fall into; Focusing on uncontrollables, the “UC’s”. There are many things that are directly out of your control when you play football. UC’s are the field and playing conditions; the temperature; your opponent’s size, strength and skill level; the crowd; your teammates and how well they play; the coaches and how much playing time you get; your mistakes and anything in the past; the game’s outcome and anything in the future; sickness or injury, etc.

When you focus on an uncontrollable you’ll get uptight, lose your confidence and play way below your potential. If you want to play mentally tough football, then you need to learn to recognize the UC’s and quickly shift your focus away from them to those elements that you can control.

Remember sports psychology isn’t just for rocket scientists. If you truly want to lift the level of your football you need to get smart! Start to work on your mind. Use sports psychology tools to help you get there. Don’t leave such an important part of performance to chance.