Sportsmen and women at all levels are pressured to be physically superior. This can cause many to overlook their mental health requirements. Mental health in athletes is extremely important for their overall health. The biggest challenge is recognising when an athlete might be struggling with a mental health problem and assisting him or her to seek assistance from a medical professional, in other words a sports psychologist.
Sportsmen And Women Experience A Lot Of Pressures
Sportsmen and women experience a unique set of pressures in their jobs from scoring goals and winning trophies to having to confront media scrutiny as well as meeting the high expectations of adoring fans.
While these issues make for an out-of-the-ordinary workplace, in reality they are all linked to employment. The managers, coaches, clubs, governing bodies as well as player’s unions all have a role in supporting sporting professionals to manage their mental well-being at work.
What Is The Importance Of Sports Psychologists?
The significance of sport psychology has been realised for decades however many coaches and athletes pay far too little attention to how it can assist them with performing better. Physical aspects of sport are critical however they become even more significant when added to an effective mental training programme, including looking into relationships within the team, aspects of leadership, behavioural patterns as well as individual personalities.
Sport psychologists can assist sportsmen and women with, among others:
- Coping with competitive fears,
- Improving mental skills, preparing for competitions,
- Returning after injury, developing pre-game routines or routines before a shot,
- Improving practice efficiency,
- Coping with adversity,
- Performing well under pressure,
- Managing expectations,
- Maintaining confidence,
- Handling emotions after setbacks and mistakes, and
- Improving consistency in performance.
It all begins, however, with building a strong team culture that includes goals, values, attitudes as well as beliefs.
What Are The Three Pillars Of A Sports Team Culture?
A sports team culture consists of three essential pillars which support all team functioning as well as performance: values, attitudes in addition to goals.
Values
Values are defined as ideologies or standards of behaviour and your judgment of what is important in life. Values are so crucial as they guide the decisions and choices you and your sportsmen and women make as a team and as individuals. No matter what you value most is where you will dedicate your time, effort as well as energy.
Here is a list of values that we believe are essential for individual as well as team success:
- Ownership: no excuses,
- Hard work/best effort,
- Purposeful/focused,
- Quality,
- Teamwork,
- Trust/openness,
- Humility, and
- Respect of self and competition.
Attitudes
Attitudes are defined as the way in which you think and feel about something. Attitudes are extremely important because they guide how athletes think, feel, and act towards their chosen sport.
Here is a list of attitudes that we think are helpful in sports:
- Process, not outcome,
- Challenge, not threat,
- Seek out discomfort,
- Experiment,
- Mistakes/failure are good, and
- Never give up!
Goals
A goal is the object of a person’s ambition or effort and an aim or desired result. As you know so well, goals are extremely important for athletes to motivate them and to direct their efforts.
Here are some team goals that we believe are useful for a team:
- Support and communication,
- Process focus,
- Consistently fast,
- Respond positively to adversity,
- Total preparation,
- Bring it!
- No regrets: take your shot!
- Have fun!
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