It’s no secret that sports success is linked closely to an athlete’s mental toughness. If your young athletes struggle to perform well in competition, are frustrated with their performance, talk about quitting or display low confidence levels, mental game training can help. Both you and your young athlete can learn how to build mental toughness and improve performance with mental training for kids and teenagers.
Mental training is the practice of using sport psychology tools and techniques to strengthen an athlete's mental game.
It's very similar to the approach taken to building physical skills. When a kid takes up a sport, a good coach will evaluate where they are, looking for the strengths they already have and any weaknesses that may be present.
In a similar way, when a young athlete begins with mental training, the mental coach evaluates their current strengths and weaknesses and then moves forward from there.
The skills taught in young athlete mental training can be seen as the fundamentals of a strong mental game. They need to learn the basics of confidence, calming their nerves, managing mistakes, and so on.
So, let's break down the top six fundamentals taught within young athlete mental training to give you a better idea of what it takes to build a strong mental game.
Mistakes are going to happen. No matter how old the athlete is, or how talented they are, one inevitable fact of playing sports is that mistakes will occur.
That's why a key fundamental of a strong mental game is learning how to positively and productively manage mistakes. This helps the young athlete not only bounce back quickly from mistakes during games, but also learn from mistakes. And learning from mistakes is one of the best ways they can improve moving forward.
Not only is it crucial for a young athlete to learn the fundamentals of building confidence, but they also need to learn the fundamentals of where their confidence comes from. By learning where their confidence comes from and how to build true confidence in themselves, a young athlete is learning a key fundamental of a strong mental game.
A third fundamental of a strong mental game is focus. Knowing how to improve their focus, but also being able to recognize what distracts them and when they become distracted.
With mental training, the young athlete learns how to become aware in these moments that they are distracted, and then develop the mental strength to let go of the distraction and refocus themselves.
It's natural to feel nervous before a game. What we want to make sure of is that these nerves do not turn into full blown anxiety.
Mental training teaches young athletes tools and techniques to calm their nerves going into a game. It also helps them learn how to manage anxiety, if they do become too worried about what may or may not happen during the game, or even practice.
Proper goal setting skills are important for all athletes to learn. Having clear visibility on the long-term goal and breaking the objective into small actionable steps are crucial to sustain the motivation needed to achieve the expected results.
While having fun may not seem like something that needs to be trained, it's a crucial fundamental for young athletes to learn.
All five fundamentals listed above work to help the athlete have more fun. Because if they're more confident, focused, managing mistakes better, calming their nerves, and setting good goals, they're going to enjoy themselves more.
In addition to that, when an athlete enjoys themselves while playing, they typically play better as a result.
To cater for that, the young athlete will learn how to focus on what they enjoy about their sport, along with learning how to recognize and manage external factors that can keep them from having fun.
One-on-one sports psychology coaching is the fastest and most effective method to improve your athletes’ mental game, boost their performance and make lasting changes.
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