Hello, everybody! My name is Jacob Daheim and I am a psychology practicum student at TBPS, offering services in sport and performance psychology. I’m launching a Sport Psychology series aiming to provide strategies to help sharpen your mental skills to thrive and perform at your peak.
Just as training your body physically for the rigors of competition is pivotal towards success, training your mind provides the necessary preparation for the mental challenges of competition. Mental training compliments physical training and can be just as rewarding. It can enable you to not only achieve your performance potential but increase the consistency of your performances.
Dr. Jim Bauman, a sport psychologist who has helped train Navy SEALS and Olympians, describes athletic performance similar to the performance of a computer:
“I have often compared elite athletic performance to our modern-day computer systems — it’s similar in terms of hardware, software and disk operating system (DOS). Hardware is your body below the chin, software is your body above the chin, or your brain, and your DOS is the operating system that makes your body and brain work together.
All three components are necessary for the system to work at maximum potential. All three need to be at increasing higher levels to keep up with the industry, whether that’s the field of computers or human performance. Athletes who work on and improve their hardware, software and operating systems will far outperform athletes who focus on just one system.”
Some athletes only seek help when they have a problem. For example, they may become anxious and perform poorly during key moments of a game. But there is so much more to mental training. It can definitely help with problems but utilizing mental training can also improve strengths and prepare athletes for the unexpected. I plan to share specific strategies through this series to help you become mentally strong. These strategies could help you enhance performance, cope with the pressures of competition, recover from injury, maintain exercise programs, reach your goals, enjoy your sport, and transition after sports.
If you’re not an athlete, have no fear. This series is still for you! Sport psychology can be applied not only to improving athletic performance but applied off the field as well. For example, athletic performance requires confidence, concentration, coping with stress and pressure, and sticking to a regiment or plan. We need all of these things to succeed in our daily lives. The strategies I will be going over can help develop skills that they can be used not only with sports but also with academics, work, family life, and your personal life.
I plan to post a weekly sport strategy on the Tackett Tips blog. Some of topics will include:
goal setting
motivation
mindfulness
imagery
communication
energy management
time management
identity
self-confidence
mental health.
I might even include a little quote and cheesy joke of the day. So stay tuned.
Quote of the Day: "Wisdom is always an overmatch for strength." - Phil Jackson
Joke of the Day: Did you hear the rumor about butter? … Well, I'm not going to spread it!
Just like physical training, it takes time and effort to train the mind. Let’s get to work! - Jacob