Sports psychology is often quoted as being making the difference between someone who is good and someone who is a champion, giving you that little extra edge to put you ahead of your opponent. All good sporting performances come from being well prepared, mentally as well as physically. To be the best requires you to use the skills that you have as effectively as possible.
Sport psychology is about helping players tap their potential and achieve the performances they dream about. Setting goals is an important starting point. All good players set goals and develop targets and plans to achieve their goals. Effective goal setting comes from making your goals positive, specific, actionable and flexible. The goals also need to focus on what is important, and involve short and long term goals.
Let’s face it; we all know we need to exercise. Many of us know how to exercise. How many books and videos do you own? How many gym memberships have you had in your life? You may even be an expert on the perfect exercises for your body. But you’re not doing it! Why? Well the problem isn’t lack of knowledge, its lack of motivation. Does this sound familiar?
Sports Psychology is about improving your attitude and mental game skills to help you perform your best by identifying limiting beliefs and embracing a healthier philosophy about your sport. Below is a list of the top ten ways that you can benefit from sports psychology:
- Improve focus and deal with distractions.
- Grow confidence in Players who have doubts.
- Develop coping skills to deal with setbacks and errors.
- Find the right zone of intensity for your sport.
- Help teams develop communication skills and cohesion.
- To instill a healthy belief system and identify irrational thoughts.
- Improve or balance motivation for optimal performance.
- Develop confidence post-injury.
- To develop game-specific strategies and game plans.
- To identify and enter the “zone” more often.
What can you do? To gain motivation and improve consistency, focus less on gaining more knowledge, and more on getting and staying motivated. Here are seven secrets to getting and staying motivated for the players:
Secret One: Find out the REASON
In order to be successful at any endeavor, we must have a good reason for doing it in the first place. Exercise is no exception. What will get a person up in the morning on those cold, dark days when he/she just wants to stay in bed? Many people say “because I want to lose weight” or “I want to be fit”. While these are good goals, they are not good enough reasons for long term success. You must dig deeper. What is important to you? What do you value in life? Answer these questions, and then see how a regular exercise program can support values
Secret Two: Be Committed
A commitment is the ability to carry out a worthy decision, even when the excitement of making that decision has passed. As soon as the excitement passes, so do your exercise plans. Be sure players are ready to commit, and if they are not, then commit to not exercising.
Secret Three: Set Daily, Measurable and Realistic Goals
Set daily measurable, achievable goals that allow one to feel successful every day. Keeping a weekly diary and setting goals each day for what kind of exercise he/ she will do, how long he/she will workout, how hard he/she will exercise, etc.
Secret Four: Keep Track of Your Progress
After setting goals and writing them down, you want to also chart your progress. Be sure to write down daily achievements to compare to the goals. This will become extremely motivating as one can see oneself meeting goals. With consistent exercise, players will find workouts becoming easier and ability to work harder and longer. This often happens faster than visible results on body, such as weight loss or definition.
Secret Five: Get Objective Feedback
About 95% of all participants in an exercise program will stop exercising. Why? No support. Research has shown that exercisers with some kind of support system have a better chance of continuing exercise. Most people need far more support, follow up and accountability than they think to start and maintain an exercise program.
Coach’s use sports fitness tests to measure a player’s performance and identify potential weaknesses, as well as areas of strength or superiority. Without these tests, coaches and players will have a diminished capacity to identify these areas and form appropriate follow-up training programs.
As the competition is growing the players need to be in the race and the companies need to look after them. For this many companies like LivingStrong, Warners Health Ex, Sports Fitness Advisor, and TopendSports conduct various psychometric tests for the players to test their fitness. These companies also provide with motivational treatments and counseling.
PsychoLOGICAL Assessment
Psychological assessment tests play an important role in sport psychology testing -The Wonderlic Personnel Test is an intelligence test (like an IQ test) comprising a 12 minute, 50 question exam, which is meant to judge aptitude for adapting to certain situations. It is similar to other standardized tests, in that it uses a multiple choice format for its questions with increasing difficulty. It’s designed so that most of the participants will not have time to complete it.<
The Wonderlic intelligence test has been given to prospective players at the National Football League Combine since the 1970s.
One more Test is Likert Scale Test- the Likert Scale is a psychometric scale commonly used in surveys and questionnaires. The scale is named after its inventor, psychologist Rensis Likert.
When responding to a Likert questionnaire item, respondents specify their level of agreement to a statement. A Likert item is usually a statement to which the respondent is asked to evaluate by giving their level of agreement or disagreement.
Examples of 5-point Likert Scales
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
| Not All Important | Slightly Important | Moderately Important | Very Important | Extremely Important |
Ultimately, Fitness is not just about reaching a destination, it is a journey where a player will learn much about him and grow from experiences. Keeping short term goals in mind enjoy the journey to reaching ultimate goals.
