Mental Performance Coaching
Mental Performance Coaching for Elite Athletes and Performers who Seek Consistency.
Inconsistent performances and missed opportunities.
You love progression. That’s what its all about. You have a deep drive to test yourself against the best. You gain confidence, meaning and connection from the process and it feeds your soul. But recently it just doesn’t seem like you are getting out what you put in. You have gone back to the drawing board numerous times trying to “focus more”. You may have even tried adding more or different coaching and this time trying harder isn’t helping. Your performances are inconsistent at best and just plain miserable at worst.
Trying harder doesn’t help.
Overwhelm gets the best of you again when it matters most. You feel anxious and unsure. And all you can think about is how you didn't stack up once again. It’s so frustrating that you can’t just perform like you practice and it's becoming less fun. It has happened enough times that you doubt yourself when all you really want is the quiet power of the moments that make you love your sport.
Even more, your life outside of sport is starting to suffer because much of your time is spent on “fixing” the problem. You thought maybe this season things were different but competitions have started and it’s still happening and you just can’t take it. The pain of not meeting your goals is now greater than the fear of asking for help.
Demystify the pressure and focus your mind.
Hi, I’m Erin and as a Mental Performance Coach I specialize in the skills and issues of elite athletes and performers. I teach skills that help you make progress and demystify pressure situations. I use biofeedback (paced breathing for self regulation) as a base skill for its value in sessions and performance moments. From there I work with you to build skills that address your specific situation.
I use a whole person approach to performance believing in the power of alignment in all parts of yourself both inside and outside of sport. And, I love to build off the strengths you already have because you have done a lot of hard things really well, to get this far. I work from the perspective that focus is the gate keeper to performance. If the mind cannot be present to what is most critical to performance, then all that time in training will not be used most fully.
Get back to what it’s all about.
By learning to choose your focus moment to moment, you can better execute skills no matter what is going on inside or around you. Think of all the things that take your focus away from performance: comparison, timers, negative self talk, worries, racing thoughts, a blank mind, pressure of big moments, your past experiences and not to mention external things like coaches, equipment, weather, and the list goes on.
If these things continue to rule your focus you will loose your self trust, your performances will continue to feel more inconsistent and confusing, and your love for your craft may be threatened. But by learning what to focus on and how to do it, and using skills you can train, you can get back in charge of making progress and performing like you practice.
If you are ready to stop the downward cycle of training and defeat, message me to get started so you can lean how to close the gap between training and performance and again experience the process that brings you so much satisfaction and joy.
Skills taught.
Showing up as your best self, consistently, is achieved through practicing skills that allow you to choose your focus no matter what is going on inside and/or around you. Confidence, self-talk and all your time training are extremely important. But if the mind cannot be present to what is most critical to performance, then all that time will not be used most fully. These skills are not rocket science. When practiced over time, they cultivate peak performances. We work together to learn, practice, and implement these skills so you can get back to the performance moments we are all chasing.
Awareness. It’s all about stepping back slightly and seeing how your thoughts feelings and actions interact. When you notice you are upset- ask what is my reaction? What was I thinking before I felt this way? Or, how do I feel now that I did that?
Getting in touch with the breath. Breathing is something we do automatically yet it is a hack to our physiological regulation. Or put another way- regulating our breathing in a certain way can help activate the relaxation response which is opposite the fight or flight response. Often stress and worry can put us into that fight or flight state more often than we think leaving up stressed, fuzzy mentally and disconnected among other things.
Biofeedback. Biofeedback takes breathing practice to a whole new level. It actually uses a sensor (ear clip, chest hr monitor like for workouts etc.) to see the effect of your breath on your physiology so you can learn in real time to “relax”.
Meditation. I utilize mindfulness meditation to practice loosening the hold of intense thoughts and feelings as well as learning to listen to yourself and what is important to you. I also believe in not only sitting meditation but moving meditation and seeing it as a way of thinking and not only a sitting activity.
Detachment. Has it worked consistently to replace your unhelpful thoughts with helpful one?Probably not. Detachment in about learning to see thoughts as ‘just thoughts’. Thoughts are good and natural but we do not have to believe or get caught up in them. You can choose to let them come and go which frees you focus on the task at hand.
Acceptance. Acceptance is similar to detachment but is more associated with a feeling or emotion. “I feel embarrassed.” Using acceptance to make room for the feeling you might say “I feel embarrassed that I missed that shot. That sucks. And I can still focus and do my best.”
What mental performance coaching might look like.
This is an outline of how the beginning of mental performance coaching may go. Remember that everyone comes with a specific concern goal or perspective and this requires an individualized approach but a general outline can be helpful as you reflect on your own mental performance.
1) Where is my mind most commonly at during sport? Think broadly about ALL the things that come into your mind (maybe you want to list them). Then think specifically during performance moments what goes through my mind? (Again all the things.) How much attention do you give to each of those things? Do you think you do your best when your mind is either “blank” or on 6 , 3, or even 2 things? Most people feel they do their best when they have a simple focus or might even feel just present to the moment on auto pilot, or “flow”.
2) Once more aware of thought patterns you can identify changes you want to make. Maybe you notice you spend much attention on what your coach or parent is thinking and you see that your attention would be better used to focus on your placement on the field etc. Great now how do you do it?
Identify areas where you get stuck on common stressful thoughts- “I’m not good at this position”. Or “what if I get pulled out?” Or “what if I mess up”.
Understand how these fixations and attachments influence your ability to choose your focus in performance moments.
3) Practice refocusing your mind - in life outside of sport.
4) Learn how your body physiology impacts this process. Did you know that your stress or physiological activation can really influence this process? When we activate our fight or flight response our mind may race or feel blank, our heart may race, we may become sweaty, we may feel nauseous. This is our body’s reaction and it is normal. With practice it is possible to learn to help your body stay calm or at the best activation level for that performance.