Athletes should not focus on making mistakes |02 December 2022

Are you an athlete playing too safe in competition?

Many young athletes I work with play avoidance of mistakes. This happens when athletes are afraid to make mistake.

Don’t feel demoralised after a bad game. It’s one thing to have a bad performance, but a disastrous game can be mentally deflating.

Even worse are consecutive horrible games when you have back-to-back disastrous performances, those are times you want to call it quit.

When you have personal responsibility for your performance you will feel empowered that you can turn things around.

•         Letting go of the past frees your mind to focus on the present.
•         When you realise mistakes are going to happen you wouldn’t feel devastated when they do occur.
•         You can use evidence from the past to support your ability.
•         You can bounce back when you put circumstance in perspective, and don’t panic.
•         We move from those games by assessing the corrections we need to make.
•          Taking action puts you in the driving seat and helps you maintain confidence.
•         Stable belief in your skills keeps doubts from taking root.

USA athlete Joe Burrow has laid out a mindset for dealing with disastrous results. Adopting this mindset is the best method to move forward after a bad performance.

You need to work to move forward after bad games while you may be tempted to do more physical work, mental work is also beneficial, such as managing how you respond.

I look forward to helping you improve your mental toughness.

Your mental coach Maurice Denys