Yes, now is the time to start your Sports Mental Training! You need the training time before the first event, before the first competition, before you should be able to implement the mental skills from autopilot mode.
For over 6 years I have been working with Professional Athletes, helping them to improve their Mental Game; the aspect of the game that is invisible and typically goes unnoticed and unaddressed. The consequences of this lack of attention are astronomical and detrimental to consistent and peak performance.
Do you realize that it doesn’t matter how much you practice your mechanics, if you are not working on improving your mental skills, your game will suffer. Mental skills (or the lack of them) trump mechanics every time. If you go into an event or a moment of performance with doubts, fears, worries, or expectations, the level of pressure and anxiety will shift your focus and your physical abilities.
And, sadly, many athletes wait until the season begins before starting their mental training. They attempt to schedule their appointments with me the week before an event, as they are “traveling through town”.
Can you guess the problem with this? What if you changed some aspect of your mechanics the days before an event? Yes, every athlete knows that making a significant change before a competition can be disastrous. It takes way too much effort to try to remember how to implement the change and how to apply the change, all taking away from focus and causing the athlete to perform under pressure instead of by intuition or the subconscious.
Repetition and Practice
All skills, mechanic and mental, need repetition and practice so as to at one point, go into autopilot mode. Without time to learn, understand and practice your mental skills, they will be superficial and attempts to implement them will take your focus off your game.
The Sports Mental Training I offer takes an athlete from point zero, where he/she has very little to no understanding of their mind and the ability to manage their thought patterns, to a full understanding of their conscious and subconscious, and complete comfort in recognizing and addressing the mental stumbling blocks of their game. Through a sequential series of sessions, my client athletes successfully improve their ability to experience the zone state more frequently and for longer periods of time.
Since most of my client athletes live abroad, we do many of their sessions via Skype or phone and they travel into town to experience in-person sessions as their schedule permits.
So, there are no more excuses. If you truly want to take your sports performance to the next level, it is imperative that you start to address your mental skills in a comprehensive manner. Now, before the competitions begin, before the season kicks off, is the time to get to work on your Sports Mental Training.